Better four years late than never?
https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1347684877634838528
I've studied online harassment for years and Trump's Twitter account was the Sauron's Eye of online abuse, an unending fountain of incitement that could have literally pushed us to the brink of war.
I wrote in an academic paper, way back in 2012, that the notion of online speech being unreal, that it's "just words" or "just the internet" was causing a lot of harm and that things would get worse. Trump became the Ur textual example of how bad it could be.
I joked "better four years late than never" but that hotline to his id has been an unending diarrhoeic spray of racism for the last decade. And it only got worse. As I said: if you appease for fear of provoking, it becomes a provocation.
And that is a lesson for Capitol Hill right now as they wring their hands about "inflaming his supporters" or what have you. That approach *led to the insurrection*--you have nothing more to lose and everything to gain by taking a strong stand. By setting boundaries.
Twitter is acting far, far too late here, but denying Trump his twitter is overdue. He has, for the last four years, had unique power to do harm with that platform. Which, perversely, became an excuse to *preserve* it for him!
There is, of course, a risk he'll flee to a Twitter clone. But these communities can be broken up and have their audiences reduced dramatically--which are the necessary next steps to ensuring that the far right extremists cannot organise effectively.
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