Trump Dodges Social Media Ban
Four months after getting kicked off Twitter and Facebook, former Donald Trump has launched a new "communications" website, which says it will publish content "straight from the desk" of the former US president. Mr Trump was banned by Twitter and suspended by Facebook and YouTube after the Capitol riots in January.
The former president has since been releasing statements by press release, which the new website will now host. However, the new platform does not appear to have a feature to allow users to reply or engage with any of his posts and so it’s one way communication.
The move comes a day before a decision from Facebook Inc’s oversight board on whether to uphold Trump’s indefinite suspension from the platform. Trump was barred from a slew of social media platforms following the deadly January 6 storming of the US Capitol by his supporters. Trump’s senior adviser, Jason Miller, said in a tweet that this collection of posts was not the social media platform that Trump has plans to launch. “We’ll have additional information coming on that front in the very near future,” he tweeted.
The site is named “From the Desk of Donald J Trump” and contains posts from Trump that can be shared and liked. A source familiar with the matter said it was built by Campaign Nucleus, the digital services company created by Trump’s former campaign manager. Posts on the site repeated Trump’s false claim that he lost the 2020 election because of widespread voter fraud and denigrated fellow Republicans who have been critical of him such as Senator Mitt Romney and Representative Liz Cheney.
Twitter and Facebook have both removed content posted from other accounts that they said tried to circumvent their bans on Trump. The companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment on how they would treat posts shared from the new space.
Twitter, which Trump used heavily and where he had 88 million followers, has said its ban on him is permanent, even if he runs for office again. Alphabet Inc’s YouTube has said it will restore Trump’s channel when it decides the risk of violence has decreased.
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