President Trump will spend the last 12 days of his presidency without Twitter completely after the company imposed a permanent suspension on his personal account on Friday due to the risk of “further incitement to violence”.
“After a detailed analysis of recent tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them – specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter – we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement to violence,” says the company said on a blog post.
A Facebook source told The Daily Beast that a permanent ban on its platforms is “likely”, but not final.
Trump used Twitter as his favorite megaphone during his presidency, using it to bypass aides to spread misinformation, insults and false allegations about electoral fraud.
The permanent suspension, which comes two days after he incited a violent crowd to take the Capitol, also follows a report on hundreds of Twitter employees demanding action by CEO Jack Dorsey.
According The Washington Post, hundreds of employees signed a letter demanding that Trump be suspended permanently and an investigation launched on how the platform itself helped fuel the January 6 events, acting as Trump’s “megaphone”.
The social media company has stepped up oversight in recent months, adding labels on incorrect election information and restricting engagement with some of Trump’s most confused tweets.
But critics on and off the platforms have been pleading for years for the account to be completely withdrawn, arguing that Trump’s dangerous misinformation and incitement to violence has overcome any concerns about freedom of expression. (“When the looting begins, the shooting begins,” he tweeted in May during the Black Lives Matter protests.)
Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) had urged the platform on Friday morning to implement a ban “in the interest of our national and public security”. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris had been pushing for Trump to face a permanent Twitter ban since 2019, long before his rhetoric urged supporters to take action on January 6.
“A lot of people could have predicted and predicted this would happen,” a Facebook source told The Daily Beast, referring to the Capitol riot that left five people negotiating. “The possibility of it happening again was high, because this guy [Trump] and crazy. “
The suspension should cut Trump deeply. As reported by The Daily Beast, he seemed more furious at being temporarily blocked from his Twitter account on Wednesday than at the deadly mutiny that unfolded at the heart of American democracy.
One source told The Daily Beast that Trump was furious at not being able to tweet, while another said he complained that it was proof that Big Tech was silencing conservatives and trying to help cover up the “crime” of the century that occurred during the 2020 presidential election.
Twitter explained that it was two of Trump’s last tweets that prompted immediate action on Friday as they violated the platform’s policy against “glorifying violence”. At one on Friday morning, he called his supporters “great American patriots” who he said will have a “GIANT VOICE in the future”, which Twitter said could easily be seen as an incentive for those who orchestrated the Capitol violence.
Even his tweet announcing his own plans not to attend President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration fanned the flames by sending the message “that the election was not legitimate,” said Twitter.
“In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that further violations of the Twitter Rules would potentially result in this same course of action,” wrote Twitter on the blog alongside his analysis of Trump’s recent tweets.
While Trump can still use government accounts @POTUS and @WhiteHouse, Twitter said, those accounts can also be suspended if it becomes clear that they are being “used for the purposes of evading a ban”.
Shortly after Twitter kicked Trump on Friday, game site Discord said it had banned the server “The Donald” due to its “open connection to an online forum used to incite violence and plan an armed uprising. ”.
At the same time, Parler, the social media site seen as a haven for MAGA fanatics, was suspended by Google Play due to its lack of moderation for posts that seek to “incite continuing violence”, and given a 24-hour deadline until Apple must take steps to shrink its content or it will be banned from the App Store. “We received numerous complaints about objectionable content on your Parler service, allegations that the Parler app was used to plan, coordinate and facilitate illegal activities in Washington DC on January 6, 2021 that led (among other things) to loss of life, numerous injuries and destruction of property, ”Apple told the website.
And while many were delighted by Friday’s news that they would no longer need to see Trump’s disconnected and bizarre tweets, there was another unexpected end result: The Daily Show properly noticed, with Trump removed, Melania Trump’s BeBest campaign against cyberbullying may have just seen its first success.
– Noah Shachtman and Asawin Suebsaeng contributed reports