FEATURE: Political figures who have been suspended on Twitter for spreading fake news or inciting violence

Former US President Donald Trump’s Twitter account was permanently suspended in January for inciting violence after he referred to the people who stormed the Capitol in protest against his electoral defeat last November as “patriots”.

PRETORIA, July 21 (ANA)- Ever since the start of his political life, Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema has not shied away from controversy, offending a wide range of people from women’s rights groups, to white farmers, and sometimes his own followers.

Malema can often be blunt, and his choice of words has landed in him in trouble several times. In 2010 and 2011, he was found guilty of using hate speech, first for comments he made about the late Fezekile (Khwezi) Kuzwayo who accused former president Jacob Zuma of rape. Malema said Khwezi had a “nice time” because she did not leave immediately after the alleged incident. People Opposed to Women Abuse (Powa) took him to the Equality Court over the comment and he was fined R50,000. Malema was also fined for singing the controversial “Kill the Boer” struggle song.

This month, Malema’s Twitter account was suspended after the social media network found he had violated its rules in his posts about the rampant looting and riots in the KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng provinces.

As part of the temporary limitations, Malema’s account was suspended from sending direct messages to his followers. He was also prohibited from tweeting, retweeting, following accounts and liking posts. The limited features on Malema’s account were applicable for 11 hours.

United States

Former US president Donald Trump is also known for his outlandish statements and often divisive tweets.

In 2016 during his first presidential campaign, Trump boasted that his support would not decline even if he shot someone in the middle of a New York avenue, CNN reported.

“I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters,” Trump reportedly said.

His loose tongue — or in this case fingers — finally caught up with him this January, when his Twitter account was permanently suspended for inciting violence after he called the people who stormed the US Capitol in protests against his election defeat in November “patriots”.

According to the BBC, the social media company also suspended an account which was sharing posts from Trump’s new communications platform titled “From the Desk of Donald J Trump”.

The British broadcaster cited Twitter’s spokesperson as saying the account, @DJTDesk, violated the ban evasion policy by sharing content affiliated with a suspended account.

On 22 March 2018, while still president, Trump posted a strange tweet about a fight with current US President Joe Biden, Sky news reported.

“Crazy Joe Biden is trying to act like a tough guy. Actually, he is weak, both mentally and physically, and yet he threatens me, for the second time, with physical assault. He doesn’t know me, but he would go down fast and hard, crying all the way. Don’t threaten people Joe!”

Still in the US, on Tuesday Twitter suspended Republican lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene for 12 hours after she posted misleading information about the coronavirus, the BBC reported.

Taylor Greene had on Monday posted that vaccines should not be required, and that Covid-19 was not dangerous for people aged under 65 who were not obese.

The tweets have since been taken down.

After her account was reinstated, she posted that she would address the issue in a media briefing.

“These Big Tech companies are doing the bidding of the Biden regime to restrict our voices and prevent the spread of any message that isn’t state-approved,” the New York Times quoted her as saying.

United Kingdom

Last year October, the House of Commons Twitter account was banned from tweeting the results of votes after members of parliament complained it was breaking impartiality rules when one tweet went viral, the Guardian UK reported.

It said the Commons account had been used to inform the public about procedures and policies of the House, share information about upcoming events and debates, and post the outcome of divisions.

Nigeria

In early June, the Nigerian government indefinitely banned Twitter from operating in its country after the social media giant deleted tweets from President Muhammadu Buhari.

According to the Africa Report, Buhari in his tweets threatened to deal with those causing trouble in the West African country in “the language they understand”. He spoke about the experience with the civil war where millions of Nigerians were killed.

Since Twitter was blocked, people in Nigeria have been unable to access the social media platform without using circumvention tools such as Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), rights group Access Now said.

Although Twitter attempts to clamp down on harmful messages from influential politicians, news channel Al Jazeera says the social media network does not have the capacity to monitor and remove harmful speech spread by ordinary citizens and groups.

Instead, people are forced to report the offending posts on their own initiative.

“While they achieve some success, often with the help of independent groups specialising in such work, they do not have the capacity to monitor and report all such content by themselves. Moreover, these companies rarely respond to reports of abuse promptly, and at times completely ignore complaints,” Al Jazeera said.

– African News Agency (ANA), Editing by Stella Mapenzauswa