The Ringmaster Is Gone
The internet has been a bit quiet lately. Or, more specifically, it’s been quiet since the days after the Capitol riot, when Twitter, Facebook, and a string of other social-media companies banned Donald Trump from their platforms for his role in egging on the violence in Washington, D.C. And now the Facebook oversight board has ensured that social media will remain peaceful for at least a little while longer: The panel, asked by Facebook to review the platform’s decision to indefinitely suspend the former president, has upheld the ban in the short term, but has required Facebook to make a final decision on Trump’s account within six months.
Trump’s banishment created a silence where there had once been a foghorn. Even before the president left office, the sudden peace was notable: As the House of Representatives voted to impeach Trump a second time, during the last days of his presidency, Trump’s quiet during the proceedings with the more than 600 times he had tweeted during his 2019 impeachment. And the silence has continued. “Trump,” David A. Graham in , “has remained unexpectedly peripheral since leaving office.” On Twitter, the opinion writer Farhad Manjoo on Trump’s absence from his formerly favorite website:
