Emerging after days of darkness, President Donald Trump threatened Americans on Monday night with a military crackdown involving “thousands of heavily armed soldiers.” Shortly before Trump appeared on camera, federal police under his authority attacked a peaceful group of people near the White House with tear gas and rubber bullets, including members of a local Christian clergy.

Years in the making, Trump’s violent rhetoric, spread by the most powerful communications companies in history, is being realized in violent action against ordinary people by the hands of armed authorities.

He celebrates violence at his rallies, and he has complained that his supporters are not violent enough.

Earlier in the day on Monday, two close Trump allies in Congress made shocking remarks on Twitter following the president’s threat to vaguely designate huge swaths of Americans as “terrorists.” Rep.

It is time to remove the president from the private platforms he uses to undermine the public institutions he is sworn to protect, starting with Twitter and Facebook.

It’s true that, even despite his evident harm, banning Trump has always sounded like a cheap resistance fantasy or a lame election-year meme.

Crossing the president and his allies is also guaranteed to reap abuse; after finally taking action against Trump, the president organized harassment against an individual Twitter employee, resulting in death threats.

Stirring the resentment of millions of users with a severe action would put Facebook and Twitter in uncharted waters.

But even if companies like Facebook and Twitter do nothing to curb the president, it’s hard to imagine how they will thrive under an authoritarian regime that is already threatening to revoke the fundamental legal protections that enable their existence.

Those people are already emerging inside of Twitter, all the way up to CEO Jack Dorsey, who finally decided Trump’s behavior is serious enough to warrant action.

After the president and his deputies began harassing a lone Twitter employee unconnected to the final decision, Dorsey rebuked the White House.

Dozens of Facebook employees walked out on Monday in protest of the company’s decision not to take action against Trump’s dangerous posts.

Giving people a voice is noble, and Facebook and Twitter ought to be commended for their role in expanding speech.

And though companies like Facebook and Twitter may sincerely value the exercise of free speech, part of that exercise includes consciously deciding when to not say something.

In response to a question from a Facebook employee on Friday, Mark Zuckerberg criticized Twitter’s recent action against the president?