2 of the leading social media platforms owned by Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook and Instagram have decided to block the accounts of former U.S. President Donald Trump indefinitely. This ban is expected to continue until the inauguration of the new President Joe Biden at least which is due on 20th January. Mark Zuckerberg the Facebook CEO issued a statement where he acknowledged that it is risky to let the ex-president access these social media services.
On Wednesday both these platforms locked Trump’s accounts for 24 hours citing policy violations and this move made sure that Trump couldn’t post anything controversial over those social media platforms.
Riots erupted at the Capitol on Wednesday when the Congress met to certify the results of the not-so-long back-ended presidential election. On the same day, Trump went on to appreciate his supporters for their doings over a video published on multiple social media platforms. The consequences of this move were Facebook and YouTube deleting this video while Snapchat and Twitter immediately suspended Trump’s accounts temporary. Twitter in their statement was strict and added that this may lead to a permanent ban if Trump continues to violate their policies.
In his full statement, Zuckerberg highlighted a few things. According to him, it is clear that Trump is going to misuse his power during his remaining time in the office provoking his supporters to stand against the transition of presidential powers to Biden. These bizarre actions of Trump have been criticized widely in the USA itself and worldwide as well. Mark went on to say that they deleted these videos as they predicted the effects of them before. Upcoming 13 days and the days after inauguration should pass on peacefully respecting the established democratic norms, says the Facebook CEO.
In the last few years, Facebook allowed Trump to use the platform as long as he didn’t violate or break their rules. There were several incidents where the social media giant removed or labelled the posts by Trump when he went against Facebook’s policies. Mark justified his act of allowing Trump’s controversial posts on Facebook earlier by saying that they believe the people have the right to access political speech. But Mark added that the current scenario is completely different as this incite violent insurrection against the elected government.
