Donald Trump is constantly tweeting inflammatory things that, if it were anyone else tweeting them, would most likely get the user suspended or outright banned from the site–a fact that was just proven by an account called @SuspendThePres.
The account launched on May 29th as a “Twitter experiment,” according to its bio. “I tweet what the President tweets. Will Twitter suspend my account? Please report my rule violating tweets. Please share this experiment.”
This account will tweet what the President tweets. Let’s see if it gets suspended for violating twitters TOS. Follow along with this social experiment. Report any tweets that violate the rules. Thank you.
— Will they suspend me? (@SuspendThePres) May 30, 2020
SuspendThePres tweeted everything Donald Trump tweeted. It only took three days for Twitter issue a 12-hour suspension. Unsurprisingly, the offending tweet was the same one that got Trump his first-ever flagging on the site for “glorifying violence.”
….These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 29, 2020
Experiment Update – Well it finally happened. Took longer than expected. 12 hour suspension and had to delete the offending tweet. Here’s the screenshots @suspendthepres. Will post to the account when suspension is lifted. pic.twitter.com/wvKV9HDKBn
— Bizarre Lazar (@BizarreLazar) June 1, 2020
SuspendThePres was informed that the tweet violated Twitter’s terms, which prohibits “content that condones or celebrates acts of violence that could promote imitation of the act.” You would think that a tweet from the president would be more at risk of promoting imitation than a bot account, but here we are.
The account’s creator, who tweets under the handle @BizarreLazar, says he understands this is “a very difficult space to navigate” and that he doesn’t necessarily “think Twitter is right or wrong in how they are approaching the subject.”
On the one hand, Trump should be held to the same community standards as everyone else on the site. But there is an argument to be made that, as @BizarreLazar writes, “you have accounts of such importance historically speaking that to block or otherwise suspend would be an even bigger problem.” If a world leader is using Twitter to announce policies and to make threats, how do you hide that from the world?
There aren’t any easy answers here, just a lot of terrible.
@SuspendthePres is already back from its suspension and continuing on with the experiment.
#NewProfilePic pic.twitter.com/eJHKxRJ5yQ
— Will they suspend me? (@SuspendThePres) June 2, 2020
(image: Alex Wong/Getty Images)
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