The President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has vowed to take on big tech companies after they banned conservative voices, including the President of the United States, Donald Trump.
“I can tell you that at the first G20 meeting we have, I am going to make a proposal on this issue,” López Obrador said. “Yes, social media should not be used to incite violence and all that, but this cannot be used as a pretext to suspend freedom of expression.”
“How can a company act as if it was all-powerful, omnipotent, as a sort of Spanish Inquisition on what is expressed?” The Mexican President asked.
The Associated Press reported that the Mexican Foreign Relations Secretary, Marcelo Ebrard, had been communicating with other countries that support them on the issue such as “officials in France, Germany, the European Union, Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia.”
“Given that Mexico, through our president, has spoken out, we immediately made contact with others who think the same,” Ebrard said. “The president’s orders are to make contact with all of them, share this concern and work on coming up with a joint proposal. We will see what is proposed.”
The President spoke out against the ban earlier, saying the following:
“I don’t like anybody being censored or taking away from the right to post a message on Twitter or Face(book). I don’t agree with that, I don’t accept that,” López Obrador said. “How can you censor someone: ‘Let’s see, I, as the judge of the Holy Inquisition, will punish you because I think what you’re saying is harmful.’ Where is the law, where is the regulation, what are the norms? This is an issue of government, this is not an issue for private companies.”
The Mexican President is not the only world leader to speak out.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesperson said: “The right to freedom of opinion is of fundamental importance. Given that, the chancellor considers it problematic that the president’s accounts have been permanently suspended.”
Leader of the opposition in Russia, Navalny, said:
“In my opinion, the decision to ban Trump was based on emotions and personal political preferences. Don’t tell me he was banned for violating Twitter rules. I get death threats here every day for many years, and Twitter doesn’t ban anyone,” Navalny said. “Among the people who have Twitter accounts are cold-blooded murderers (Putin or Maduro) and liars and thieves (Medvedev). For many years, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have been used as a base for Putin’s ‘troll factory’ and similar groups from other authoritarian countries.”
