The singer placed blame on social media platforms and their execs for what she sees as their role in fostering hate.
Selena Gomez is calling out social media platforms for their role in the riots that took place Wednesday in the Capitol building amid the electoral college vote count. The singer shared a message with her fans Wednesday afternoon, and explained why she felt the platforms and their execs facilitated the behavior that led to the attempted insurrection.
"Toady is the result of allowing people with hate in their hearts to use platforms that should be used to bring together and allow people to build community," Gomez wrote on Twitter. "Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google, Mark Zukerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, Jack Dorsey, Sundar Pichai, Susan Wojcicki - you have all failed the American people today, and I hope you're going to fix things moving forward."
Gomez also tagged the executives in her caption, which came hours after thousands took to the Capitol, storming barricades and confronting the police.
The riots occurred following a rally held by Donald Trump in which he claimed the 2020 presidential election had been stolen, and that he was the rightful winner -- despite no evidence of any kind to substantiate his repeated and baseless claims.
Not long after the riots and attack on the Capitol began, many social media platforms took action, locking Trump out of his accounts in response to posts deemed to be in violation of their content restrictions.
After things turned violent, Trump posted a video in which he addressed his supporters and urged Capitol rioters to "go home," but made additional claims of election fraud and continued to allege that the election had been stolen.
Soon after his post, Twitter locked Trump's account for 12 hours, urging him to remove his tweets or risk being suspended from the platform.
The social media platform also wrote that further violations made by Trump would "result in permanent suspension of the @realDonaldTrump account."
"As a result of the unprecedented and ongoing violent situation in Washington, D.C., we have required the removal of three @realDonaldTrump Tweets that were posted earlier today for repeated and severe violations of our Civic Integrity policy," Twitter wrote. "This means that the account of @realDonaldTrump will be locked for 12 hours following the removal of these Tweets. If the Tweets are not removed, the account will remain locked."
Trump's tweets from earlier in the day have since been removed.
Facebook and YouTube, on their end, removed Trump's video to diminish "the risk of ongoing violence."
"This is an emergency situation and we are taking appropriate emergency measures, including removing President Trump's video. We removed it because on balance we believe it contributes to rather than diminishes the risk of ongoing violence," stated Guy Rosen, Facebook's VP of integrity.
Thousands headed to the Capitol building on Wednesday while lawmakers, including Vice President Mike Pence, were gathered inside to count the Electoral College votes certifying President-elect Joe Biden's win.
Things quickly turned violent as rioters made their way inside the chamber, breaking windows, occupying senators' offices. One woman was subsequently shot and died, per CBS News, and many others were injured. The National Guard was called to protect the Capitol and D.C. was put under curfew. Eventually, Congress reconvened for the Electoral vote count by 8 p.m. ET.
RELATED CONTENT:
