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Trump’s Twitter suspension: Too little too late? 

It has been indicated that Twitter might consider reinstating his account should he delete provocative tweets that further false narratives and incite violence. 

“Without the tweets, I wouldn’t be here,” US President Donald Trump had told The Financial Times during an interview in 2017.  “I have over 100 million followers between Facebook, Twitter and Instagram…I don’t have to go to the fake media.” Fake media, in the president’s book, comprises the section of American press that incisively critiques and questions him. In social media, he — like several other public figures — found a platform to directly interact with his support base, a following that has only grown exponentially since the 2017 interview. Cut to 2021, the POTUS’ Twitter account — his most dependable ally where he has a following of more than 80 million — has been suspended, after rioters broke into the US Capitol. Trump has been accused of inciting violence, even going to the extent of calling the rioters ‘patriots’ for standing up ‘for the country’.  A video posted by him on Twitter shortly after the mob was pushed back by the police has him telling his supporters: “We love you. You’re very special.” Twitter’s decision to suspend Trump’s account follows the lead taken by Facebook and SnapChat after the Capitol riots. It has been indicated that Twitter might consider reinstating his account should he delete provocative tweets that further false narratives and incite violence.

It’s reassuring to see social media organisations finally heeding to the call of conscience. But could it possibly be a little too late, and even little too convenient to do so now when they should have acted long ago? The Capitol riots will remain an embarrassing chapter in American history, and what transpired there demands Trump’s disengagement from his hardcore followers. But if the president’s social media legacy is anything to go by, he had, unwittingly, presented several opportunities to Twitter to take a serious call on the contents of his tweet. The social networking platform was quick to flag his tweets that furthered the fiction of ‘rigging’ during last year’s presidential elections, but the president would be back tweeting in no time. The riots at the Capitol were culmination of a larger campaign, carried out largely on social media, to mobilise his already robust support base online. Twitter’s decision to suspend the president’s account has come much later in the day. It should have set more definite guidelines for heads of state and taken action for some racist and hateful tweets that became synonymous with his handle.

Trump without Twitter is fish without water. For much of the past four years, the president has stoked little fires that would later be extinguished by his aides. The current decision to suspend his Twitter account, while being necessary during a political sensitive time, coincides with a phase when he is on his way out of the White House. Nonetheless, it sets a whole new moral bar for social networking giants to free their respective platforms from the dangers of misinformation and harmful propaganda — even by heads of states. Will they hold others, who are still in office, to the same standard? As the cliche goes, time will tell.