Twitter Ban Kept Trump From Promoting Antifa Lies

Media Matters reports:

Imagine this. As law enforcement tries to secure the Capitol following a pro-Trump insurrection by rioters bent on stopping the peaceful transition of power — some of whom appeared driven by a desire to murder the vice president and members of Congress — President Donald Trump publicly blames antifa activists after seeing that baseless claim floated on his television. It would have been a disaster for the notion of a shared reality, powering a conspiracy theory to horrific heights.

We were perilously close to that poisonous scenario coming to pass. Twitter’s decision to lock the president out of his account on the night of the January 6 riot is all that appears to have prevented it. Trump reportedly told House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) during a Monday phone call that “antifa people” were responsible for the storming of the Capitol, according to an Axios report.

Read the full article. As you’ll see, many of Trump’s favorite news outlets have been pushing the antifa lies.

Twitter’s move to suspend Trump, which it later made permanent, was late and imperfect, but it is nonetheless already paying dividends for the information ecosystem. https://t.co/eNd8Me48CO

— Media Matters (@mmfa) January 12, 2021