In an unexpected turn of events, Facebook and Twitter locked the current U.S. President, Donald Trump’s accounts after multiple breaches of policy codes. Both social media giants removed several tweets and posts, and warned that the accounts would be blocked for a period of 24 hours. Twitter went on to lock Trump’s account and said, that unless the hate-spreading and violence-inciting tweets are removed, the account would remain locked. Further, if there are any more violations from the social media accounts of Donald Trump, they would be permanently suspended. This action taken by Facebook and Twitter is being seen as the most aggressive recourse until now.
As the Capitol reeled under the pressures of handling a rioting public which demanded the renewal of Trump’s presidency, the Congress struggled to ensure a fair counting of votes of the presidential election. In this regard, Facebook has said that it will remove the posts from Trump’s accounts that glorify and praise the protestors for causing mayhem. It has banned the hashtag, #StormtheCapitol.
In the past, both Facebook and Twitter have faced criticism for not taking action against hate-speech coming from the President’s account. Whether the two flag bearers of social media stick to this current, corrective line of action going ahead, remains to be seen.