BERLIN (AP) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel considers the company’s expulsion of US President Donald Trump from Twitter as “problematic,” her spokesman said Monday.
Twitter permanently banned Trump from the microblogging platform on Friday, citing a “risk of further incitement to violence” in the wake of the storming of the Capitol by supporters of the outgoing president.
When asked about Twitter’s decision, Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said that operators of social media platforms “bear a great responsibility for ensuring that political communications are not poisoned by hatred, lies and incitement to violence.”
He said it is correct not to “distance yourself” when such content is posted, for example by flagging it.
But Seibert also said that freedom of speech is a fundamental right of “elementary meaning.”
“This fundamental right can be intervened, but according to the law and within the framework set by lawmakers – not according to a decision by the management of social media platforms,” he told reporters in Berlin. “From this angle, the Chancellor considers it problematic that the US President’s accounts are now permanently frozen.”
Facebook suspended Trump’s account on Thursday until January 20, the day of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration, and possibly indefinitely.
Merkel does not have a Twitter account of his own, although Seibert does and many German ministers do.