WASHINGTON • Twitter, Facebook and Snap locked the accounts of President Donald Trump, as technology giants scrambled to crack down on his baseless claims about the US presidential election amid riots in the capital.
Twitter hid and mandated the removal of three of Mr Trump's tweets "as a result of the unprecedented and ongoing violent situation in Washington, DC", after pro-Trump protesters stormed the US Capitol in an attempt to force Congress to block the appointment of President-elect Joe Biden.
In a tweet on Wednesday, later taken down by Twitter, Mr Trump said the storming of the building was a natural response. He also blamed Vice-President Mike Pence for lacking courage to pursue the claims of election fraud.
Twitter locked Mr Trump's account until 12 hours after he deleted those tweets and a video, in which he alleged the presidential election was fraudulent, and urged protesters to go home.
Facebook and YouTube, owned by Alphabet's Google, likewise removed the video. Snap later joined them in blocking Mr Trump's ability to post on Snapchat.
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said yesterday that it would extend the block placed on Mr Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts, as the risks of allowing him to continue using those services "are simply too great".
"We are extending the block... indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete," he said in a Facebook post.
Twitter had also limited the reach of tweets stoking the riot. "This means these labelled tweets will not be able to be replied to, retweeted or liked," a Twitter support team said.
In the past, Twitter had limited the spread of Mr Trump's incendiary posts without removing them entirely, but Wednesday was the first time the President had been kicked off either platform, even temporarily. Twitter threatened to ban Mr Trump entirely if he continues to break the rules.
Violent rhetoric and advice on weaponry ramped up significantly in the past three weeks on social media platforms, including white nationalists and enthusiasts of the wide-ranging QAnon conspiracy theory, according to researchers and public postings. Movement leaders frequently pointed to Mr Trump's words in their calls to action, including the President's exhortation that the events in Washington on Jan 6 would be "wild".
But in thousands of posts on Twitter and Facebook on Wednesday, members of the far-right pushed the unfounded claim that the mob that stormed the Capitol was made up of liberal activists posing as a pro-Trump community to give it a bad name.
Several posts shared by thousands of people held up photographs as evidence that supporters of Antifa - a loosely organised collective of anti-fascist activists - were behind the unrest.
Among the most popular figures pushing the conspiracy theory were commentator Candace Owens, Georgia lawyer L. Lin Wood and Ms Juanita Broaddrick, a nursing home administrator who in 1999 publicly accused then President Bill Clinton of raping her in 1978. Other prominent figures spreading the rumour included Mr Ken Paxton, the attorney-general of Texas; Ms Sarah Palin, the former vice-presidential candidate; and Republican Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama.
As the siege of the Capitol escalated on Wednesday, civil rights groups, including The Anti-Defamation League and Colour Of Change, called for social media companies to suspend Mr Trump's accounts permanently.
Former Facebook security chief Alex Stamos likewise tweeted: "Twitter and Facebook have to cut him off."
REUTERS, BLOOMBERG, AFP, NYTIMES
