You Can’t Deplatform The President Of The United States
Donald Trump’s latest barrage of conspiratorial accusations and lies, designed to undermine the nation’s democratic elections, has induced new calls for his removal from his favourite social media platform: Twitter.
“At what point is @Twitter a part of this?” MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski tweeted at Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey after Trump accused her husband and co-host Joe Scarborough of murder. “TAKE DOWN TRUMP’s ACCOUNT— the world would be safer.” (Trump first falsely insinuated that Scarborough committed murder in November 2017.)
Brzezinski wasn’t alone in calling for Dorsey to stop Trump’s belligerent false accusations of murder. TJ Klausutis similarly pleaded in a letter to Dorsey to, at the very least, remove the president’s false tweets slandering his deceased wife, Lori Klausutis, whom the president falsely accuses Scarborough of having an affair with before murdering.
“I’m asking you to intervene in this instance because the president of the United States has taken something that does not belong to him — the memory of my dead wife — and perverted it for perceived political gain,” Klausutis wrote to Dorsey.
.@jack At what point is @Twitter a part of this? TAKE DOWN TRUMP’s ACCOUNT— the world world be safer. Retweet if you agree
— Mika Brzezinski (@morningmika) May 20, 2020
The president is undoubtedly cruel and vicious in his slander of a deceased woman and her widowed husband, both private citizens, as well as in his slander of public figure Scarborough. He falsely tweeted that Klausutis’ death is a “Cold Case” (it is not) and had no basis for claiming she had “an affair” with Scarborough.
But removing Trump’s Twitter account, an act called deplatforming, serves no ultimate purpose.
Social media platforms are designed to be addictive attention machines. This can skew them to favour outrageous statements, hyperbole and conspiracy theories. Demagogic conspiracy theorists and neo-Nazis have successfully gamed these...
