WASHINGTON: US social media platforms’ sharply contrasting reactions to US President Donald Trump’s messages of violent content and those of Hong Kong rioters have fully exposed their double standards when they spare no efforts to criticize other nations’ “violations of free speech” while taking drastic moves to restrict the speech of their own incumbent president, Chinese observers said.
Using the excuse of the potential risk of further incitement of violence, social media platform Twitter announced Friday the permanent suspension of Trump’s account.
Google and Apple followed suit. Shortly after Twitter announced that it would suspend Trump’s account, Google said that it was removing Parler, a conservative social media app, from its Play Store.
Google said the app was suspended until the developers committed to a moderation and enforcement policy that could handle objectionable content on the platform.
Late Saturday, Apple removed Parler from the App Store.
“We have always supported diverse points of view being represented on the App Store, but there is no place on our platform for threats of violence and illegal activity,” Apple said in a statement provided to weekly magazine Variety.
Twitter also removed the accounts of Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser who has received a presidential pardon, and pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, for breaching policies that ban users from engaging in “coordinated activity” that results in online and real-world harm.
Twitter and Facebook failed to reply to the Global Times as of press time.
The moves are totally in sharp contrast to these platforms’ reactions to violent riots in Hong Kong in 2019, which dragged the city into chaos lasting about one year and inflicted huge financial losses.
In addition to allowing speeches that spread and stirred violence, foreign social platforms Facebook, Twitter and Telegram have been popular tools for Hong Kong rioters to call for illegal assemblies and to doxx police officers.
Posts promoting Hong Kong secession are rife on these platforms, the Global Times previously learned from the Hong Kong police.
– The Daily Mail-Global Times News exchange item
