Twitter banned President Trump’s account Friday, citing “the risk of further incitement of violence” following the violence at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday.
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.https://t.co/CBpE1I6j8Y
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) January 8, 2021
The move comes a day after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts would be indefinitely suspended.
Hours after the ban was announced, President Trump appeared to tweet from the official @POTUS account. “As I have been saying for a long time, Twitter has gone further and further in banning free speech, and tonight, Twitter employees have coordinated with the Democrats and the Radical Left in removing my account from their platform, to silence me – and YOU, the 75,000,000 great patriots who voted for me,” read a post from the account.
The post said Trump was negotiating with other sites and would have “a big announcement soon.” The post also said the president is looking at “the possibilities of building out our own platform in the near future.”
Within minutes, the tweets were deleted.
Twitter says that the @POTUS and @WhiteHouse accounts will not be suspended at this time but their use will be limited.
However, the social media company is not completely ruling out suspending the government accounts and says it would suspend them if it became necessary.
On Friday, Twitter also 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 lead to offline harm. Continue reading
