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@ REALDONALDTRUMP / TWITTER
US President Donald Trump speaks in a video posted to his Twitter account on Friday (NZT) after a brief ban. His account has now been suspended “due to the risk of further incitement to violence.”
A defiant Donald Trump has had more tweets deleted and accused Twitter in a statement of having “coordinated with Democrats and the radical left” to remove his account.
Twitter previously banned Trump’s personal account citing “the risk of further incitement to violence.”
The US president threatened regulation, promised a “big announcement” and said he is looking for “the possibilities of building our own platform in the near future!” The Washington Post reported.
The official account of the presidency, @POTUS, also tweeted that message, although the posts were quickly removed by Twitter. Trump tweeted: “They will not silence us!” The government account @POTUS has 33.4 million followers. The Trump Team account has also been suspended for tweeting the same message as the president after the ban.
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The social platform has come under increasing pressure to take more action against Trump following Wednesday’s deadly insurrection on the US Capitol. Twitter initially suspended Trump’s account for 12 hours after he posted a video repeating false claims about voter fraud and praising the rioters who stormed the Capitol.
Twitter removed Donald Trump’s tweet from the @POTUS account, while the @TeamTrump account was suspended along with Trump’s personal Twitter account, which included 57,000 tweets before it was shut down.
Twitter’s move deprives Trump of a powerful tool he has used to communicate directly with the American people for more than a decade. He has used Twitter to announce policy changes, challenge opponents, insult enemies, praise his allies (and himself), and spread misinformation.
Twitter has granted Trump and other world leaders broad exemptions from its rules against personal attacks, hate speech and other behavior. But in a lengthy explanation posted on its blog on Friday, the company said Trump’s recent tweets amounted to glorifying violence when read in the context of the Capitol unrest and plans circulating online for future armed protests in around the inauguration of the president-elect of the United States, Joe Biden.
DONALD J TRUMP
Outgoing US President Donald Trump makes his strongest condemnation yet of the Capitol riots in a prepared speech, posted on pre-recorded video the day after the riots.
In those tweets, Trump declared that he will not attend the inauguration and referred to his supporters as “American Patriots”, saying they will have “a GIANT VOICE in the future.” Twitter said that these statements “will probably inspire” others to replicate the violent events that occurred on January 6, 2021, and that there are multiple indicators that they are being received and understood as an encouragement to do so.
The company said that “plans for future armed protests have already begun to proliferate on and off Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the United States Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021.”
Twitter said its policy allows world leaders to speak to the public, but that these accounts “are not completely above our rules” and cannot use Twitter to incite violence. Trump had approximately 89 million followers.
Facebook and Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, suspended Trump’s account for at least two weeks, and possibly indefinitely, on Thursday. At the time, Twitter, however, simply revoked Trump’s posting privileges for 12 hours after he posted a video repeating false claims about voter fraud and praising the rioters who stormed the Capitol.
Lauren Victoria Burke / AP
In this 2014 photo, then-director of the United States Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington. President Donald Trump has pardoned Flynn, pointing directly in the final days of his administration to an investigation into Russia that he has long insisted was motivated by political bias. Trump announced the clemency on November 25. Twitter has banned Flynn.
On Friday, the company permanently banned two Trump loyalists, former national security adviser Michael Flynn and attorney Sidney Powell, as part of a broader purge of accounts promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory. Twitter said it will take action on behavior that has the potential to cause harm offline.
“Given the renewed potential for violence surrounding this type of behavior in the coming days, we will permanently suspend accounts that are exclusively dedicated to sharing QAnon content,” Twitter said in an emailed statement. The company also said that Trump’s attorney, Lin Wood, was permanently suspended Tuesday for violating its rules, but did not provide additional details.
The company says that when it determines that a group or campaign is engaged in “coordinated harmful activity,” it can suspend accounts that it believes are primarily encouraging such behavior.
Social media companies have come under increasing pressure to crack down on hate speech since a violent mob incited by Trump stormed the US Capitol. Dozens of QAnon social media accounts were promoting Trump’s January 6 rally in the heart of Washington, expressing hope that it could lead to the overturning of the US election results.
