Twitter Continues To Resist Banning Trump Over Terms Of Service Violations
Women’s March, a women’s rights advocacy group, is urging Twitter to suspend President Donald Trump’s Twitter account in response to Trump’s recent sharing of a video depicting Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar interspersed with footage of the September 11 terrorist attacks, Newsweek reports. Trump shared the video on Friday and again on Saturday, captioning the video “WE WILL NEVER FORGET!”
In addition to posting and retweeting the video, Trump pinned it to the top of his feed for a period of time as well. The tweet now remains, but it is no longer pinned.
“@realDonaldTrump is sharing propaganda videos trafficking in hate speech and inciting real violence against @IlhanMN. We’re calling on @jack to suspend him from @Twitter. Seriously. Add your name here,” the Women’s March tweeted from the organization’s verified account. The tweet includes a link to a petition calling for Trump to be suspended from both Facebook and Twitter.
In the day following the creation of the petition, it amassed more than 9,000 supporters signing.
Trump’s Democratic opponents, notably Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and standout freshman congresswoman Representative Alexandria Ocascio-Cortez,vocally condemned the video, characterizing it as an explicit attack by a sitting president on a member of Congress.
“Following the President’s tweet, I spoke with the Sergeant-at-Arms to ensure that Capitol Police are conducting a security assessment to safeguard Congresswoman Omar, her family and her staff. They will continue to monitor and address the threats she faces,” Pelosi said in response to a growing number of threats directed towards Omar, even preceding Trump’s tweets.
Tell Twitter to suspend Trump’s account for inciting hate and violence against Rep. @IlhanMN & the Muslim American community.
Tell @jack: Remove the video & suspend @realdonaldtrump from @Twitter NOW
R/T & take further action here: https://t.co/RY9GC2JpJp
— CODEPINK (@codepink) April 14, 2019
This is not the first time that public pressure has been applied to social media companies in an effort to curtail the president’s behavior online. Twitter in January of last year, without mentioning Trump by name, made an effort to explain their position on enforcing their terms of service when it comes to the unique and unprecedented challenge of dealing with world leaders. The company made it clear that there was a different set of standards applied to world leaders as compared to more ordinary users.
“Blocking a world leader from Twitter or removing their controversial Tweets would hide important information people should be able to see and debate,” they said at the time.
“It would also not silence that leader, but it would certainly hamper necessary discussion around their words and actions.”
The White House has not responded to requests for comment on the matter of the Omar video as the number of signers on the circulating petition continues to grow.
