Sacha Baron Cohen played a small role in what became the fall of Donald Trump: He tricked his attorney Rudy Giuliani into participating in a shocking and humiliating fake interview for his sequel to Borat. But the performer isn’t just kidding around. He’s broken character on multiple occasions to call out social media for allowing the proliferation of misinformation, including that perpetrated by Trump himself. So when Twitter finally banned the outgoing president from their service, he was overjoyed.
This is the most important moment in the history of social media.
The world’s largest platforms have banned the world’s biggest purveyor of lies, conspiracies and hate.
To every Facebook and Twitter employee, user and advocate who fought for this–the entire world thanks you! pic.twitter.com/jihFaOA39G
— Sacha Baron Cohen (@SachaBaronCohen) January 9, 2021
“This is the most important moment in the history of social media,” Baron Cohen wrote on his personal Twitter account. “The world’s largest platforms have banned the world’s biggest purveyor of lies, conspiracies and hate. To every Facebook and Twitter employee, user and advocate who fought for this–the entire world thanks you!”
Trump was ousted from Twitter — and has his services blocked or limited on many other social media services as well — after the events of the last week, in which he was accused of inciting what became a failed coup by an army of his supporters. Five people were left dead, including a police officer, and disturbing photos find heavily armed supporters even toting zip ties, suggesting they were out for hostages. The 45th president has regularly used social media to spread lies, including baseless claims about voter fraud in November’s election.
Back in November of 2019, Baron Cohen broke from his characters to deliver a fiery speech in which he took Facebook, and its head Mark Zuckerberg, to the woodshed for allowing “hate and violence” to spread on their service. He made sure to address one of the criticisms made by Trump supporters in the wake of the Twitter ban: that his removal is violation of the first amendment. Baron Cohen would disagree:
“This is not about limiting anyone’s free speech. This is about giving people, including some of the most reprehensible people on earth, the biggest platform in history to reach a third of the planet. Freedom of speech is not freedom of reach. Sadly, there will always be racists, misogynists, anti-Semites and child abusers. But I think we could all agree that we should not be giving bigots and pedophiles a free platform to amplify their views and target their victims.”
(Via Consequence of Sound)