After the ‘incident’ that took place in the Capitol building this week, President Donald Trump has been facing heavy censure from social media companies like Facebook and Twitter, which were quick to block his accounts on the day of the riot. However, on being pressed for more taking more severe action, Twitter has suspended the President’s @realDonaldTrump account permanently.
Earlier this week, thousands of Pro-Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol, after they were called to protest by Trump and American attorney Rudy Giuliani. Hundreds of protestors entered the complex as the US 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.
Trump played a significant part in the Capitol building riot by talking about conspiracy theories pertaining to election fraud and inciting hatred among his followers. Moreover, he released a video in which he failed to condemn the rioters, and gently encouraged the group to return home, calling them “special”.
Even after all this, Trump was allowed back on Twitter after deleting three tweets that violated the company’s rules. After that, he went to concede his Presidency in a video post but refused to attend President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration. Moreover, Facebook also moved to suspend Trump’s ability to post anything indefinitely, which pressured Twitter to take direct action.
Thus, Trump was banned from Twitter on 6:20 PM.
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
Just hours after this ban, President Trump used the official @POTUS(President of the United States) Twitter handle to convey his disregard for the decision. But considering the nature of a “permanent ban,” individuals are not allowed to circumvent a full ban by tweeting under alternate accounts, and thus, those tweets were deleted as well.
The tweet on the @POTUS account reads: “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 Radical Left in removing my account from their platform, to silence me — and YOU, the 75,000,000 great patriots who voted for me.”
The same messages were also tweeted by the @Teamtrump campaign account, which led to the suspension of that account as well.
He also announced that he will be moving to a different social media platform altogether or start his own. It was speculated that Trump would join right wing social media site Parler, but the app was removed from Google Play Store and was threatened with suspension by Apple’s App store.
“We have been negotiating with various other sites, and will have a big announcement soon, while we also look at the possibilities of building out our own platform in the near future.,” the @POTUS account tweeted.
