WASHINGTON: Twitter said on Friday (Jan 8) it has "permanently suspended" President Donald Trump's account, citing the "risk of further incitement of violence" following the assault on the US Capitol by his supporters.
"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," the company said in a blog post.
"In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter Rules would potentially result in this very course of action."
The account had more than 88.5 million followers before it was permanently suspended.
Twitter had temporarily blocked Trump's account earlier this week following the siege of Capitol Hill on Wednesday by pro-Trump protesters and warned that additional violations by the president's accounts would result in a permanent suspension.
The company also said it would permanently suspend accounts pushing QAnon content, banning prominent right-wing boosters of its conspiracy theories including Michael Flynn and Sidney Powell, following Wednesday's storming of the US Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump.
Flynn, a former national security adviser to Trump, and Powell, a former Trump campaign lawyer, have both been close allies of the president and promoted efforts to cast doubt about his defeat in the 2020 presidential election.
Twitter also suspended Ron Watkins, the administrator of fringe message board 8kun, which effectively serves as home base for the QAnon conspiracy movement.
"Given the renewed potential for violence surrounding this type of behaviour in the coming days, we will permanently suspend accounts that are solely dedicated to sharing QAnon content," Twitter said in a statement.
QAnon followers espouse an intertwined series of far-fetched beliefs based on anonymous web postings from "Q", who claims to have insider knowledge of the Trump administration.
At the core of the baseless conspiracy theories embraced by QAnon is the idea that Trump is secretly fighting a cabal of child-sex predators that includes prominent Democrats, Hollywood elites and "deep state" allies.
QAnon has been amplified on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, the video streaming service of Google. Its adherents were among those who participated in the Capitol siege that left five people dead.
SINGAPORE: We have seen over the last two days what truly matters to US President Donald Trump and what could get him to change his rhetoric following the storming of Capitol Hill: Taking away his Twitter and Facebook accounts.
Suddenly he condemned the riots and conceded the election.
We can’t read Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's mind, but there are two competing explanations for his decision to suspend Trump’s account for the remaining thirteen days of his presidency — after four years of allowing his posts to remain uncensored.
The first possibility: All along, Facebook has been acting in good faith, with an eye toward the public interest.
For years, Facebook stuck to its principles of maximising open debate on its platforms, giving the public every opportunity to scrutinise the unfiltered posts of the world’s most powerful man.
It resisted pressure to censor Trump from fierce critics on the left. It put principles ahead of profit when it refused to cave to advertisers who boycotted its platforms for one month year last year because of failures to control disinformation and hate speech.
Then Trump finally crossed Facebook’s standard for deplatforming last week.
The second possibility: Facebook acted opportunistically.
Since there’s no need to cosy up to a lame-duck president who has little time to retaliate, Zuckerberg finally suspended Trump to score publicity and appease critics, now that there is little to lose. Advertisers can take refuge behind the fact that the platform finally took a stand.
Based on the track record, it’s hard not to conclude that Facebook played it smart and followed its business interests.
VENEER OF PRINCIPLE
The social media giants have to date been adamant about allowing politicians to post freely on their platforms.
In May last year, Zuckerberg argued, “Political speech is one of the most sensitive parts in a democracy, and people should be able to see what politicians say”.
In 2019, Zuckerberg explained Facebook doesn’t fact-check political ads — and therefore doesn’t take down ads containing falsehoods — because “we think people should be able to see for themselves what politicians are saying”.
Facebook Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies at a House Financial Services Committee hearing in Washington, U.S., on October 23, 2019. (Photo: REUTERS/Erin Scott)
If such principles applied while Trump made what many interpreted as veiled threats against the Black Lives Matters protesters, why don’t they apply now?
If the justifications held for the last two months, while Trump has been raging that the election was stolen despite the evidence and dozens of court rulings to the contrary, shouldn’t they apply in these final days when Trump may be at his most erratic?
What’s more, though Trump lost, his voice will remain relevant. Almost 47 per cent of voters supported him. That’s 74 million Americans. He may run again in 2024.
In a democracy, citizens need to evaluate the positions of the leader of a political party — some call it a movement within a party — so they can choose to condemn or support it.
He explained: “We believe the risks of allowing the president to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great”.
The last straw was Trump’s posts that, in Zuckerberg’s words, “condone rather than condemn the actions of his supporters at the Capitol building”.
For weeks, Trump had been promoting his supporters’ “Stop the Steal” protests set for Jan 6, the day Congress met to certify Joe Biden’s election win.
On Dec 18, Trump posted, “Be there, [it] will be wild!"
On Jan 6, outside the White House, Trump addressed the crowd: “We’re going to the Capitol”. He spoke of a need to “fight” and said, “You will never take back our country with weakness”.
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a rally to contest the certification of the 2020 U.S. presidential election results by the U.S. Congress, in Washington, U.S, January 6, 2021. REUTERS/Jim Bourg
Trump then retreated to the White House while his followers climbed the walls and broke windows to enter the capitol. A protestor was photographed sitting in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office chair.
Five people have died, including a police officer and a woman whom police shot. Scores were arrested.
While the protests continued, Trump posted a video in which he told the protesters, “We love you” and “You’re very special”. He repeated false claims that the election was “fraudulent” and “stolen”. He told them to go home.
Shortly after, Trump posted: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots”. “Remember this day forever!” he said.
Facebook deleted the video and suspended Trump for 24 hours. Twitter hid three of the tweets and suspended Trump from posting for twelve hours after he deleted them but then reinstated his account.
DOES IT COUNT AS INCITEMENT?
Until this week, Zuckerberg said that it merely labelled problematic posts “because we believe that the public has a right to the broadest possible access to political speech, even controversial speech”.
He continued that “the current context is now fundamentally different” because of Trump’s “use of our platform to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government”.
Both Facebook and Twitter espouse allowing debate but draw the line at incitement, a term in their content guidelines.
Donald Trump speaks in a video after protesters stormed the US Capitol. The video has been taken down by Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
Incitement is a well-established exception to freedom of expression in American law.
Authorities are not allowed to censor unless expression rises to intentional provocation to unlawful action likely to happen imminently. The rationale is that as long as there’s time to talk a speaker out of doing something illegal, censorship is not justified.
Applying the test to Trump’s social media posts, he can be stopped when he is provoking an assembled mob to break the law — as he was arguably doing on Jan 6 — but not when he is merely advocating protests.
In May last year, Trump reacted to protests against the police killing of George Floyd by posting, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts”. Zuckerberg explained that he chose not to censor the posts because the president wasn’t inciting violence, but warning that law enforcement might legally use force against looters.
This week, did Trump’s praise for the rioting come closer to meeting the legal definition of incitement?
As deplorable as Trump’s words were, I doubt that they actually would qualify as incitement. Based on precedent cases, the requirement of imminent action makes the legal standard almost impossible to meet. In the video, Trump told the rioters to go home peacefully.
Because the law doesn’t apply to social media companies, they are free to interpret their guidelines as they wish.
But since Zuckerberg was so strict in his application of incitement to the “looting/shooting” post, it’s hard to understand why a loose interpretation of the term is now justified.
Similarly, it’s hard to understand why the dramatic solution of deplatforming, so objectionable in the past, is suddenly acceptable.
It is possible that Zuckerberg, who takes credit for his company’s decisions in big cases like this, is just a neutral referee.
But the company’s track record makes a more cynical interpretation almost irresistible.
Dr Mark Cenite is Associate Dean (Undergraduate Education) at Nanyang Technological University’s College of Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences. He teaches communication law at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information.
Listen to Prof Chan Heng Chee and BowerGroupAsia Managing Director James Carouso explain how America came to be so deeply divided amid a bitterly fought election on CNA's Heart of the Matter podcast episode published in November 2020:
WASHINGTON: As Democrats in the House of Representatives on Friday (Jan 8) prepared to impeach President Donald Trump again if he does not step down, their leader Nancy Pelosi spoke to the top US general about preventing an "unhinged" Trump from accessing nuclear launch codes in the final days of his term.
The extraordinary developments came two days after Trump exhorted thousands of supporters to march on the US Capitol, prompting a chaotic scene in which crowds breached the building, sent lawmakers into hiding and left a police officer and four others dead in their wake.
"The situation of this unhinged President could not be more dangerous," Pelosi said in a statement, just before a conference call with fellow Democrats to discuss whether to impeach Trump. "If the President does not leave office imminently and willingly, the Congress will proceed with our action."
Pelosi told members she had gotten assurances from Army General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that there are safeguards in place in the event Trump tried to launch a nuclear weapon, according to a source who was listening to the call.
While US presidents have access to the codes needed to fire nuclear weapons 24 hours a day, no top military or national security official has expressed any concern publicly about Trump's mental state with regard to nuclear weapons.
Milley's office said that Pelosi had initiated the call and that the general "answered her questions regarding the process of nuclear command authority."
Meanwhile, a majority of Democrats appeared poised to initiate impeachment proceedings if Vice President Mike Pence and Trump's Cabinet refuse to invoke the US Constitution's 25th Amendment, which allows them to remove a president who is unable to discharge his duties.
Pence is opposed to such a move, an adviser told Reuters on Thursday.
At least one Senate Republican, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, said he would consider supporting an impeachment proceeding.
Sasse, a frequent Trump critic, told CBS News on Friday he would "definitely consider" any articles of impeachment because the president "disregarded his oath of office."
Even if the House impeaches Trump at such short notice, the decision on whether to remove him would fall to the Republican-controlled Senate, which has acquitted him once before. With Trump's term ending Jan 20 and the Senate scheduled to be in recess until Jan 19, the prospects of an actual ouster appear unlikely.
Removing a US president requires a two-thirds majority in the Senate. Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has not commented on a possible impeachment.
President-elect Joe Biden has blamed Trump for inciting Wednesday's violence but has made clear he will not weigh in on impeachment. Pelosi told members she would speak to Biden on Friday afternoon, the source said.
An uncharacteristically subdued Trump on Thursday evening finally denounced the violence in a video in which he also promised to ensure a smooth transition to Biden's administration.
By Friday morning, however, he had returned to a more familiar and pugilistic tone. On Twitter, he praised his supporters and said, "They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!"
The FBI and prosecutors are investigating, arresting and criminally charging people who took part in violence at the Capitol.
Trump also confirmed he would not attend Biden's inauguration, departing from a time-honored tradition that typically sees the outgoing president escorting his successor to Capitol Hill for the ceremony. The practice is seen as an important part of the peaceful transfer of power.
The House impeached Trump in December 2019 for pressuring the Ukrainian president to investigate Biden, but the Senate acquitted him in February 2020. Only two other US presidents have been impeached, and none has ever been impeached twice.
Democrats are set to take narrow control of the Senate after winning two runoff elections in Georgia on Tuesday, but the new senators will not be sworn in until the state certifies its results later this month.
SINGAPORE - Travellers who have been vaccinated against Covid-19 may avoid having to serve a lengthy stay-home notice (SHN) when they return to Singapore in the future, Education Minister Lawrence Wong has suggested.
Mr Wong, who co-chairs the multi-ministry coronavirus task force, said the Government would consider drastically reducing or even doing away with the two-week quarantine requirement if data shows vaccination significantly reduces transmission risks.
He said this was one of the potential "tangible benefits" for those choosing to be vaccinated, besides protection against the virus.
"Those who choose not to be vaccinated, you have to live with more frequent tests, you have to live with quarantine, you have to live with all of these other additional requirements," he said on Thursday (Jan 7) during an interview on CNA's Talking Point.
"If you have the vaccination, you travel to a high-risk place, you come back, can that SHN be shortened, or even done away with completely? That's the big question," said Mr Wong.
"We still don't know the extent to which a vaccination can completely - or how significantly - help reduce transmission risk. So those studies are still pending. If indeed the data shows that transmission risks can come down significantly with vaccination, then certainly, we will consider reducing drastically the SHN or even doing away with it."
Being vaccinated may also make it possible to travel abroad more freely, depending on the requirements in other countries, Mr Wong noted.
"Even without a vaccine today, many Singaporeans can already travel freely to other countries without a quarantine there because they regard Singaporeans as coming from a low-risk jurisdiction," said the minister.
"So I think with a vaccination it will certainly help, but those are regulations that are outside of our control."
The discussion hosted by CNA presenter Steve Chia also featured Associate Professor Vernon Lee, director of the communicable diseases division at the Ministry of Health, and Associate Professor Benjamin Ong, who chairs the expert committee on Covid-19 vaccination convened by the MOH.
Prof Lee debunked a number of rumours about the vaccine, including one that says it can cause cancer. "At this point, there is no evidence that this vaccine will result in such a side effect," he said in response to a question from a viewer. He added that most of the known side effects are mild, but the vaccine can cause severe allergic reactions in some people.
The messenger RNA (mRNA) used in the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which is currently the only one being administered here, also does not incorporate itself into human DNA, Prof Lee noted.
"In fact, after about 48 hours, it just dissipates in the body and it disintegrates, so there's no evidence at this point that there's any such concern," he said of the cancer rumour.
There is also no evidence that a patient who receives the vaccine will have difficulty getting pregnant, Prof Lee said in response to another question.
Prof Ong said the likelihood that the vaccine will cause long-term issues is "very remote".
Asked about the new strain of the virus that has emerged in Britain and spread to various countries, including Singapore, Prof Ong said mutations occur all the time, and added that the vaccine is likely to still work on the new strain. This is because the mutated virus features the same spike protein as the earlier strain used to develop the vaccine.
Singapore has also purchased a vaccine developed by the US pharmaceutical company Moderna, which similarly uses mRNA technology to introduce the genetic code to the body to produce a piece of the coronavirus known as a spike protein, thereby helping the patient's cells recognise and develop an immune response to Covid-19.
Mr Wong said Singapore had to make "early bets" on these vaccines as long ago as April, before there was extensive clinical data on the efficacy of the various candidate vaccines being developed. This was to ensure Singapore would be near the front of the queue.
"Based on whatever preliminary data that was available then... we decided on the three that we have made advanced purchases for, with the aim of building a diversified portfolio of vaccines that will be safe and effective for use in Singapore," he said.
"We have three now, but that's not the end of it."
