President Donald Trump is now being called out by a civil rights group. Along with a watchdog organization over his Twitter account. As they teamed up and sent a message to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey today.
Common Cause combined with The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law made a request Thursday for Twitter to temporarily suspend President Trump’s account over the spread of disinformation about the election. An unprecedented action to be taken during an unreal election season.
As they asked that Pres. Trump be suspended over “repeated violations” of the platform’s Civic Integrity Policy.
The leaders of each entity expressed, “We fear that, in the absence of action by Twitter, the President may be successful in his goal of delegitimizing the integrity of our democratic processes for many, and not just Twitter users but other voters and members of the public, sowing uncertainty about the voting and elections process, and potentially inciting violence against civil servants or others.”
Plus argued, “President Trump’s continued use of Twitter’s platform to spread disinformation may incite the public in ways that could prove harmful to public safety, if it has not done so already,” Meanwhile, the Twitter head has been taking plenty of heat lately.
Dorsey appeared for testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee last week. That followed Twitter locking The New York Post account. After a damaging report they published on Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden and son Hunter.
GOP officials soon jumped on them. With claims of election interference. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) tore into Dorsey with a blazing line of questioning. He did little to quell their fears.
Then following two weeks of suppression, the big tech titan gave in. The New York Post may be off the hook for now yet Trump is apparently not. Will Twitter take any action?
Twitter recently locked Donald Trump’s account after he violated one of the company’s policies. Trump made a tweet which included the email address for a New York Post columnist.
Twitter confirmed that it had locked Trump’s account for the violation and the account remained locked until the offending tweet was deleted.
Twitter has a privacy information policy that states users aren’t allowed to post other people’s private information without their consent.
Trump tweeted from his @realDonaldTrump account on Monday and soon after the social media outlet placed over the tweet, “This Tweet is no longer available because it violated the Twitter Rules.”
Trump was unable to tweet again until 6:23 p.m. that Monday when he tweeted, “Will be back on the Campaign Trail soon!!! The Fake News only shows the Fake Polls.”
While hospitalized at Walter Reed Medical Center where he received treatment for the novel coronavirus Trump tweeted repeatedly and in all caps.
Trump was released days later and returned to the White House. Upon arriving at the White House Trump stopped on the balcony and removed his mask, despite being contagious, for a photo op.
The following day, Trump had a tweet concealed that claimed that the flu carries higher fatality rates than the novel coronavirus in most populations. Twitter stated that the post violated its misinformation rules, but the post remained on his timeline behind a disclaimer.
After Trump got access to his account back he tweeted in all caps “REPEAL SECTION 230!”
Section 230 is the section of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 that protects internet companies who are acting as intermediaries from legal liability for what users post on their platforms. Under the current version of Section 230, internet companies are platforms, not publishers. “Publishers,” by contrast, are those entities that can be legally liable for defamation.
What he doesn’t seem to understand is that without Section 230 Trump would not have access to the social media site he far too often uses as a weapon.
“Don’t be afraid of Covid,” Donald Trump continued. “Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago!”
After Trump’s arrival back to the White House, it didn’t take him long to take to Twitter to start spreading misinformation, once again.
In fact, Twitter censored his post, saying his Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about spreading misleading and potentially harmful information.
If you scroll Trump’s Twitter page, here’s what you will see:
The tweet in question by Trump said:
Unlike the flu, there are no proven antiviral treatments for COVID-19
Not to mention, people who contract the virus stand a far greater risk of death than those who get the flu, which are facts cited by the World Health Organization.
WHO also states the COVID-19 is 10 times deadlier than the H1N1 swine flu strain. The death rate for flu is about 0.1%. The current best estimate for the coronavirus is 1%.
