TBD | Deplatforming the President
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3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 8 January 2021
⏱️ 17 minutes
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Summary
This week, in the wake of violent protests at the Capitol, the social media platforms took unprecedented steps to rein in the president. Facebook banned his account at least through Inauguration Day. Twitter removed tweets and locked his account for 12 hours. Will these measures really make a difference? And how is it that two CEOs came to have so much power over the president’s reach?
Guest:
Danielle Citron, professor at UVA Law School and vice president of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative
Host
Lizzie O’Leary
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, before we get into this episode, I want to let you know that this show was recorded late Thursday morning about a fast-moving news event. So it's possible that some things may have changed by the time you listen. Also, there's some bad words in this episode. So if you're listening with kids, heads up. |
| 0:22.0 | There were a lot of tweets, a lot of posts in advance of this. |
| 0:26.3 | There was a lot of online chatter on the part of people who took part in this. |
| 0:31.6 | Were you expecting to see what we saw? |
| 0:35.6 | I knew something terrible was going to happen when you had the president |
| 0:39.1 | invite people to the Capitol to protest. That's Danielle Citron. She's a law professor at the |
| 0:45.1 | University of Virginia who writes about online speech and privacy. He wasn't saying really let's |
| 0:50.1 | protest. He said, come, we will take her country back. And so it was very clear he was |
| 0:54.6 | inciting people who need very little incitement. But even though this is what Danielle studies, |
| 0:59.7 | and she knew the Trump supporters were talking on social media about going to D.C., she thought, |
| 1:06.0 | hey, it'll be okay. Things won't get that bad. And then Wednesday turned violent. My kids, one of them, |
| 1:14.3 | called me and said, this is really bad mom. What is going on? I'm scared. And I just said, |
| 1:22.3 | okay, honey, I'm with you. Then I sent off my tweet to Jack to say, he's incited violence, proofs in the pudding, like enough's enough, take him off Twitter. |
| 1:34.7 | Lots of people tweet at Jack, as in Jack Dorsey, Twitter's CEO. |
| 1:39.7 | They tweeted him to complain about the company's policies, especially when it comes to violence or harassment or President Trump. |
| 1:47.6 | But Danielle is not just anybody. |
| 1:50.0 | Twitter listens to her. |
| 1:51.7 | She's been advising them for more than a decade. |
| 1:54.9 | And this week is quite clearly not just any week. |
| 2:00.0 | For the first time, social media platforms are, however, briefly, banning the president and his rhetoric. |
| 2:08.0 | Today on the show, why the platforms are finally acting, why they didn't before, and whether it's just too late. |
| 2:15.6 | I'm Lizzie O'Leary, and this is What Next TBD, a show about technology, power, and how the future |
... |
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