Twitter permanently suspends Donald Trump's account
It finally happened. Twitter suspended the account of Donald Trump.
Permanently.
"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," announced Twitter late Friday.
In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter Rules would potentially result in this very course of action. https://t.co/NrANZJcAfo
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) January 8, 2021
The permanent ban follows the storming of the U.S. Capitol building by pro-Trump extremists, an action that led to five deaths.
As the siege was ongoing and in its immediate aftermath, Twitter took the action of hiding three Trump tweets and demanding their removal.
Trump eventually complied — leading to the removal of a temporary lock on his account. Then he sent two tweets that triggered Twitter to take permanent action.
However, we made it clear going back years that these accounts are not above our rules and cannot use Twitter to incite violence. We will continue to be transparent around our policies and their enforcement.
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) January 8, 2021
Twitter also moved to ban prominent accounts associated with QAnon late Friday, including the account of Michael Flynn.
In a lengthy blog post, Twitter expounded upon a decision that is sure to make massive waves across the political spectrum. The company laid out how, in its eyes, Trump went too far — citing two specific tweets in the process.
The tweets in question are both from Friday, and claimed Trump's followers will "will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way" and that Trump intends to skip the inauguration of President-elect Biden.
"[These] two Tweets must be read in the context of broader events in the country and the ways in which the President's statements can be mobilized by different audiences, including to incite violence, as well as in the context of the pattern of behavior from this account in recent weeks," reads the blog post. "After assessing the language in these Tweets against our Glorification of Violence policy, we have determined that these Tweets are in violation of the Glorification of Violence Policy and the user @realDonaldTrump should be immediately permanently suspended from the service."
We reached out to Twitter to ask what, if anything, it will do if Trump simply starts tweeting from the @POTUS account. We received no immediate response. We also asked for any additional context around the ban, however a spokesperson simply pointed us back toward the above Twitter thread from @TwitterSafety.
Twitter is not the only social media platform that took action against Trump this week. The president is banned from Facebook and Instagram until at least Jan. 20.
This story is developing.
