After Twitter suspended President Trump for his repeated violations of the company's terms of service, the Media Research Center couldn't wait to portray Trump as an innocent victim -- and Twitter as irredeemably evil.
As ConWebWatch has demonstrated, the Media Research Center has gotten a lot of mileage out of pushing the victim narrative regarding social media -- that conservatives are solely and uniquely "censored" by "Big Tech" merely for the sin of being conservatives -- and it's not about to let a little thing like a Republican-instigated riot at the Capitol get in the way.
Alexander Hall went for full victimization in a Jan. 6 post ridiculously headlined "Twitter Suspends Trump As He Calls for ‘Peace’":
President Donald Trump’s call for order was restricted by Twitter, as chaos erupted in the nation’s capital.
Rioters stormed the capital on January 6 and Trump responded with a short video posted to Twitter that called for peace and an end to the protest. He assured his supporters, “I know your pain. I know your hurt,” but told them “you have to go home now. We have to have peace.” President Trump also assured his supporters that he agrees the election was “fraudulent,” but warned “we can’t play into the hands of these people.” The tweet was promptly labeled with a warning: “This claim of election fraud is disputed, and this Tweet can’t be replied to, Retweeted, or liked due to a risk of violence.”
The “risk of violence” claim was especially bizarre since Trump made it clear he was calling for “peace” and urging the protesters go home.
Hall seems to have missed the part where Trump instigated the riot he was supposedly trying to defuse. He also censored the part of Trump's video where he encouraged the rioters by saying, "We love you. You're very special," and falsely claimed that "We had an election that was stolen from us." Instead, he whined that "Twitter has targeted Trump with more than a year of unprecedented restriction of his tweets. Trump and his campaign have been censored by Twitter 625 times, Twitter heavily restricted this post in kind" -- failing, as the MRC usually does, to explain why Twitter, a private company, has no right to enforce its terms of service on all of its customers.
As more social media outlets cracked down on Trump, Hall complained the next day, continuing to falsely frame the issue as Trump being "censored" for calling for peace:
Even as President Donald Trump called for peace, social media companies purged posts and his video and restricted his accounts, with at least two platforms removing his presence indefinitely.
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg declared in a Facebook post that the block on Trump’s accounts on Facebook and Instagram would be extended indefinitely, as “We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great.” Zuckerberg specified: “[W]e are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete.”
This indefinite purge of Trump follows multiple Big Tech platforms cracking down on Trump’s call for peace amid the D.C. chaos, which saw rioters storm the U.S. Capitol building.
Again, Hall refused to report the full content of Trump's video and history of incitement that came before the "peace" call.
Meanwhile, as the Trump-inspired riot was going down on Jan. 6, the MRC's Kayla Sargent was grumbling that "The left’s hatred of President Donald Trump truly knows no bounds. Recode co-founder and New York Times contributor Kara Swisher is rejoicing in her assumption that Trump will be removed from Twitter."She grumbled further on Jan. 8:
The left is absolutely desperate for Twitter to ban President Donald Trump.
At least 120 leftists on Twitter have called for Trump to be permanently removed from the platform following the Jan. 6 unrest at the U.S. Capitol Building. The list includes figures in media, Big Tech and leftist nonprofits.
Sargent concluded, "Regardless of the violence that took place, restricting the speech of a sitting U.S. president certainly should not be the solution." Even if that sitting U.S. president inspired said violence? Sargent is silent on that question.
Meanwhile, Curtis Houck reinforced the victim narrative -- and his raging case of CNN Derangement Syndrome -- by whining on Jan. 8: "Mark it down, NewsBusters readers: January 8, 2021 will go down as one of the greatest days in the lives of more than a few CNN charlatans due to the massive, unprecedented crackdown on American free speech, including Twitter’s permanent banning of President Trump."
Even as President Donald Trump called for peace, social media companies purged posts and his video and restricted his accounts, with at least two platforms removing his presence indefinitely.
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg declared in a Facebook post that the block on Trump’s accounts on Facebook and Instagram would be extended indefinitely, as “We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great.” Zuckerberg specified: “[W]e are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete.”
This indefinite purge of Trump follows multiple Big Tech platforms cracking down on Trump’s call for peace amid the D.C. chaos, which saw rioters storm the U.S. Capitol building.
[...]
Rioters stormed the capital on Jan. 6 and Trump responded with a short video posted to Twitter that called for peace and an end to the protest. He assured his supporters, “I know your pain. I know your hurt,” but he told them, “you have to go home now. We have to have peace.” President Trump also assured his supporters that he agrees the election was “fraudulent,” but warned: “we can’t play into the hands of these people.” The tweet was promptly labeled with a warning: “This claim of election fraud is disputed, and this Tweet can’t be replied to, Retweeted, or liked due to a risk of violence.”
The “risk of violence” claim was especially bizarre since Trump made it clear he was calling for “peace” and urging the protesters go home.
Hall again censored the fact that Trump also told the rioters in that video, "We love you. You're very special." And as became clear in subsequent reporting, Trump did nothing while the riot was actually going on, preferring to watch it unfold on TV, and the riot was nearly over by the time Trump released that video.
As other social media outlets shut Trump down, Hall persisted in lying about Trump and "peace":
The internet’s most powerful platforms appear to have blamed President Donald Trump for riots that occurred at the U.S. Capitol building, even as he called for an end to civil unrest.
Many of the internet’s biggest tech platforms launched varied but simultaneous attacks on the sitting president. Twitter locked Trump’s account for 12 hours and “included the removal of three tweets and a warning that Trump could be subject to a permanent suspension” if he continues to contest the election's legitimacy, The Washington Post reported. Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg declared in a Facebook post that the block on Trump’s accounts on Facebook and Instagram would be extended indefinitely. “We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great,” he said. Zuckerberg specified: “[W]e are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete.” Other tech platforms including Twitter, Snapchat, Reddit, TikTok and even Shopify have followed suit in blaming the sitting president for the actions of the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, even as he made a call for “peace.”
[...]
This multi-pronged deplatforming of Trump occurred as high ranking Democrats and former First Lady Michelle Obama called for a crackdown on the president and his supporters. “They bear major responsibility for ignoring repeated red flags and demands for fixes,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) according to the Washington Post, Blumenthal condemned Big Tech companies for refusing to crack down “until well after there was blood and glass in the halls of the Capitol.”
It speaks volumes that Michelle Obama, like many others, has specifically singled out Big Tech as the institution of choice to crush conservative dissent.
Hall apparently believes inciting a riot at the U.S. Capitol is acceptable "conservative dissent."
At this point, it became time for the MRC to add the whataboutism card to the "peace" mix. A Jan. 8 post by Sargent declared:
Twitter doesn’t hold foreign government accounts to the same standard as President Donald Trump, but the platform has reached a new low.
Twitter patted itself on the back after suspending Trump for 12 hours for posting a video in which he called for “peace” amid the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol building. But it has ignored blatant pro-genocide propaganda from the communist Chinese government.
This came despite her boss, MRC executive Tim Graham, denouncing the playing of whataboutism regarding the riots. Needless to say, the MRC will never give Twitter credit for all the leftist and communist regime-related accounts it does suspend.
When Twitter chose to ban Trump permanently, Hall pushed both lame narratives along with a healthy dose of the victim card:
Twitter has finally lost it. The social media site purged President Donald Trump, going against its own rules. This from a site that has allowed foreign dictators and even pro-genocide propaganda. But it won’t allow a sitting U.S. president to post.
“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” Twitter announced on Jan. 8. Twitter Safety explained that “we made it clear on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter Rules would potentially result in this very course of action,” but did not elaborate on the offending tweet(s).
“The suspension amounts to a ban: Trump can no longer access his account and his tweets and profile picture have been deleted. Trump had 88.7 million followers prior to his suspension,” CNBC reported.
Many of the internet’s biggest tech platforms launched simultaneous attacks on the president. Twitter had initially locked Trump’s account for 12 hours and “included the removal of three tweets and a warning that Trump could be subject to a permanent suspension” if he continues to contest the election's legitimacy, The Washington Post reported.
[...]
Other tech platforms including Twitter, Snapchat, Reddit, TikTok and even Shopify followed suit in blaming the sitting president for the actions of the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, even as he made a call for “peace.”
It's so cute how Hall is playing dumb here, pretending he doesn't know that Trump consistently violates Twitter's terms of service as he complains that Twitter "did not elaborate on the offending tweet(s)" that led to his ban. And as expected, neither Hall nor Sargent explain why Twitter must publish whatever Trump says even though, as a private business, it has rights to free association and terms of service that it enforces on other people.
Even though Trump and other right-wingers promoting false narratives that the election was stolen was the driving force behind the Capitol riot, Hall got mad that Twitter would clamp down on distribution of such claims:
Twitter unveiled an updated Civic Integrity Policy in January, clarifying the platform’s ironfisted policy against questioning elections.
Twitter has been one of Big Tech’s most infamous innovators when it comes to censoring genuine concerns about elections. “The public conversation occurring on Twitter is never more important than during elections and other civic events,” Twitter declared in a January policy update. Twitter claimed: “Any attempts to undermine the integrity of our service is antithetical to our fundamental rights and undermines the core tenets of freedom of expression,” suggesting absurdly that freedom of expression is “the value upon which our company is based.”
That's right -- Hall claimed that spreading lies about the election was just an expression of "genuine concerns."
Joseph Vazquez, meanwhile, gloated over Twitter losing $5 billion in market value since the riots and bizarrely framed trying to shut down incitements to riot as being "woke":
Go woke, or go broke? Orwellian platform Twitter has now experienced the effects of that principle for the draconian anti-free speech measures it has wielded lately.
Yahoo! News reported that Twitter shares dive-bombed more “than 10% on Monday” following its decision to ban President Donald Trump from its site after the Capitol Hill riot Jan. 6. Specifically, the liberal outlet noted that “Shortly after market open Monday, the stock dropped as much as 12.3% to reach as low as $45.17 per share.”
Business Insider reported the real kicker: Twitter’s stock price loss erased a jaw-dropping “$5 billion from its market capitalization.” Ouch. [Emphasis added.]
Sargent returned to lash out at Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's defense of banning Trump from his website, complaining that he was taking "his self-assumed position as the arbiter of truth on the platform" -- as if a company's CEO has no voice in the company he runs -- and lamented: Trump is still able to circumvent the Twitter ban to some extent, at least for now, by using the @whitehouse and @POTUS accounts. As long as he doesn’t write anything Twitter doesn’t like."
Like, you know, fomenting insurrection against the government because he falsely claims to have really won the election. But Sargent and Hall probably believe him.
