The danger of deplatforming Trump
Jan 17,2021 - Last updated at Jan 17,2021
LONDON Social-media platforms are finally turning on Donald Trump. Since the US president incited a violent attack on the Capitol on January 6 that left five people dead, platforms ranging from Twitter (long his preferred megaphone) to Shopify (on which he sold merchandise) have banned him. And Parler the unmoderated platform that has become the new darling of the far-right, and Trump’s likely refuge, has temporarily shut down after Amazon booted the site from its web-hosting services.
Efforts to remove Trump’s digital platform have been widely praised as crucial to mitigating “the risk of further incitement of violence”, asTwitter’s statement put it. But will excluding Trump from social media really make America safer? Recent psychological research suggests that the answer is no. After all, narcissists do not respond well to social exclusion.