In early January of 2021 following a historical presidential election, immensely popular social media platform Twitter decided to take a stand and ban current President Donald Trump from the platform. For anyone unfamiliar with Donald Trump’s presence on Twitter, this might have seemed like a drastic and unnecessary decision. However, for the years Mr. Trump sat in the presidential role, Twitter kept him on the platform due to the company’s belief that speech by world leaders is in the public interest, even if it breaks the rules. Throughout his term, his account had been filled with election conspiracies and COVID-19 misinformation that was seen by Twitter as dangerous and reckless information. These Tweets were shortly restricted after violating Twitter’s Civic Integrity Policy, and Mr. Trump was notified of his continuous community violations. In September with the election approaching and misinformation continuing to circulate, Twitter announced expanded efforts to fight misinformation at the time of the election.
This plan included removing or attaching a warning label to any false claims of election results and specifically mentioned taking action on any tweets, “inciting unlawful conduct to prevent a peaceful transfer of power or orderly succession”.
The final straw for Twitter’s safety and community guidelines came shortly after Mr. Trump tweeted out his encouraging words regarding the violent and destructive invasion of the U.S. Capitol that occurred earlier that week. He wrote numerous tweets, including videos, of the riot that occurred due to the unfavorable outcome of the election in the eyes of his followers. Initially, Mr. Trump’s account was put on a 12-hour ban, which was set to be released the following day. After the 12 hours passed, Mr. Trump began tweeting once again which was when Twitter executive Vijaya Gadde decided to call an emergency meeting with all of her 5,200 colleagues in an attempt to make the biggest decision in the platform’s history. Already having received threats, many employees were concerned with their safety when debating on how to proceed with this persistent issue. Less than 3 hours after the meeting, Mr. Trump was indefinitely banned from the platform. His supporting audience of over 88 million followers who echoed his false claims and dangerous information for the past four years had been taken away in an instant.
Shortly after, an uproar of comments flooded in, and in response, Twitter pointed users to read their lengthy blog post about the manner. In summary, the blog post stated that the tweets from account @realDonaldTrump incited violence and the account has been permanently suspended for violating Twitter policy and their public interest framework. The post also notes that throughout the years it has been made clear that public officials’ accounts are not above the platform’s rules, and they will continue to be transparent about their policies moving forward. The blog also includes a comprehensive analysis of their policy enforcement approach in the case of Mr. Trump, and clearly outlines what tweets violate their policy, and thoroughly states why.
After the blog post was released, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey took to the platform and spoke about the ban of the former president through a thread of 13 tweets on his personal account. Dorsey stated that the decision to ban Mr. Trump’s account was the right decision and that the contents of his tweets were a danger to a free and global internet. He emphasized that he did not feel pride in this decision and stated, “We faced an extraordinary and untenable circumstance, forcing us to focus all of our actions on public safety. Offline harm as a result of online speech is demonstrably real, and what drives our policy and enforcement above all”. Disabling Mr. Trump’s account was not a rash decision, rather a long time coming through the years of community violations. I believe Twitter issuing a comprehensive and clear blog post with the reasoning behind the ban was a great move of transparency and should be commended. CEO Jack Dorsey also did a great job of taking to his personal platform to put the issue to rest, while highlighting company values and ethical dilemmas present within Mr. Trump’s tweets. Although backlash was expected for banning a well-known political leader, I believe Twitter handled it very effectively with nothing to hide. The banter and backlash diminished through the weeks following, and I think Twitter’s reasoning and message was heard loud and clear from both sides of the political party. I believe that the number one most important thing when dealing with issues within digital leadership is transparency, and I believe Twitter nailed it during this crucial and historical time. Other digital leaders can learn that transparency is key within any situation of crisis and communication, and handle things with clarity while emphasizing a company’s core values.