Vice President Mike Pence has not ruled out the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment.
US President Donald Trump said that he will both talk to other social media platforms as well as look at building his own social media platform. His announcement comes after Twitter permanently banned him citing “risk of further incitement of violence” on Friday, two days after Trump’s supporters stormed the US Capitol.
Google, Apple, and now Amazon have suspended Parler from their app store or web hosting service, stating that the social networking service has not taken enough measures to prevent the spread of posts encouraging violence. Parler is a social media platform that is particularly popular with Trump supporters.
Amidst the ban from social media platforms and heavy criticism from the opposition and other political figures, a report in CNN stated that US Vice President Mike Pence has not ruled out an effort to invoke the 25th Amendment. The 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution states that the vice president becomes the president if the president dies, resigns, or is removed from the office on account of being incapable.
Trump has used social media to mobilize and galvanize his followers, both political and ideological. In the run-up to his first campaign in 2016, Trump successfully used powerful hashtags to bring together ideas and narratives on pertinent subjects ranging from his opponent Hillary Clinton, whom he repeatedly called a liar, to his idea of making America great again. Through his tenure, Trump’s Twitter narratives have seemed divisive to many observers because of his deft targeting of faithful supporters, audiences ranging from the far right to Americans disgruntled with the prevailing systems in Washington.
Observers such as Obama and Biden stated that the violence at the Capitol on Wednesday should not come as a surprise. It is widely speculated that Trump’s social media literature may have instigated the stunning turn of events at the Capitol building and elsewhere.
As a successful and wealthy businessperson, Trump may not find it impossible to promote and even fund an equivalent media platform that could attract his millions of Parler and Twitter followers.
Following the Twitter ban, Trump started tweeting through his official @POTUS account where he accused Twitter of conspiring with his political enemies to “silence” him.
“Twitter has gone further and further in banning free speech, and tonight, Twitter employees have coordinated with the Democrats and the Radical Left in removing my account from their platform, to silence me — and YOU, the 75,000,000 great patriots who voted for me,” Trump stated in a series of tweets from the @POTUS account.
Trump hinted at creating a new platform through another tweet in the series that read: “Twitter may be a private company, but without the government’s gift of Section 230, they would not exist for long. I predicted this would happen. We have been negotiating with various other sites and we have a big announce soon, while we also look at the possibilities of building out own platform in the near future. We will not be SILENCE.!”
Twitter deleted his tweets later.
Chief Technology Officer Parag Aggarwal retweeted the Twitter post that stated if Trump continues to break the platform’s policies then his account will be permanently suspended. After the suspension on Friday, he retweeted the post containing the explanatory blog on the suspension.
Legal, Policy, and Trust & Safety Lead at Twitter Vijaya Gadde, who, along with her team, writes and enforces rules for users using the platform, also announcing Trump’s permanent suspension.
Facebook and Instagram have suspended Trump’s account indefinitely. YouTube removed numerous videos from his rally where he addressed his supporters.
