Why prospects for post-Trump social media aren’t all bad

ON JANUARY 7TH , a day after a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol in Washington, leaving five people dead and America shaken, Donald Trump had the sixth-most-popular account on Twitter, with nearly 90m followers. A day later he had none. The outgoing president was permanently booted off his social-media platform of choice for inciting violence.Free-speech advocates—including Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor and no Trump fan—bristled. So did investors. Twitter’s share price has fallen by around 10% since @RealDonaldTrump’s expulsion. That of Facebook, which suspended his account “indefinitely” on its main social network and Instagram, its sister photo-sharing app, has also dipped.