So the big news that broke late Friday is that indeed, Twitter has banned Donald Trump
permanently from its platform.
We're going to go through the decision that Twitter made and then talk about the implications.
Twitter putting out a statement saying after close review of recent tweets from the Trump
account and the context around them, specifically how they're being received and interpreted
on and off Twitter, we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement
of violence 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.
Our public interest framework exists to enable the public to hear from elected officials
and world leaders directly.
It is built on a principle that the people have a right to hold power to the account
to account in the open.
However, we made it clear going back years that these accounts are not above our rules
entirely and cannot use Twitter to incite violence.
Among other things, we will continue to be transparent around our policies and their
enforcement.
Now, reportedly when this happened, the word being used is ballistic.
Trump went ballistic at the White House when he was banned from Twitter.
A senior administration said that when Twitter permanently took down Trump's account, Trump
was scrambling, trying to figure out what to do.
Initially, Trump started tweeting through the official Perdis account.
Now, the Perdis account is an account that is in the hands of whoever is president.
So it's not Trump's account.
It's Trump has access to it while being president that has been shut down.
Trump then tried tweeting through one of his aides or staffers that was shut down.
And the president reportedly running around the White House going absolutely crazy.
The White House then put out a statement saying Trump is negotiating with other sites and
looking at building his own platform and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
So there's a there's a number of different important things we have to talk about here.
First of all, there's lots of really bad arguments being made by people on the right and people
on the left, including that Twitter shouldn't be allowed to do this either because they
are silencing only right wing voices, which is untrue, or because Trump is president of
the United States.
The guidelines are already a lower bar for world leaders, Twitter has said, and it was
even implicit in the statement they put out.
Twitter has said that when one is a world leader, they air on the side of not taking
content down and not banning because they've determined, and I agree with their determination
that it is important for us to know what world leaders are saying.
However, we would expect our elected officials to be held to a higher standard than the average
Twitter user with two followers sending me hate tweets.
Right.
Like in other words, it's counterintuitive that world leaders, some of the most powerful
people in the world, get held to an even lower standard merely because they are world leaders.
That's been the case all along.
Twitter is a business that is allowed to have terms of service and they're allowed to enforce
it.
But consider the greater hypocrisy that many on the right are now essentially arguing Americans
have an inalienable right to be able to tweet any limitation on their ability to tweet is
unconstitutional.
It's a violation of rights granted by God.
The Constitution, who knows?
And by the way, there's no right to health care.
Health care is a product that should be bought and sold on the free market if you can afford
it.
But you cannot be restricted in your ability to tweet.
Give me a break, guys.
These people have been pathetic for a very long time.
Don Jr. then coming out and saying, whoa, we have to do something about the market monopoly
power of Twitter.
Where are we on antitrust?
Well, look at your dad.
I have been out there for years saying we are not and we've done.
Multiple interviews, we are not dealing seriously.
With the antitrust law that we have and we have not enforced it, I've been talking about
that for years, but all of a sudden, the day Trump's banned from Twitter, Don Jr. cares
about monopoly power.
Give me a break, guys.
So the truth is, Trump's account should have been removed long ago.
There should be a higher standard on elected officials, not a lower standard.
And Trump got away with this long.
But now there is sort of this deluge.
There's for lack of a better term, these massive dumps of bans and suspensions that are coming
now since the riotous insurrection.
Now a cautionary message, despite my belief that this is the right thing to do based on
Trump's use of Twitter and incitement to violence and defense of the rioters, despite the fact
that we're saying it was correct to ban Trump 12 days before he leaves office forever.
This is a sign of how much we've failed as a country over the last four years to control
Donald Trump and to hold accountable the people who defended him.
The rats leaving the sinking ship.
Now, Betsy Davos, William Barr, Republican Senator Pat Toomey, who now says Trump should
go.
Chris Christie, who now says Trump should be impeached.
They are right.
Yes, sure.
But we're 12, 11, 10 now, nine days out as they are doing these things.
They do not deserve to have their images rehabilitated.
And we're going to talk about that after the break.
But we will have more coverage of the Trump Twitter ban and social media implications
on our Instagram, where you can find us at David Pakman show.
And you can find me on Instagram as well at David Pakman,