The US Capitol Assault Is Triggering A Seminal Moment For Social Media – Be In No Doubt!

Something happened, rapidly followed by other events, in the social media universe in the last week. The catalyst was Twitter banning Pres. Trump from their platform – first for 12 hours and then permanently!

This was rapidly followed by Facebook and a number of others – See here:

Facebook, Twittter, YouTube block US President Donald Trump amid Washington violence

David Swan

·         January 7, 2021

Social media giants Twitter and Facebook have suspended US President Donald Trump’s accounts, after he repeated disputed claims of election fraud and professed “love” for the mob of protesters who stormed the Capitol.

Twitter removed three tweets from the President, and warned that further rule violations would result in a “permanent suspension” of his Twitter account. It suspended him for 12 hours and threatened to ban his account altogether.

The company tweeted that the President had committed “repeated and severe violations of our civic integrity policy”.

“This means the account of @realDonaldTrump will be locked for 12 hours following the removal of these tweets. If the tweets are not removed, the account will remain locked,” Twitter tweeted.

“Future violations of the Twitter rules, including our civic integrity or violent threats policies, will result in the permanent suspension of the @realDonaldTrump account.”

Facebook has blocked Mr Trump from posting for 24 hours, and also blocked him from posting to Instagram. A spokesman said, “We’ve assessed two policy violations against President Trump’s Page which will result in a 24-hour feature block, meaning he will lose the ability to post on the platform during that time.”

Here is the link:

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/technology/facebook-twittter-youtube-block-us-president-donald-trump-amid-washington-violence/news-story/d57511b05f34144029cdd0b94e1752ee

The removal and blocks on mainstream social media has now led to a mass migration of many users to a relatively obscure conservative ‘free-speech’ platform called Parler.

The response to this has been swift with this:

Google Removes Parler From Its App Store, Apple Warns it Could Follow Suit

By Daniel Politi

Jan 09, 202112:07 PM

After President Donald Trump was banned from Twitter, far-right conservatives said it showed why many of them had been migrating toward Parler lately. The social network that is popular among Trump supporters is known for taking a hands-off approach to moderating content but that could soon change if its executives want it to continue to be widely available. Google has removed Parler from its Play Store, the main place where Android users download applications. The app is still available in other Android app stores. Apple could be next as it gave the company an ultimatum, saying that it would be removed from the App Store if it did not implement a full moderation plan.

In announcing the move, Google said its app store has long required social media apps to have content moderation policies and remove any posts that incite violence. “We’re aware of continued posting in the Parler app that seeks to incite ongoing violence in the US,” a Google spokesperson said. “We recognize that there can be reasonable debate about content policies and that it can be difficult for apps to immediately remove all violative content, but for us to distribute an app through Google Play, we do require that apps implement robust moderation for egregious content. In light of this ongoing and urgent public safety threat, we are suspending the app’s listings from the Play Store until it addresses these issues.”

The suspension came shortly after reports that Apple had threatened to remove Parler from its App Store. In an email sent Friday morning, Apple told Parler executives it had received several complaints about the social network and how it was used to coordinate the assault on the Capitol.

More here:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/01/google-removes-parler-app-store-apple.html

Apple has now followed through and then we got this:

Amazon Is Booting Parler Off Of Its Web Hosting Service

Amazon's suspension of Parler's account means that unless it can find another host, once the ban takes effect on Sunday Parler will go offline.

John Paczkowski Technology and Business Editor

Posted on January 9, 2021, at 9:07 p.m. ET

Amazon on Saturday kicked Parler off its Web hosting services. Parler, a social network favored by conservative politicians and extremists, was used to help plan and coordinate the January 6 attempted coup on Washington D.C. It has recently been overrun with messages encouraging “Patriots” to march on Washington D.C. with weapons on January 19.

Amazon's suspension of Parler's account means that unless it can find another host, once the ban takes effect on Sunday Parler will go offline.

Amazon declined to comment on the suspension. Parler has not yet responded to a request for comment.

Republican lawmakers including Sen. Ted Cruz and Congressman Devin Nunes as well as President Donald Trump’s family members and surrogates have all established accounts on Parler, and have publicly encouraged their supporters to join them there. So too have many figures in conservative media.

In an email obtained by BuzzFeed News, an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Trust and Safety team told Parler Chief Policy Officer Amy Peikoff that the calls for violence propagating across Parler violated its terms of service and that Amazon is unconvinced that the service’s plan to use volunteers to moderate such things will be effective.

“Recently, we’ve seen a steady increase in this violent content on your website, all of which violates our terms. It’s clear that Parler does not have an effective process to comply with the AWS terms of service,” the email reads. “[W]e cannot provide services to a customer that is unable to effectively identify and remove content that encourages or incites violence against others,” the email reads. “Because Parler cannot comply with our terms of service and poses a very real risk to public safety, we plan to suspend Parler’s account effective Sunday, January 10th, at 11:59PM PST.”

On Saturday afternoon, Apple banned Parler from its App Store after the platform failed to introduce a moderation plan to protect public safety. On Friday, Apple gave Parler 24 hours to mitigate the "planning of illegal and dangerous activities" occurring on its service or face expulsion, BuzzFeed News first reported. Google has also suspended Parler from its Google Play app store.

More here:

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/johnpaczkowski/amazon-parler-aws

So what we see co-ordinated action by Google, Facebook, Amazon etc.

This is not random I believe and I see three key reasons.

1. The Democrats control the Presidency and Congress so will be able to do more to regulate the platforms

2. There is a substantial rump (maybe up to 30%) of the American population who believe that the election was stolen and some (a few) are planning significant civil unrest via social media this may be a real issue for the country.

3. I believe that giving voice to violent protests against the Government – which is what is being fomented by some – is probably illegal both for those involved and probably also for the platforms who do not moderate the content properly to turn down the heat! The law suits could be really quite something and expensive to boot.

The social media platforms have had their spin and now need to grow up and properly control the speech that incites insurrection and violence. They can’t say it is too hard – it just has to get done!

Social Media will never the wild west it has been again and we will all be better off for it. Maybe they could next start to work out what to do about DV and bullying?

There is a lot of work to do to stabilise a country that is perilously close to the edge in many ways.

The worm has really turned and the calls for regulation will only grow louder!

David.