AV Club:It's just a matter of time before Donald Trump says something on Twitter that gets all of us killed -- and it looks like it'll happen sooner rather than later -- which has convinced a lot of people that he should just be banned from the social media platform. After all, if a regular person were constantly making racist threats and pledging to attack foreign leaders they disagreed with, that person would get banned (or, more likely, people would complain and then literally nothing would happen). Now, through its Public Policy account, Twitter has released a statement confirming that it will never ban Donald Trump from its service for one reason: He's good for business.
Alright, Twitter didn't literally say that, but it was heavily implied. The actual statement is about Trump's tweets being "newsworthy," with Twitter claiming that letting him stay on the platform helps keep people "informed about what's happening in the world." This justification helps absolve Twitter of any responsibility for what Trump does, and it saves the company from having to take any specific stand against anything he might do or say. Also, the thread says that Twitter holds all accounts "to the same rules," which is funny because it's definitely not true.
Of course a media outlet won't block their most popular writers. More importantly they're not going to fire their greatest unpaid superstar because he'll just walk across the street and start producing content for someone else. It would be corporate suicide to willingly hand the crown to your biggest competitor.
Trying to silence the president is an exercise in futility. Better to let him continue to blather. Divert attention to a parallel narrative instead.
I have to agree. If Trump was banned from Twitter, he'd certainly try to hop on to a competitor, which would likely be Facebook, and that would be...bad.