Why Trump’s Twitter account should be suspended – U.S. presidential aspirant
http://www.hrlnews.com/2019/10/why-trumps-twitter-account-should-be.html
U.S. senator, Kamala Harris, seized the Democratic presidential
debate on Tuesday night to advance her proposal for the suspension of
President Donald Trump’s Twitter account.
Appearing alongside 11 other aspirants in the live television debate,
Harris accused Trump of abusing the platform where he has over 65
million followers.
“Here we have Donald Trump, who has 65 million Twitter followers, and
is using that platform as the President of the United States to openly
intimidate witnesses, to threaten witnesses and obstruct justice.
“He and his account should be taken down,’’ she said, adding that the
Aug. 3 mass shooter in El Paso, Texas, was inspired by Trump’s hate
tweet against Latinos.
As a matter of corporate responsibility, she argued, “Twitter should
be held accountable, and made to take down that site; it is a matter of
safety and corporate accountability’’.
The California senator was responding to a question on whether it was
necessary to break up big tech companies like Facebook and Twitter over
their use for election interference by foreign interests.
She said she was surprised that her rival, Sen. Elizabeth Warren from
Massachusetts, opposed her idea of what should be the rules around
corporate responsibility.
Harris said it was “grave injustice’’ for the social media accounts
of ordinary people to be suspended over abuse, but those of powerful
individuals like Trump were spared.
Warren responded saying, “I don’t just want to push Donald Trump off
Twitter. I want to push him out of the White House. That’s our job.”
Harris disagreed, urging her to back the campaign for the president’s Twitter account to be shut down.
Also speaking on the subject, entrepreneur and philanthropist, Andrew
Yang, said breaking up the tech companies would not solve the problem,
and suggested the use of “21st century solutions’’.
Sen. Cory Booker (New Jersey), said American democracy was in
“massive crisis’’ with the way the big tech companies were being used
not only in anti-competitive practices but also in undermining the
country’s democracy.
Booker said such practices used in the 2016 presidential election had
not been corrected, and as president he would pursue a reform in
America’s anti-trust laws.
The Russian government is accused of creating thousands of social
media accounts to harm the campaign of the Democratic candidate, Hillary
Clinton, in favour of Trump during the 2016 election.
This has triggered calls for the unbundling of the big tech companies to guard against their use in election interference.
However, Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, warned that splitting up the
companies would boost election interference, because they would not be
able to work together to fight it.