Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have all now removed a video by President Donald Trump addressing the ongoing situation in Washington, D.C. Throughout 2020, many social media services have actively looked to limit the spread and/or interaction with posts for a variety of reasons, including misinformation. In the past, this has included posts by the President that were flagged as potentially misleading, or to provide further information on a topic, such as election fraud.
Today, and in response to the events in the U.S. Capital, Trump issued a video asking supporters to “go home.” However, the post also included more than one reference to voter fraud. Since then, many users of the various social media services have called for the post, and others by the President, to be removed. On Twitter, some users have even called for the service to take further action by banning President Trump’s account.
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have all now taken the step of completely removing the video from their respective platforms. In explaining the situation, Facebook’s VP of Integrity, Guy Rosen said “this is an emergency situation” adding that the video was removed due to, “on balance”, its potential to contribute to the risk of violence. In the case of YouTube, a spokesperson has confirmed to multiple outlets, including Business Insider, that the video was removed for violating “policies regarding content that alleges widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome of the 2020 U.S. Election.”
Twitter was initially quick to react by not only adding a label to the post, but also removing the option to like, comment or retweet on the post. However, the ability to ‘quote tweet’ the post did remain available and this inevitable led to the video being shared by many. This was not the only Tweet by the President to get the same label and interaction limit today, with the official Twitter Safety account posting a thread explaining that "threats of and calls to violence are against the Twitter Rules” and it is “enforcing our policies accordingly.” A follow up Tweet also added that the service was “exploring other escalated enforcement actions.”
While Twitter had initially opted to stick with only a label and limiting the ability for the post to be shared, shortly after Facebook and YouTube removed the video, so did Twitter. Furthermore, Twitter has since issued another thread explaining that it requires three of the President's Tweets from today to be removed. Twitter has since locked the account and it will remain locked for twelve hours following the removal of the Tweets. Essentially, if the Tweets are not deleted, President Trump's Twitter account could remain permanently locked.
Source: Guy Rosen/Twitter, Business Insider
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