
Source Code: Your daily look at what matters in tech.
To give you the best possible experience, this site uses cookies. If you continue browsing. you accept our use of cookies. You can review our privacy policy to find out more about the cookies we use.
Twitter said it would only allow President Trump to violate its rules one more time, and on Friday decided he'd done so.
From the Twitter blog: "After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence."
Of course, Trump still has access to @potus and various other White House-associated accounts until Inauguration Day, but Twitter's ban cuts off one of his largest pulpits and most important platforms right before he leaves office.
The ban seemed practically inevitable after Wednesday, when Twitter forced Trump to remove three tweets from his account and banned him for at least 12 hours. When Trump returned to the platform, he posted one conciliatory video before returning to something like his old ways.
He tweeted: "The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!" (We would embed the tweet, but of course, we can't anymore.)
That tweet, and the one that followed, announcing Trump wouldn't be going to the Biden inauguration on Jan. 20, were evidently the last straw. "[T]hese two Tweets must be read in the context of broader events in the country and the ways in which the President's statements can be mobilized by different audiences," Twitter's policy enforcement analysis said, "including to incite violence, as well as in the context of the pattern of behavior from this account in recent weeks.
In a vacuum, it seems, those tweets didn't violate any of Twitter's policies. But given the recent history with @realdonaldtrump and the framework by which his tweets were now being reviewed, they were deemed "highly likely to encourage and inspire people to replicate the criminal acts that took place at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021." Twitter also seems to have had some evidence that that was the case. The company said "there are multiple indicators that they are being received and understood as encouragement to do so." Indeed, Twitter and other platforms have already been used to plan further attacks around the country.
Trump did try to get around the ban, using the @POTUS account to tweet his anger about Twitter's decision. His tweetstorm ended with a "...STAY TUNED!" that surely would have been cause for Trump to be banned, if he hadn't already been banned. Twitter immediately deleted those posts as well. Soon after, he tried the same with the @TeamTrump account, which met the same fate. Then he tried other accounts. Same fate
One of Trump's now-deleted tweets from @POTUS, trying to circumvent his ban.Photo: David Pierce
So now the question remains: Where does Trump go? He's locked out of posting on Facebook, at least for the next two weeks. All over the internet, Trump-related communities including The Donald on Discord and the_donald on Reddit have been shut down. There's been a massive shift in the tech industry's thinking, caused both by a changing political climate and the disturbing images from the riots at the Capitol this week.
For Trump, Parler would seem the obvious choice, but Parler's days may be numbered: The company reportedly received a letter from Apple demanding that it create a plan for content moderation within the next 24 hours, BuzzFeed reported, or it would be removed from the App Store. The tech companies clearly feel more empowered than ever to remove the kind of content they've been reluctant to touch for the last several years, and it could leave Trump without many ways to reach a massive audience.
Twitter, meanwhile, has to decide what kind of precedent this will set. The company already permanently suspended Sidney Powell and Mike Flynn, two other right-wing users, for spreading QAnon-related account. Twitter cited its policy against Coordinated Harmful Activity in announcing the bans. Of course, those are hardly the only people on Twitter still talking about QAnon. And there are politicians around the world using Twitter to incite violence and rile up their supporters in ways similar to President Trump. Twitter may not have changed its rules to ban Trump, but it certainly changed the way it enforced them. Now it has to decide how far that goes.
David Pierce ( @pierce) is Protocol's editor at large. Prior to joining Protocol, he was a columnist at The Wall Street Journal, a senior writer with Wired, and deputy editor at The Verge. He owns all the phones.
What tech policy could look like in Biden’s first 100 days
More antitrust laws and bridging the digital divide should be top of mind for the incoming administration.
Although it is too soon to tell with certainty how President-elect Joe Biden will address the questions surrounding tech policy, it is clear that his inaugural transition on Wednesday will affect the world of tech.
Protocol reporters Issie Lapowsky and Emily Birnbaum, virtually met up with panelists Tuesday to discuss what tech policy and regulation could look like in Biden's first 100 days in office — as well as the next four years.
'Woke tech' and 'the new slave power': Conservatives gather for Vegas summit
An agenda for the event, hosted by the Claremont Institute, listed speakers including U.S. CTO Michael Kratsios and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
The so-called "Digital Statecraft Summit" was organized by the Claremont Institute. The speakers include U.S. CTO Michael Kratsios and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, as well as a who's-who of far-right provocateurs.
Emily Birnbaum ( @birnbaum_e) is a tech policy reporter with Protocol. Her coverage focuses on the U.S. government's attempts to regulate one of the most powerful industries in the world, with a focus on antitrust, privacy and politics. Previously, she worked as a tech policy reporter with The Hill after spending several months as a breaking news reporter. She is a Bethesda, Maryland native and proud Kenyon College alumna.
Conservative investors, political operatives, right-wing writers and Trump administration officials are quietly meeting in Las Vegas this weekend to discuss topics including China, "woke tech" and "the new slave power," according to four people who were invited to attend or speak at the event as well as a copy of the agenda obtained by Protocol.
The so-called "Digital Statecraft Summit" was organized by the Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank that says its mission is to "restore the principles of the American Founding to their rightful, preeminent authority in our national life." A list of speakers for the event includes a combination of past and current government officials as well as a who's who of far-right provocateurs. One speaker, conservative legal scholar John Eastman, rallied the president's supporters at a White House event before the Capitol Hill riot earlier this month. Some others have been associated with racist ideologies.
Emily Birnbaum ( @birnbaum_e) is a tech policy reporter with Protocol. Her coverage focuses on the U.S. government's attempts to regulate one of the most powerful industries in the world, with a focus on antitrust, privacy and politics. Previously, she worked as a tech policy reporter with The Hill after spending several months as a breaking news reporter. She is a Bethesda, Maryland native and proud Kenyon College alumna.
Doxxing insurrectionists: Capitol riot divides online extremism researchers
The uprising has sparked a tense debate about the right way to stitch together the digital scraps of someone's life to publicly accuse them of committing a crime.
Rioters scale the U.S. Capitol walls during the insurrection.
Joan Donovan has a panic button in her office, just in case one of the online extremists she spends her days fighting tries to fight back.
"This is not baby shit," Donovan, who is research director of Harvard's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, said. "You do not fuck around with these people in public."
Trump wants to strike back at Big Tech. There’s not much he can do.
He's already exhausted most of his options.
Trump wants to spend his final week as president getting back at Twitter and Facebook for suspending him.
Emily Birnbaum ( @birnbaum_e) is a tech policy reporter with Protocol. Her coverage focuses on the U.S. government's attempts to regulate one of the most powerful industries in the world, with a focus on antitrust, privacy and politics. Previously, she worked as a tech policy reporter with The Hill after spending several months as a breaking news reporter. She is a Bethesda, Maryland native and proud Kenyon College alumna.
President Trump has been telling anyone who will listen that he wants to do something to strike back at Big Tech in the final days of his presidency, promising a "big announcement" soon after Twitter permanently banned him last week.
In a statement that Twitter has taken down multiple times, Trump hammered usual targets — Section 230, the "Radical Left" controlling the world's largest tech platforms — and pledged he would not be "SILENCED." But at this point, as he faces a second impeachment and a Republican establishment revolting against him in the waning days of his presidency, there's likely very little that Trump can actually do that would inflict long-lasting damage on tech companies.
- Regulation is coming in 2021. Here's how Big Tech is preparing for it ... ›
- Democrats just made their case against Big Tech. Here's what ... ›
- Tech is shrugging off the Section 230 veto threat - Protocol ›
- Section 230 under siege: A comprehensive guide - Protocol ›
- Trump officials and conservatives are quietly meeting in Las Vegas to discuss “woke tech” - Protocol — The people, power and politics of tech ›
Emily Birnbaum ( @birnbaum_e) is a tech policy reporter with Protocol. Her coverage focuses on the U.S. government's attempts to regulate one of the most powerful industries in the world, with a focus on antitrust, privacy and politics. Previously, she worked as a tech policy reporter with The Hill after spending several months as a breaking news reporter. She is a Bethesda, Maryland native and proud Kenyon College alumna.
Trump got all he needed from Twitter. Now, he still has all the power.
President Trump used Twitter to become the most powerful man in the world. Now, that power is his to keep.
Trump became the most powerful man in the world thanks to Twitter. Now that he's banned, he'll take that power with him.
On Friday night, Twitter announced that it was forever banning President Trump from the digital podium where he conducted his presidency and where, for more than a decade, he built an alternate reality where what he said was always the truth.
There are moral arguments for not doing business with the guy who provoked a violent mob to invade the U.S. Capitol, leaving several people dead. There have been moral arguments for years for not doing business with the guy who spent most of his early mornings and late nights filling the site with a relentless stream of pithy, all-caps conspiracy theories about everything from Barack Obama's birthplace to the 2020 election. There are also moral arguments against tech companies muzzling the president of the United States at all.