It only took four years of violating the Terms of Service, but in January Twitter finally worked up the courage to ban then-President Donald Trump. Still, the one-time Tweeter-in-Chief has vowed to run for president in 2024, perhaps under the banner of a new Patriot Party. This has led many to speculate that Twitter would relax the ban if Trump returned to power, since they already showed cowardice an unwillingness to challenge him while he spoke for half the country. Well, bad news for all the “God bless you, sir!” reply-guys, because Twitter CFO Ned Segal has confirmed that the Orange Menace is gone for good.
“The way our policies work, when you’re removed from the platform, you’re removed from the platform,” Segal told CNBC’s Squawk Box, “whether you’re a commentator, you’re a CFO, or you are a former or current public official.”
The sticking point continues to be the January 6th Capitol insurrection, an unprecedented attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election. In the days leading up to the attack, Trump repeatedly made false claims that the election had been stolen, and urged his supporters to “fight like hell.” While Twitter was willing to look the other way when Trump threatened violence against political rivals and members of the media, they drew the line at an undemocratic coup.
“Remember, our policies are designed to make sure that people are not inciting violence,” Segal said, “and if anybody does that, we have to remove them from the service and our policies don’t allow people to come back.” Check out a clip from the interview below.
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Trump was also temporarily blocked from Facebook and Instagram, although those platforms are said to be considering allowing him back on. We give Twitter a hard time, but compared to their Big Tech peers, that little blue bird showed the closest thing to moral fiber. That’s one of the reasons satirist and tech critic Sacha Baron Cohen called Twitter’s Trump ban, “the most important moment in the history of social media.”
Social media companies aren’t the only ones trying to wash their hands of the ex-president. The film and television union SAG-AFTRA was taking steps to expel Trump, but Trump hurried to resign before they could do it. He’s now been permanently banned from the union.
“The way our policies work, when you’re removed from the platform, you’re removed from the platform whether you’re a commentator, you’re a CFO or you are a former or current public official,” says $TWTR CFO @nedsegal on if President Trump’s account could be restored. pic.twitter.com/ZZxascb9Rz
— Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) February 10, 2021
