Trump's Family Get Blocked On Facebook
Ex-President Donald Trump has been banned from Facebook since January after there were riots by his supporters on the Capitol building in Washington DC and earlier this month Facebook went so far as to extend their ban to others in his family, by removing a video featuring Donald Trump that was posted on his daughter-in-law's profile page.
Lara Trump, a new Fox News contributor, posted a video of her interviewing Trump, only to receive a message from the social media giant advising her they had removed it. "In line with the block we placed on Donald Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts, further content posted in the voice of Donald Trump will be removed and result in additional limitations on the account," an email read.
Lara Trump, who is married to Mr Trump's son Eric, instead posted the interview for her own online show The Right View on the video platform Rumble and linked to it from her Facebook page. "And just like that, we are one step closer to Orwell's 1984. Wow," she said on Instagram. Sean Hannity a Trump supporter and Fox News TV host said the move was extreme censorship on Twitter.
Defending the ban at the time, Facebook chief Mark Zukerberg said: "We believe the risks of allowing the president to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great."
When Trump can return to the platform is being debated by the Facebook Oversight Board, a group appointed by Facebook including former politicians, policy experts and academics meant to make independent content decisions. A decision on the fate of Trump’s account is reported to be imminent.
There are a number of issues which might also be considered, which illustrate the readiness of the principal US - domiciled social media platforms to intervene in national and international affaires, based on little more than the the social media company's management views, rather than any externally mandated process. These include:
While Facebook,along with other social media operators contend that they are platforms that facilitate their users to communicate, not publishers that promote an editorial policy, it seem that they are ready to make arbitrary decisions on what may or may not appear on their users' pages.
Donald Trump is said that he had been working on his own social media platform and would have more details soon. “I am doing things having to do with putting our own platform out there that you will be hearing about soon,” the former US President said in an interview for Fox News.
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