Twitter’s Trump Ban: The Information’s Tech Briefing

Big tech took two daring steps today to deal with Trump and right-wing misinformation—Twitter banned Donald Trump’s account permanently, including deleting all his past tweets. That’s a ground-shaking move in itself. Separately, BuzzFeed reported that Apple has threatened to ban Parler, the social media site popular with conservatives, from the App Store unless it comes up with a content moderation plan within 24 hours. Google reportedly also suspended Parler.

The tech firms appear to feel they have little choice, given Wednesday’s Trump-inspired violent rampage at the Capitol, to take action they might previously have shied away from. Certainly, few Republicans would seem likely to defend Trump right now. One who might, Josh Hawley, has been somewhat neutered by his own involvement in Trump’s election subversion effort.