President Trump Permanently Suspended from Twitter
President Donald Trump has been permanently suspended from Twitter “due to the risk of further incitement of violence”, the platform announces.
It said the decision was made “after close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account”.
The move comes amid a Big Tech purge of the online platforms used by President Trump and his supporters.
Some lawmakers and celebrities have been calling for years on Twitter to ban President Trump altogether.
Former First Lady Michelle Obama tweeted on January 7 that the Silicon Valley giants should stop enabling President Trump’s “monstrous behavior” and permanently expel him.
Donald Trump was locked out of his account for 12 hours on January 6 after he called the people who stormed the Capitol “patriots”.
Hundreds of the president’s supporters entered the complex as the Congress attempted to certify Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election. The ensuing violence led to the deaths of four civilians and a police officer.
Twitter warned then that it would ban President Trump “permanently” if he breached the platform’s rules again.
After being allowed back on Twitter, Donald Trump posted two tweets on January 8 that the company cited as the final straws.
In one, the president wrote: “The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”
Twitter said this tweet “is being interpreted as further indication that President Trump does not plan to facilitate an ‘orderly transition'”.
In the next, he tweeted: “To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”
Twitter said this was “being received by a number of his supporters as further confirmation that the election was not legitimate”.
Twitter said both of these tweets were “in violation of the Glorification of Violence Policy”.
After Twitter had permanently suspended his @realDonaldTrump account, Donald Trump tweeted from the US president’s official @Potus account suggesting he would “look at the possibilities of building out our own platform in the future” and railing against Twitter.
The tweets were removed from the platform as soon as they were posted.
Pro-Trump Protesters Storm Capitol Building
On January 8, Twitter permanently banned the account of conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh and two Trump loyalists: former national security adviser Michael Flynn and attorney Sidney Powell.
Later in the day, Google suspended Parler – a self-styled “free speech” rival to Twitter that is increasingly popular with Trump supporters – from its online store.
The company said: “We’re aware of continued posting in the Parler app that seeks to incite ongoing violence in the US.”
On January 7, Facebook said it had suspended President Trump “indefinitely”. The popular gaming platform Twitch also placed an indefinite ban on the outgoing president’s channel, which he has used for rally broadcasts. So has Snapchat.
Two online Trump memorabilia stores were closed this week by e-commerce company Shopify. On January 8, Reddit banned its “donaldtrump” forum for the president’s supporters.
Donald Trump used Twitter to insult adversaries, cheer allies, fire officials, deny “fake news” and vent grievances, often using all capital letters and exclamation marks to underline his point.
Though critics said the posts were a torrent of misinformation, the medium helped him get around media filters and instantly connect with nearly 89 million followers.
Donald Trump’s tweets were also known for the occasional spelling error, and he sometimes left followers guessing with apparent mis-types, such as when he posted: “Despite the constant negative press covfefe.”
In 2017, the Department of Justice said that President Trump’s tweets were “official statements of the President of the United States”.