SAN ANSELMO, CALIFORNIA – JANUARY 08: The suspended Twitter account of U.S. President Donald Trump appears on an iPhone screen on January 08, 2021 in San Anselmo, California. (Photo Illustration by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 6:40 PM PT – Friday, January 8, 2021
Big Tech companies are targeting the President and his supporters following Wednesday’s events in Washington D.C.
On Friday, Twitter permanently removed President Trump’s account. The Big Tech giant said he poses a “risk of further incitement of violence.”
The social media giant also banned former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and lawyer Sidney Powell. Twitter claims it is taking strong action against online content that could lead to harm offline.
After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.https://t.co/CBpE1I6j8Y
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) January 8, 2021
“I think Twitter has some feeling they’re operating in one of their favorite countries, which is China [or] possibly Venezuela – they certainly show no respect to the right of free speech,” President Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, stated. “I understand their argument — they are a private company — but beyond just the constitutional guarantee of free speech, those of us who’re Americans value the right of free speech.”
Several supporters of President Trump took aim at Twitter and blasted officials for the decision.
The former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said silencing people happens in countries like China, but not in the United States.
Silencing people, not to mention the President of the US, is what happens in China not our country. #Unbelievable
— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) January 8, 2021
Donald Trump Jr. likened the move to George Orwell’s iconic novel ‘1984’ and said the late Chinese Communist Dictator Mao Tse-Tung would be proud. He called out a double-standard and said many dictators, including Iran’s Ayatollah, can have working Twitter accounts.
We are living Orwell’s 1984. Free-speech no longer exists in America. It died with big tech and what’s left is only there for a chosen few.
This is absolute insanity! https://t.co/s2z8ymFsLX
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) January 9, 2021
Several other social media outlets, such as Facebook and Snapchat, also deleted the President’s accounts from their services.
Additionally, Google removed the free-speech alternative to Twitter, ‘Parler,’ from its Google Play store. The platform — largely adopted by conservatives — is being threatened by Apple to revise its policies and to moderate “objectionable content” moving forward.
Apple is giving the platform a 24-hour window to change its policies before they pull them off of the Apple App Store.
