Under what circumstances is it legitimate to shut down the Twitter account of a sitting president? After the final ban, on January 8, of Donald Trump’s personal account, the debate agitates the political class, in the United States and beyond. Some are indignant that a private company can censor the head of one of the largest democracies in the world – who however retains his official presidential account – while the social network estimated that the elected was still inciting violence, after a historic invasion of the United States Capitol that left five dead.
Unsurprisingly, all of the president’s supporters strongly denounced Twitter’s decision. “Who will be the next to be silenced?” “, asks Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, on his Twitter account, still active. His former campaign manager Brad Parscale pretends to wonder : “Are the electricity suppliers going to cut off Trump’s power from now on? Are we going to shut off the water? Does he still have the right to have cable? “ On the unmoderated pro-Trump social network Speak, conspiratorial lawyer Sydney Powell, also banned from Twitter, talks about “Fascism”.
Right to information against risks of violence
But Donald Trump’s supporters aren’t the only ones criticizing Twitter’s decision. Since Thursday and the suspension – temporary, at the time – of the outgoing US president’s Twitter and Facebook accounts, several voices have been raised to underline the risk these precedents posed for the democratic debate. The Mexican President, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, criticized, on January 8, “Omnipotence and arrogance” by Mark Zuckerberg: “What about freedom and the right to information? And the role of the legally and legitimately constituted authorities? “ The whistleblower Edward Snowden, little suspect of being a supporter of Donald Trump, estimated, for his part, the day before, that these series suspensions represented a “Turning point in the battle for control of information”. In France, the Secretary of State for Digital, Cédric O, has estimated that “The closure of Donald Trump’s Twitter account, if it can be justified by a form of emergency prophylaxis, nonetheless raises fundamental questions”, adding:
“The regulation of the public debate by the main social networks with regard to their TOS alone (general conditions of use), while they have become real public spaces and bring together billions of citizens, it seems at least a little short from a democratic point of view. “
He also called for “A new form of democratic supervision”, which may refer to the European social network regulation project Digital Services Act. In 2020, the French parliamentary majority voted for the obligation to remove hateful content within twenty-four hours in the Avia law, finally censored by the Constitutional Council, which considered it to kill freedom.
Conversely, for part of the American left, these closures are fully justified, but much too late. While the decision was welcomed by several senior Democratic officials, starting with former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, many observers note that these decisions, a few days before the handover of power, have an aftertaste of ” too few “. “More has happened on the issue of moderation of content in two hours than in the last four years”, noted the columnist of Washington post Tony romm.
These suspensions, temporary or permanent, are “Welcome but intervene too late”, estimated on the BBC the former investor of Facebook – now very critical of the functioning of social networks – Roger McNamee. Who sees, like many other commentators, a very political motivation for these decisions: “The most important thing for these platforms is not civic spirit. Banning Trump prepares them for Biden’s rise to power “, does he think.
Internal sling at Twitter
Before making its decision, Twitter was the subject of intense internal lobbying: the Washington post revealed, this January 8, the content of a letter to the management of the social network, in which a hundred employees called to close the account of the outgoing president. “Trump is no longer a legitimate democratic actor”, wrote these employees, whose text also evoked the risks of new violence in the days to come. “We play an unprecedented role in civil society and the world is watching us”, they estimated.
In his message explaining his decision to close Donald Trump’s personal account, Twitter does not go so far as to assert that the outgoing president is no longer legitimate, but explains that it considered that the risks of encouraging violence were indeed major. To support its decision, the social network quotes the latest messages from Donald Trump, in which he announces in particular that he will not be present at the investiture of his successor as is the American tradition. This choice was perceived as an invitation to attack this ceremony and a questioning of the intention displayed on Thursday by the president to contribute to a “Peaceful transition”, wrote Twitter. However, recalls the management, Mr. Trump had been warned that the twelve-hour suspension decided on Wednesday could become “Permanent”.
If they disapprove of it, a small part of Donald Trump’s supporters paradoxically welcomed this ban: the creators of social networks and “alternative” pro-Trump sites. “We are adding new servers right now”writes Andrew Torba, CEO of the popular ultra-right Gab network. Parler, Twitter’s recently launched pro-Trump competitor, was having difficulty accessing this Jan. 9, presumably due to an influx of posts and listings. “We own our servers, it takes longer to add more, but we can’t be blocked! Be patient, God is in charge ”, writes Andrew Torba, founder of Gab. Donald Trump himself assured, in a message published on another Twitter account and then deleted, “Study the possibilities of building our own platform”. However, acquiring a direct communication tool as powerful as its Twitter account with 88 million subscribers will be difficult.
