Twitter Inc said on Friday that it has permanently suspended U.S. President Donald Trump’s account because of the risk of further incitement of violence following the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday.
The suspension of Trump’s account, which had in excess of 88 million followers, quiets his primary megaphone days before the end of his term and follows long periods of discussion about how social media companies should moderate their accounts of powerful global leaders.
“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” the company said in a tweet.
It was the first time when Twitter has banned a head of state, the company confirmed.
Social media companies have moved swiftly to crack down on Trump and some of his prominent right-wing allies and supporters in the wake of the turmoil in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, which prompted five passings.
Trump has over and over used Twitter and other platforms to claim his defeat in the Nov. 3 election was due to widespread voter fraud and to share other conspiracy theories, and had asked supporters to come to Washington on Wednesday and march on the Capitol to protest the election result.
Facebook Inc said recently it was suspending his account through until in any event the end of his presidential term.
The Republican president is because of hand over to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden on Jan. 20.
In a blog entry on Friday, Twitter said that two of the president’s tweets posted that day were in violation of its policy against the glorification of violence.
Twitter had temporarily blocked Trump’s account on Wednesday following the siege of Capitol Hill, and warned that additional violations by the president’s accounts would result in a permanent suspension.
Trump was needed to delete three guideline breaking tweets before his account was unblocked. He got back to Twitter on Thursday with a video recognizing that Biden would be the following U.S. president.
Twitter said that Trump’s tweet that he would not go to Biden’s inauguration was being received by some of his supporters as confirmation that the November election was not legitimate.
It said another tweet praising “American Patriots” and saying his supporters “will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!” could be seen as “further indication that President Trump does not plan to facilitate an orderly transition.”
Critics of major social media platforms, including top Democratic politicians, praised Twitter’s move and said it was long overdue, while Trump suppporters expressed outrage.
The president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., in a tweet on Friday decried the ban, saying dictators who had threatened genocide continued to have Twitter accounts. He did not provide names.
The White House had no immediate direct comment. The Trump campaign’s Twitter account criticized the company for “silencing” the president of the United States.
Using the @POTUS account, Trump said he would look at building his own platform.
‘LOOTING AND SHOOTING’
Trump’s productive use of social media helped him to the White House in 2016. He has use his own @realDonaldTrump account, which has now and again tweeted in excess of 100 times each day, to reach at supporters, spread falsehood and even fire staff.
In a 2017 meeting 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 released by the network.
Both Twitter and Facebook have since afforded Trump special privileges as a world leader, saying that tweets that may violate the company’s policies would not be removed because they were in the public interest. They said he would lose access to those privileges upon leaving office, however.
Twitter a year ago began marking and putting warnings on Trump’s tweets that broke its rules against glorifying violence, manipulated media or sharing potentially misleading information about voting processes.
In May, Twitter affixed a warning label to a Trump tweet about widespread anti-racism protests over the police killing of George Floyd that included the phrase “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” Facebook, which has come under fire from 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 this when his presidential term ends. Asked if Trump could create another account, a Twitter spokeswoman said if the company had reason to believe he was using accounts to evade Friday’s suspension, those accounts too could be suspended.
