Twitter says president banned from platform
Tech company alleges incitement of violence
Twitter banned President Donald Trump’s account Friday, citing “the risk of further incitement of violence” after the deadly insurrection Wednesday at the U.S. Capitol.
Twitter has long given Trump and other world leaders broad exemptions from its rules against personal attacks, hate speech and other behaviors.
But in a detailed explanation posted on its blog Friday, the company said recent Trump tweets amounted to glorification of violence when read in the context of the Capitol riot and plans circulating online for future armed protests around the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.
The social platform has been under pressure to take further action against Trump after the Wednesday violence. On Thursday, Facebook suspended Trump’s account through Jan. 20 and possibly indefinitely.
At first, Twitter suspended
Trump’s account for 12 hours after he posted a video that repeated false allegations about election fraud and praised the rioters who stormed the Capitol.
Trump’s Twitter persona has functioned as a mix of policy announcements, complaints about the media, disparagement of his perceived enemies and praise for his supporters. He has fired several officials on Twitter.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment. Twitter declined to make CEO Jack Dorsey available and had no further comment. The official account for the President of the United States, POTUS, remains live.
Shannon Mcgregor, an assistant professor of journalism and media at the University of North Carolina, said Twitter faced an easy call now that Trump is a lame duck and the company could try to curry favor with the incoming Biden administration.
In the Trump tweets cited by Twitter, Trump said that he will not be attending the inauguration and referred to his supporters as “American Patriots,” saying they will have “a GIANT VOICE long into the future.”
Twitter said these statements “are likely to inspire others to replicate the violent acts that took place on January 6, 2021, and that there are multiple indicators that they are being received and understood as encouragement to do so.”
Twitter said its policy enables world leaders to speak to the public but that the accounts “are not above our rules entirely” and can’t use Twitter to incite violence.
Trump had roughly 89 million followers. Twitter shares fell roughly 4 percent in after-hours trading, reflecting concerns that the Trump ban might reduce usage and advertising sales.
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.