Nina Jankowicz was tapped to head the Biden administration's new Disinformation Governance Board but resigned after being deluged with online threats. Her new book is How to Be a Woman Online.
BuzzFeed News; Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP via Getty Images
The supporters of President Donald Trump who rioted in the US Capitol building on Wednesday had been openly planning for weeks on both mainstream social media and the pro-Trump internet. On forums like TheDonald, a niche website formed after Reddit banned the subreddit of the same name, they promised violence against lawmakers, police, and journalists if Congress did not reject the results of the 2020 election.
In one interaction four days ago, a person on TheDonald asked, “What if Congress ignores the evidence?”
“Storm the Capitol,” said one reply, which received more than 500 upvotes.
It’s time to deplatform Trump
He incited a riot against Congress Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube should remove him
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As you no doubt already know, today, President Trump incited his followers to storm the US Capitol, where they disrupted the constitutionally mandated certification of the Electoral College ballots, affirming Joe Biden’s victory against him. Odds that his ongoing attempted coup will succeed remain low, but not impossible. And a bedrock belief that many of us have carried all our lives that American democracy will long outlast us has never been so shaken.
It’s time for Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to remove Trump.