On Friday afternoon, President Trump fed into the right-wing’s imaginary persecution complex when he took to Twitter to complain about the “unfair” treatment of far-right wing personalities and white nationalist propagandists in the wake of this week’s well-deserved and long-awaited bans handed down by Facebook and Twitter.
I am continuing to monitor the censorship of AMERICAN CITIZENS on social media platforms. This is the United States of America — and we have what’s known as FREEDOM OF SPEECH! We are monitoring and watching, closely!!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 3, 2019
So surprised to see Conservative thinkers like James Woods banned from Twitter, and Paul Watson banned from Facebook! https://t.co/eHX3Z5CMXb
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 3, 2019
Under enormous pressure from the public after the recent spate of right-wing terrorist attacks, the most prominent of which included manifestos that specifically cited certain white nationalist propagandists as having inspired their heinous crimes, Facebook banned the following racists and anti-Semites from their platform:
- Alex Jones, notorious Sandy Hook truther, gay frog enthusiast, and founder of conspiracy website InfoWars
- Laura Loomer, professional Islamophobe and self-declared “journalist” who has managed to get herself banned from a host of companies, including Uber and PayPal, for her constant displays of public racism
- Paul “Prison Planet” Joseph Watson, a white supremacist and editor at InfoWars
- Paul Nehlen, neo-Nazi Republican candidate for Congress
- Milo Yiannopolis, former InfoWars personality, white supremacist, and pedophilia apologist
- Louis Farrakhan, former civil rights leader turned anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist and grifter
Actor James Woods — hardly a “conservative thinker” by any stretch of the imagination — was also handed a ban from Twitter for threatening the “deep state” with hanging.
Unsurprisingly, the MAGA chuds have been soiling their diapers about this all week, claiming that the big tech companies are part of a vast conspiracy to censor the apparently rich and diverse intellectual discourse taking place in right-wing social media circles when in reality they’re just taking long-overdue steps to curb the propagation of dangerous conspiracy theories and open hate speech by some of the absolute dumbest people to ever pick up a keyboard.
No wonder the president is up in arms about this.