- Hundreds of Twitter employees wrote a letter calling upon CEO Jack Dorsey and other top executives to permanently suspend President Trump following Wednesday’s US Capitol siege, according to a Washington Post report.
- “Despite our efforts to serve the public conversation, as Trump’s megaphone, we helped fuel the deadly events of January 6th,” reads the letter.
- The call-to-action comes as Twitter and other internet platforms face criticism for their role in Wednesday’s attack.
- Twitter, Facebook, and other firms have cracked down on Trump’s baseless election fraud claims in the past two days, but reports detail how violence escalated on these platforms in the weeks leading up to January 6.
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About 350 Twitter employees demanded that CEO Jack Dorsey and other top executives permanently ban President Donald Trump’s account on the platform following his role in Wednesday’s deadly siege on the US Capitol, according to a report from the Washington Post.
“We play an unprecedented role in civil society and the world’s eyes are upon us,” reads the letter, according to the Post. “Our decisions this week will cement our place in history, for better or worse.”
The internal letter also demands that leadership disclose how they decided to treat Trump’s tweets on Wednesday, as well as how “our public policy decisions led to the amplification of serious anti-democratic threats.”
In a statement to Insider, a Twitter spokesperson said the company “encourages an open dialogue between our leadership and employees, and we welcome our employees to express their thoughts and concerns in whichever manner feels right to them.”
The employee letter comes two days after pro-Trump extremists broke down doors and windows and breached the US Capitol. Trump then released a video in which he told his followers to “go home, we love you, you’re very special” before further spouting baseless election fraud claims, declaring that he won by a “landslide.”
Five people died in connection with Wednesday's violence.
The election misinformation prompted Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, as well as others, to restrict his reach online. Twitter made three of his tweets invisible, including the video, and locked his account until he deleted them. He has since done so and has regained access. Facebook and YouTube both removed the video outright, and Facebook has banned Trump until at least January 20, when president-elect Joe Biden is sworn in.
But Trump continues to use his favorite mouthpiece, Twitter, as many call for the platform to crack down even further on the president. The consumer watchdog group SumOfUS docked a boat in the bay outside of Dorsey's San Francisco seaside home as part of a campaign demanding that Twitter permanently ban Trump.