It appears Twitter is doubling down on its censorship regulations. Steve Bannon, who served as the White House chief strategist for the first seven months of Trump’s presidency, had his podcast’s Twitter account banned after he took to his War Room Pandemic podcast to say that Trump should behead Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI director Christopher Way.
Twitter permanently suspended the @WarRoomPandemic account for violating community guidelines, namely for “glorification of violence.” Facebook and YouTube also took action, removing the video, which was uploaded Thursday morning, from their platforms by the end of the day. On the podcast, Bannon stated that upon winning re-election, Trump should fire Fauci and Way.
Then he took the sentiment even further, saying, “I'd actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England. I'd put the heads on pikes, right. I'd put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats: 'You either get with the program or you're gone -- time to stop playing games.' Blow it all up, put [Trump campaign adviser, former acting Director of National Intelligence and ex-U.S. Ambassador to Germany] Ric Grenell today as the interim head of the FBI. That'll light them up, right."
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His co-host, Jack Maxey, then doubled down on Bannon’s suggestion, saying that the U.S. government should revert back to the practice of hanging “traitors.” The video was removed from all platforms for inciting violence, and while it seems unlikely Twitter will ban Donald Trump's Twitter account, the platform has flagged several of his tweets for misinformation over the past several days, including his claim that ballots remaining after Election Day would not count, conspiring that votes in Pennsylvania were being withheld, and alleging he is being cheated out of victory.
