Less than two weeks before Donald Trump’s scheduled departure from the White House, and three days after the Capitol was invaded by pro-Trump protesters, social networks released the heavy artillery on Friday, January 8. Closure of the president’s personal Twitter account, suspension of his Facebook and Snapchat accounts, blocking of pro-Trump applications in Android or iOS stores … Beyond the legitimate debates that these decisions give rise to – alternatively deemed insufficient, too late, killers or dangerous – their implementation is especially revealing of the incredible ball of hypocrites where, for five years, American elected officials and major platforms have crossed paths.
Twitter is fine to shut down @realDonaldTrump as the president, isolated, will in just a few days give way to Joe Biden. The social network justified its decision in a long text, arguing that future messages from the outgoing president risked inciting violence. A fair analysis, but one that was just as true yesterday, the day before yesterday, three months or a year ago. Further research is needed to find a day on which the outgoing president has not in one way or another incited violence in the past four years. Was the risk of violence lower when he used Twitter to name journalists critical of his actions by name, when he provoked the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, or when he incited to shoot at protesters in the Black Lives Matter movement?
Supporters of Donald Trump do not hesitate to point out that the official reason for the suspension – a message saying that the outgoing president would not be present at the handover of power, interpreted as being able to be an incitement to attack the ceremony – is ready to smile. Donald Trump published thousands of messages much more threatening than this one during his tenure, without ever being sanctioned in any way. Worse, this account closure gives very found arguments to the ultra-right conspiracy: the plot was, according to them, very real, since the president is being censored for trivial matters. The real reason for these decisions is certainly much more down to earth: it becomes urgent, a few days before a change of administration, to give pledges to the future democratic power. Notably because the American left promised, during the campaign, to put social networks in front of their responsibilities – and that a procedure for abuse of dominant position is already targeting Facebook.
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