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- Twitter has permanently suspended Donald Trump’s account.
- The company cites incitement to violence as a motive.
- The action follows the assault on the United States Capitol.
Twitter Inc said on Friday it permanently suspended the account of US President Donald Trump due to the risk of further incitement to violence following the assault on the US Capitol on Wednesday.
The suspension of Trump’s account, which had more than 88 million followers, silences his main megaphone days before the end of his term and follows years of debate about how social media companies should moderate the accounts of powerful world leaders.
“After a detailed review of recent tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context surrounding them, we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement to violence,” the company said in a tweet.
READ | Trump will not attend Biden’s inauguration
It was the first time that Twitter had banned a head of state, the company confirmed.
Social media companies have moved quickly to crack down on Trump and some of his prominent allies and supporters on the right in the wake of the turmoil in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, which led to five deaths.
Glorification of violence
Trump has repeatedly used Twitter and other platforms to claim that his defeat in the November 3 election was due to widespread electoral fraud and to share other conspiracy theories, and he had urged his supporters to come to Washington on Wednesday and march towards the Capitol to protest the election result. .
Facebook Inc said earlier this week that it would suspend his account until at least the end of his presidential term.
The Republican president will hand over the post to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden on January 20.
In a blog post on Friday, Twitter said that two of the president’s tweets posted that day violated its policy against glorifying violence.
Twitter had temporarily blocked Trump’s account on Wednesday following the siege of Capitol Hill and warned that additional violations of the president’s accounts would result in a permanent suspension.
Trump had to delete three tweets that broke the rules before his account was unlocked. He returned to Twitter on Thursday with a video acknowledging that Biden would be the next president of the United States.
Twitter said that Trump’s tweet that he would not attend Biden’s inauguration was received by several of his supporters as confirmation that the November elections were not legitimate.
He said another tweet praised the “American Patriots” and said their supporters “will not be disrespected or wronged in any way, shape or form !!!” it could be seen as “one more indication that President Trump does not intend to facilitate an orderly transition.”
Critics of major social media platforms, including top Democratic politicians, praised Twitter’s move, saying it had been pending for a long time, while Trump supporters expressed outrage.
Building your own platform
The president’s son, Donald Trump Jr, in a tweet on Friday condemned the ban and said dictators who had threatened genocide continued to have Twitter accounts. He did not provide names.
Insurrection in the US Capitol, January 6, 2021. Bill Clark / CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Crowds gather outside the United States Capitol for the Stop the Steal rally.
The ‘Proud Boys’ protest outside the United States Capitol in Washington, DC on Wednesday.
The White House had no immediate direct comment. The Trump campaign Twitter account criticized the company for “silencing” the US president.
Using the @POTUS account, Trump said he would look to build his own platform.
Trump’s prolific use of social media helped propel him to the White House in 2016. He has used his personal account @realDonaldTrump, which he has tweeted more than 100 times a day at times, to reach supporters, spread misinformation and even fire to the staff.
In a 2017 interview on Fox Business, Trump said, “I doubt I would be here if it weren’t for social media, to be honest with you,” according to a transcript posted by the network.
Both Twitter and Facebook have long granted Trump special privileges as a world leader, saying that tweets that may violate company policies would not be removed because they were in the public interest. However, they said that he would lose access to those privileges upon leaving office.
Twitter last year began tagging and warning Trump’s tweets that broke its rules against glorifying violence, manipulating the media, or sharing potentially misleading information about voting processes.
In May, Twitter placed a warning tag on a Trump tweet about widespread anti-racism protests over the police murder of George Floyd that included the phrase “when the looting begins, the shooting begins.”
Facebook, which has been criticized by employees and lawmakers for not doing more about Trump’s inflammatory posts, declined to act on the same message.
Trump still has access to the official @WhiteHouse and @POTUS accounts, but will lose it when his presidential term ends.
When asked if Trump could create another account, a Twitter spokesperson said that if the company had reason to believe it was using accounts to evade Friday’s suspension, those accounts could be suspended as well.
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