Former presidential adviser and right-wing pundit Steve Bannon suspended his show from Twitter and an episode removed from YouTube after calling for violence against FBI Director Christopher Wray and the government's foremost pandemic expert Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Bannon, speaking to co-host Jack Maxey, was discussing what Trump should do in a hypothetical second term. He suggested we shoot Wray and Maw, but then went further, saying "I would really like to go back to the old days of Tudor England, I would have put my heads on the spades, right, I would have put them in the two corners of the White House as a warning. to federal bureaucrats ".
At first this might seem like a simple hyperbole - you could say "we want his head on a plate" and not really suggest he behead someone. But the conversation continued and appeared to be more serious than it initially appeared:
Maxey: Just yesterday was the anniversary of the hanging of two Tories in Philadelphia. They were Quaker businessmen who had coexisted, if you like, with the British while they occupied Philadelphia. These people were hanged. This is what we did to traitors.
Bannon: That's how you won the revolution. Nobody wants to talk about it. The revolution wasn't some kind of garden party, right? It was a civil war. It was a civil war.
Whether you consider this just nostalgia for the good old days of mafia justice or a real call to bring those days back, the exchange seems to have been enough for YouTube and Twitter moderators to get down hard on the couple's impromptu broadcast.
Twitter has confirmed that it has "permanently suspended" (meaning it can be appealed but will not be automatically restored) the account for violating the rule against glorifying violence.
YouTube removed the episode from "Steve Bannon's War Room" on Wednesday afternoon after it was brought to their attention. A representative of the platform said: "We have removed this video for violating our policy against inciting violence. We will continue to be vigilant as we apply our policies in the post-election period."
Online platforms have struggled to find the line between insufficient and excessive moderation. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tiktok, Instagram and others have taken different measures, from the preventive deactivation of features to the silent hashtag ban. Facebook today eliminated a group with over 300,000 members that served as an amplifier for election misinformation.
While platforms have been vigorous in at least some ways in labeling and isolating disinformation, it's more difficult for video platforms. A few minutes ago Trump took to YouTube to detail a series of unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about mail-order voting, but the platform can't exactly do a live-on facts check of the president and shut down his channel. More than with text networks, video tends to spread before being captured and flagged due to the time it takes to review it.
