The shackles are tightening around Donald Trump, who is being chased from one social networking site after another: the Twitter address of his main political communication tool suspended his account (@realDonaldTrump) yesterday, Friday, for two days after the bloody invasion of the Capitol by his followers, the occupation of the seat of Congress and the chaos in the heart of the American capital that lasted for hours.
"After thoroughly reviewing recent posts on the @realDonaldTrump account and their context, especially how they were received (…), we have permanently suspended the account because of the risk of inciting further violence," Twitter Inc said in a statement.
On Thursday, Facebook and other social networking sites, such as Snapchat, also suspended the outgoing president's accounts on their platforms indefinitely.
But it is the site with 88 million followers, Twitter, the platform that Trump preferred: through it he made political statements, unleashed thunderbolts against his political opponents or the media on a daily basis.
"They will not silence us", the interested party disappeared through his official account (@POTUS, the initials of the expression "president of the USA"), addressing the "75 million patriots" who voted for him.
He hinted that there would be retaliation against the site, which he said "forbids freedom of expression" by conspiring with the "radical left"; he promised to consider setting up his own platform, in the near future, on a post thread deleted very quickly by Twitter administrators.
"Using another account to circumvent the suspension violates the service's rules," said a spokesman for the company, which clarified that it would take steps to "limit the use" of official government accounts (@POTUS, @WhiteHouse) by Trump.
The network of "tweets" had already escalated the measures taken since Wednesday, deleting messages from the head of state, instead of placing warning signs, as he did until very recently.
Danger of new riots breaking out
The outgoing Republican president has not stopped questioning the validity of the result of the November presidential election and urging his supporters to "fight" to overthrow him, violating the rules of use of the largest social networking sites, which require him to .
Trump had initially suspended Trump's account for twelve hours before reactivating it the day before yesterday, much to his surprise, as the president is widely blamed for the unrest that rocked the United States and abroad.
"Our public interest rules are in place to allow the public to be informed immediately of what elected and political leaders have to say," the management of the Californian website explained yesterday.
"However, we have made it clear over the years that these accounts are not above our terms of use and no one can use Twitter to incite violence, among other things."
Before his account was closed, Trump acknowledged his defeat in a video he uploaded. But then he announced that he would not attend the swearing-in ceremony of his successor, the Democrat Joe Biden, contrary to the tradition.
According to Twitter, this announcement was taken by some of his supporters as further proof that the election result is a product of fraud and turned the ceremony into a target, as new riots could break out.
"Plans to mobilize armed protesters have already begun to spread on and off Twitter, including the proposal to launch a second attack on the Capitol (…) on January 17, 2021," the website said in a statement.
Earlier yesterday, he also closed accounts of Donald Trump supporters spreading conspiracy theories of the openly racist QAnon movement.
Too late;
Criticism has multiplied this week over the way Trump's messages have been handled by social networking sites, as they are thought to have decided to act too late and show too much tolerance.
More and more individuals and organizations have called for the tycoon's accounts to be closed on those platforms, from Michelle Obama to the Google employees' union - the latter referring to Trump's YouTube account, which remains active.
The decisions made by the Facebook and Twitter executives were met with more anger and contempt than relief.
Angelo Caruson, chairman of the NGO Media Matters for America, likened social media sites to action so late in the "resignations of ministers and government officials a few days before the end" of the Trump administration: "too little, too late ».
If they had acted earlier, "the horrific events of Wednesday could have been avoided," he said.
However, in addition to the president's supporters, who complain that their social networking sites are silenced because of their political beliefs, there are voices from the American left that warn against the violations of freedom of expression.
"We understand the desire to suspend permanently now (the outgoing president's account), but we should all be concerned when companies gain the power to withdraw people voluntarily and out of control from their platforms, which have become necessary for billions to be freely expressed. people ", noted Kate Rowan, executive of the organization for the defense of civil and political rights ACLU.