In two days, it will all be over for the Trump presidency. In social media terms, it already is.
Our weekend Big Read looked at how the decision to de-platform Donald Trump last week, with bans by Facebook, Twitter and others, has exposed as never before the contradictions at the heart of social media. It has enormous powers to limit those in power, but where are its own democratic rights to wield them?
The platforms “are having a crisis of legitimacy”, one tech industry insider told us, regarding their attempts to justify their decisions. “As long as Mark [Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO], Jack [Dorsey, Twitter CEO], Sundar [Pichai, Google CEO] or Susan [Wojcicki, YouTube CEO] can arbitrarily decide who can appear on their company’s services and what they are permitted to say, people will not be satisfied that these decisions are in the public interest, rather than corporate commercial interests.”