U.S. senator, Kamala Harris, seized the Democratic presidential debate on Tuesday night to advance her proposal for the suspension of President Donald Trump\u2019s Twitter account.<\/p>\n
Appearing alongside 11 other aspirants in the live television debate, Harris accused Trump of abusing the platform where he has over 65 million followers.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere we have Donald Trump, who has 65 million Twitter followers, and is using that platform as the President of the United States to openly intimidate witnesses, to threaten witnesses and obstruct justice.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe and his account should be taken down,\u2019\u2019 she said, adding that the Aug. 3 mass shooter in El Paso, Texas, was inspired by Trump\u2019s hate tweet against Latinos.<\/p>\n
As a matter of corporate responsibility, she argued, \u201cTwitter should be held accountable, and made to take down that site; it is a matter of safety and corporate accountability\u2019\u2019.<\/p>\n
The California senator was responding to a question on whether it was necessary to break up big tech companies like Facebook and Twitter over their use for election interference by foreign interests.<\/p>\n
She said she was surprised that her rival, Sen. Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts, opposed her idea of what should be the rules around corporate responsibility.<\/p>\n
Harris said it was \u201cgrave injustice\u2019\u2019 for the social media accounts of ordinary people to be suspended over abuse, but those of powerful individuals like Trump were spared.<\/p>\n
Warren responded saying, \u201cI don\u2019t just want to push Donald Trump off Twitter. I want to push him out of the White House. That\u2019s our job.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harris disagreed, urging her to back the campaign for the president\u2019s Twitter account to be shut down.<\/p>\n
Also speaking on the subject, entrepreneur and philanthropist, Andrew Yang, said breaking up the tech companies would not solve the problem, and suggested the use of \u201c21st century solutions\u2019\u2019.<\/p>\n
Sen. Cory Booker (New Jersey), said American democracy was in \u201cmassive crisis\u2019\u2019 with the way the big tech companies were being used not only in anti-competitive practices but also in undermining the country\u2019s democracy.<\/p>\n
Booker said such practices used in the 2016 presidential election had not been corrected, and as president he would pursue a reform in America\u2019s anti-trust laws.<\/p>\n
The Russian government is accused of creating thousands of social media accounts to harm the campaign of the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, in favour of Trump during the 2016 election.<\/p>\n
This has triggered calls for the unbundling of the big tech companies to guard against their use in election interference.<\/p>\n
However, Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, warned that splitting up the companies would boost election interference, because they would not be able to work together to fight it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
U.S. senator, Kamala Harris, seized the Democratic presidential debate on Tuesday night to advance her proposal for the suspension of President Donald Trump\u2019s Twitter account. Appearing alongside 11 other aspirants in the live television debate, Harris accused Trump of abusing the platform where he has over 65 million followers. \u201cHere we have Donald Trump, who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":110881,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[110,11,2,4],"tags":[50191,51396,34191,190],"yoast_head":"\n