Does Donald Trump violate Twitter’s policies? And wouldn’t he have to be blocked for that? The Twitter account addresses these questions @SuspendThePres to. The profile is like a copy of Donald Trump’s account: @SuspendThePres has posted the same tweets as the President since May 30 – and was blocked for the first time in less than three days.
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“It wasn’t necessarily about proving something, but simply about seeing what would happen,” wrote the operator of the account at the request of SPIEGEL: “I didn’t want to answer anyone, I just wanted to ask the question.” The administrator, who is personally under @BizarreLazar tweets, doesn’t reveal much, just that he’s a US citizen. The experiment should be in the foreground.
The very first copied tweet made trouble. Like Trump, @SuspendThePres had tweeted in connection with the Black Lives Matter protests from “thugs” that commemorated the deceased George Floyds dishonored. It said: “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” (“When the looting begins, the shooting begins.) This is a historically charged quote. In 1967, the Miami police chief at the time announced a tough crackdown on the black population.
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But during the tweet on Trump’s official profile with only one Warning about glorification of violence the account @SuspendThePres was blocked for the same tweet. Twitter argued that because the tweet came from Trump, it was in the public interest and therefore remained available on his profile. @SuspendThePres had to delete it, the account was activated again after twelve hours.
Twitter’s double standards
The experiment has already brought some insights, @SuspendThePres writes to SPIEGEL: “Above all, that Twitter does indeed believe that the language of the president violates the guidelines in this case, and that there is a very real double standard regarding acceptable behavior between normal users and world leaders. “
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When asked, @SuspendThePres does not want to decide how he rates Twitter’s behavior. “Twitter and social media in general have been put in an unprecedented position. It’s a really difficult space to navigate,” the operator writes. Everyone is doing what “they think is best for their users, their platform and their business.”
Snapchat Trump’s tweets are no longer promoting. Twitter provides the posts with warnings or fact checks. Facebook against it resiststo act against Trump’s posts. “Apart from that, I believe that they all still have a long way to go and that they have to make some very difficult decisions,” said @SuspendThePres.
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The concrete reason for the experiment is Trumps Social media decree, which is intended to soften the liability protection of companies such as Twitter and Facebook. This could regulate social media corporations more strictly by the authorities. However, experts doubt that the decision is legally valid and will have real consequences.
The second lock could be imminent
Nevertheless @SuspendThePres wants to continue the experiment, also with future governments and other heads of state and government. “As a free society, we should do what we can to hold them and their platforms accountable. It’s my way of taking on a small part of that responsibility.” If the experiment takes too much time, a conclusion could be drawn in the end.
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For now, however, it continues. Trump has just tweeted a conspiracy theory according to which one 75-year-old protester injured by police officers an “Antifa provocateur” in Buffalo. The operator of @SuspendThePres now expects his second lock.
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