New York Times: Inside Twitter’s Decision to Cut Off Trump. “Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s chief executive, was working remotely on a private island in French Polynesia frequented by celebrities escaping the paparazzi when a phone call interrupted him on Jan. 6. On the line was Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s top lawyer and safety expert, with an update […]
Science: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub, the pirated-papers website. “Twitter… permanently suspended the account of Sci-Hub, the website that has posted millions of freely accessible copies of scientific articles pirated from subscription journals. Twitter said Sci-Hub had violated its policy against promoting ‘counterfeit goods,’ according to Sci-Hub’s founder, Alexandra Elbakyan.”
ABC News: Facebook passes final decision to ban Trump to oversight board. “Facebook said Thursday it was referring the decision to indefinitely suspend Donald Trump’s account to its newly-formed oversight board to make the final call on what will happen to the former president’s accounts.”
CNET: After Twitter banned Trump, misinformation plummeted, says report. “The week after Twitter banned President Donald Trump from its platform, online misinformation about election fraud fell by a whopping 73%, according to a Saturday report by The Washington Post. Talk around election fraud dropped from 2.5 million mentions to 688,000 mentions across a selection of […]
CNET: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey says banning Trump was the ‘right decision’. “Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said Wednesday he thought the company made the right call by permanently barring President Donald Trump’s account after violence broke out on Capitol Hill last week, but it was a decision he isn’t celebrating.”
Lawfare Blog: The Facebook Oversight Board Should Review Trump’s Suspension. “While Congress works out what form of accountability it will impose on President Trump for inciting insurrection at the U.S. Capitol last week, the president has faced a swift and brutal reckoning online. Snapchat, Twitch, Shopify, email providers and payment processors, among others, have all […]
The Guardian: Twitter’s Trump ban could lead to regulation rethink, says Hancock. “The decision by Twitter to permanently suspend Donald Trump from its platform could justify tightening the regulation for social media companies, a cabinet minister has suggested. Matt Hancock said the move showed Twitter ‘taking editorial decisions’ and by implication accepting that social media […]
University at Buffalo: Twitter was right to suspend Trump’s account, UB expert says. “UB geographer Monica Stephens agrees with Twitter’s decision to suspend President Donald Trump’s account following Wednesday’s insurrection in which his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol to disrupt the process of confirming President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral victory. ‘I think that given the circumstances, […]
Axios: Reddit bans subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump”. “Reddit has banned the subreddit group ‘r/DonaldTrump,’ a spokesperson confirmed to Axios. Why it matters: While not an official group or page hosted by the president, it’s one of the company’s largest political communities dedicated to support for President Trump.”
CNN: Zuckerberg: Bannon’s beheading comments aren’t enough to ban him from Facebook. “Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told staff at a company meeting on Thursday that Steve Bannon suggesting that Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray should be beheaded was not enough of a violation of Facebook’s rules to permanently suspend the former White […]
Media Matters: YouTube terminates anti-vaccine figure Del Bigtree’s account after he pushed dangerous coronavirus and vaccine misinformation. “Following Media Matters’ reporting, YouTube terminated the account for anti-vaccine figure Del Bigtree’s online show The HighWire, where he had repeatedly encouraged viewers to intentionally contract COVID-19 and pushed other dangerous medical misinformation. In a statement to Media […]
Washington Post: Twitter permanently bans former KKK leader David Duke. “Avowed white supremacist David Duke was permanently banned from Twitter for repeated violations of the social media platform’s rules on hate speech. The former Ku Klux Klan leader and one-time Louisiana legislator’s most recent tweets included a link to an interview he conducted with Holocaust […]
CNN: Facebook removes Roger Stone from Instagram after linking him to fake accounts. “Facebook announced Wednesday it had shut down pages and accounts linked to Roger Stone and Proud Boys, a far-right group Facebook has banned under its hate policies. Stone’s own Instagram account was shut down as part of the takedown. The network of […]