In the wake of Donald Trump’s instigation of a shocking attack on the US Capitol, it’s easy to demand that Trump be barred from social media.

“These corporations should announce a permanent ban of his accounts,” said Representative Bennie Thompson, chair of the House homeland security committee. “Nothing short of that will meet this moment.”

Indeed, Facebook, Google and Twitter have taken action, suspending the president from their platforms or removing videos.

But whatever one thinks of stopping Trump fomenting violence by limiting his ability to communicate, the ability of democratically unaccountable monopolies with extraordinary control over communications infrastructure, like Facebook and Google, YouTube’s parent company, to silence political speech is exceptionally dangerous. It also sidesteps the underlying problem – that it’s their dominance and business model that promotes conspiratorial, fake and violent content to millions.

Trump is not the first demagogue America has seen and he won’t be the last. But his power is amplified by a corrupted information ecosystem created by Google, Facebook and media barons like Rupert Murdoch. Those who came to the Capitol to riot sincerely believed they were stopping the subversion of American democracy because an entire information ecosystem encouraged them to discount any political or media institution that told them otherwise. That ecosystem of disinformation, extremism, rage and bigotry won’t go away by banning Trump or his supporters. That’s because the driving force behind it is profit: Facebook and Google make billions by fostering it.