Social media news: Twitter locks Trump’s account, Facebook removes Trump post, bans QAnon
Posted by Jimmy Cooper / October 7, 2020Twitter has locked Donald Trump’s account after he shared the address of a New York Post columnist.
Earlier this year, Twitter waged a war against misinformation––or, against the president––by attaching another label to the President’s tweets. This time, Trump tweeted out a doctored video, which Twitter labeled as manipulated. The war started when Trump complained about Twitter, and then he signed an executive order targeting social media, which, according to the New York Times, might actually backfire on him. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey warned that the company would continue to fact check any information related to elections.
Meanwhile, in Facebook-land, the platform has removed a Trump post stating that the flu is more dangerous than COVID. They are also taking action to stop the spread of the QAnon conspiracy theory by banning it on the platform. Hopefully this means that QAnon won’t impact the election.
Despite the tremendous pressure from inside and outside the company, Facebook has so far refused to change its policy on (not) fact-checking political ads. Earlier this year, a series of advertisers have added their weight to the pressure campaign: Patagonia, North Face, REI, and Ben & Jerry. Now, Verizon is pulling their money out. The more traditionally “hippie” companies like Ben & Jerries are no surprise, but Verizon isn’t generally known for its political stances, so this could be huge.
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