Spokesperson Steffen Seibert agreed with Twitter’s decision to flag Trump’s tweets, as social network operators have to prevent their platforms from being “poisoned by hatred, by lies and by incitement to violence.” But he argued that banning Trump’s account was a step too far: Merkel joins a growing list of prominent European politicians who’ve criticized Twitter’s permaban of Trump’s personal account “due to the risk of further incitement of violence” following the deadly riots at the US Capitol building. [Read: Meet the 4 scale-ups using data to save the planet] French Finance Minister Bruno Le Mair warned that “regulation of the digital world cannot be done by the digital oligarchy,” while British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the move showed social media giants were now “taking editorial decisions:” Russian opposition leader Alexie Navalny called the Twitter suspension an “unacceptable act of censorship” that would be exploited by authoritarian regimes.
— Alexey Navalny (@navalny) January 9, 2021 Navalny suggested that Twitter create a transparent committee and appeals process for such decisions. But Merkel would prefer the US to follow Germany’s lead and strengthen the regulation of social media firms. social media
