Analysis: Big Tech is cracking down on Donald Trump, which gives him all the more reason to retreat from its platforms into his own digital ecosystem
While the conflict between social media platforms and the right have intensified in recent weeks, the underlying tensions have been building for years.Trump’s first campaign and the populist movement behind it rode to power by hijacking attention on mainstream media platforms, often in clever or outrageous ways.
But The Donald also participated in some of the most dangerous tendencies of right-wing internet populism: In 2016, The forum was instrumental in promoting “Pizzagate,” a false internet conspiracy theory about powerful pedophiles operating out of a a Washington pizzeria that inspired a North Carolina man armed with an assault rifle to storm the business.
Due in part to such incidents, the president’s most fervent supporters, as well as other far-right extremists associated with Trump’s brand of populism, have long presented a dilemma to social media companies.
Calls for a crackdown first gained widespread traction after an August 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, turned deadly. National outrage prompted social media platforms, payment processors and web hosts to crack down on white nationalism, a move that was largely successful inthe visibility and influence of many of the alt-right’s most notorious figures, such as Richard Spencer.
The tightening vice has prompted some on the far right to create or migrate to online platforms more amenable to their politics.
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