LABOR’s Anthony Albanese has cheered social media’s “silencing” of US President Donald Trump as Australia joins democratic nations around the world slamming the suppression of free speech.
The ALP leader told Sydney radio station 2SM that the ban on President Trump’s social media accounts would “help stem online disinformation”.
The US President has had his accounts removed from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Reddit, among others, where he regularly communicated with more than 100 million followers across the world.
- Anthony Albanese has been wrong-footed by leaders of the world's major democracies.
- He openly approves the removal of the US President from speaking on social media.
- While leaders from Australia, Germany, France, Mexico and India disagree.
The permanent ban came after Mr Trump was blamed for outbreaks of violence as Republican protestors gathered in Washington DC on January 6 to object to the Presidential Election results. He denies the accusations.
During his radio interview in Sydney, Mr Albanese said “It’s about time that people weren’t given a platform to spread hatred, to spread lies”.
“It’s had consequences for people – it’s one of the problems,” the Left-faction ALP leader said.
Mr Albanese’s views are in stark contrast with democratic governments across the world, including Australia, who have publicly criticised the social media ban.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said this week that the bans on Mr Trump had made him “pretty uncomfortable”.
UNCOMFORTABLE
“Freedom of speech is fundamental to our society,” Mr Frydenberg said. “As Voltaire said, ‘I might not agree with what you say but I defend your right to say it’.
“Those decision were taken by commercial companies but, personally, I feel pretty uncomfortable with what they did.”
Acting Australian Prime Minister Michael McCormack also weighed in.
“There’s been a lot of people who have said and done a lot of things on Twitter previously that haven’t received that condemnation or indeed censorship,” Mr McCormack told ABC radio.
“I’m not one who believes in that sort of censorship.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she viewed the banning of the president as “problematic”.
A spokesman for Ms Merkel said: “Freedom of opinion is a fundamental right of elementary significance … that should not be intervened in by the management of social media platforms”.
French President Emmanual Macron’s government also expressed concern – saying it was “shocked” to see private companies make such decisions.
“This should be decided by citizens, not by a CEO,” French government minister Clement Beaune said.
His colleague, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said the State should be responsible for regulations, not “the digital oligarchy”.
Mr Le Maire described big tech as “one of the threats” to democracy.
BAD SIGN
Mexican President Andres Manual Lopez Obrador said it was a “bad sign” that social media had the power to censure a US President.
“I don’t like anybody being censored or losing the right to post a message,” President Lopez Obrador said.
“I don’t agree with that. I don’t accept that.”
Indian parliamentarian Tejasvi Surya said the ban on Mr Trump was a “wake up call for democracies” and called for a review of laws governing big tech on the sub-continent.
President Trump said that social media companies had made a “catastrophic mistake”.
“They are dividing and divisive … and have made a big mistake,” Mr Trump said yesterday.
“There’s always a counter move and I’ve never seen such [public] anger as I’m seeing right now – and that’s a terrible thing.”PC
This just shows not only is Albanese totally out of touch with Australians and the rest of the World he is also unfit to ever govern this Country.
People left and right should be very concerned…
11 January 2021. The day USA has presented itself to the world that you cancel anybody who has an opinion that you do not agree with. So we will end up with a society that does not debate. It works well in China.
Still worried about the Dems Labor Party of Australia. A real threat to sensibilities.
Twitter should not be considered a private company it now holds a monopolistic position on public speech along with Facebook. And when companies like Apple and Google work together to ban competitors they act in a totalitarian manor. So far they have gotten away with censoring conservative voices, but when they banned Trump they jumped the shark.