Ministers slam ‘the silencing of Donald Trump’

Senior ministers have spoken out against Twitter’s decision to ban Donald Trump days before he leaves ­office.

US President Donald Trump has been banned from major social media outlets. Picture: AFP

Senior Morrison government ministers have slammed the silencing of outgoing US president Donald Trump by social media giants after the pro-Trump siege of the Capitol.

Josh Frydenberg and Acting Prime Minister Michael McCormack spoke out against Twitter’s decision to permanently ban Mr Trump days before he leaves ­office next week, as Labor welcomed the move to kick the ­Republican leader off most major social media channels.

Mr McCormack has also been attacked for comparing the US Capitol siege — which left five people dead and was the first time congress has been successfully stormed since 1814 — to last year’s Black Lives Matter protests.

Facebook, Instagram, Reddit and Pinterest have pushed Mr Trump off their social media sites over fears he will further inflame tensions before he is ­replaced by Democrat Joe Biden on January 20.

Mr Trump faces a second impeachment for inspiring last week’s riots, which was aimed to overturn the election results and return him to the White House.

The Treasurer on Monday said Twitter had a right to ban Mr Trump but it made him ­uncomfortable.

“I feel pretty uncomfortable with those measures which were announced. 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 decisions were taken by commercial companies but personally I felt uncomfortable with what they did.”

Mr Frydenberg also said Scott Morrison had led international efforts with New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to take extremist material and videos of massacres off social media sites.

Mr McCormack went further on Monday, saying the bans on Mr Trump’s social media ­accounts were “censorship”.

“There’s been a lot of people who have said and done a lot of things on Twitter previously that haven’t received that sort of condemnation or indeed censorship,” he told ABC radio.

“But I’m not one who believes in that sort of censorship.

“That’s a matter for Twitter, they’ve made that call, they’ve got a company, they’ve got a business to run, and they’ve made that decision.”

Mr McCormack compared the Capitol riots to the months-long protests sparked by the death of African-American man George Floyd, who was killed by US police.

“It is unfortunate that we have seen the events at Capitol Hill, that we’ve seen in recent days — similar to those race riots that we saw around the country last year,” he said.

The US Capitol riots have now been linked to the deaths of two police officers, Brian Sicknick and Howard Liebengood.

Video has emerged of rioters beating police with flag poles, crushing them between doors and calling out for Vice-President Mike Pence and house Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Anthony Albanese welcomed the social media bans on Mr Trump, saying it would help to stem online disinformation.

“It’s about time that people weren’t given a platform to spread hatred, to spread lies, which has had consequences for people.

“It’s one of the problems,” the Labor leader told 2SM radio.

Opposition Treasury spokesman Jim Chalmers slammed Mr McCormack for “ trying to draw some sort of similarity between the Black Lives Matter protests and the insurrection we saw in recent days with the storming of the US Capitol”.