The suspension of Trump's account, which had more than 88
million followers, silences his primary megaphone days before the end of his
term and follows years of debate about how social media companies should
moderate the accounts of powerful global leaders.
"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,"
the company said in a tweet.
It was the first time Twitter has banned a head of state,
the company confirmed.
Social media companies have moved swiftly to crack down on
Trump and some of his prominent right-wing allies and supporters in the wake of
the turmoil in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, which led to five deaths.
Trump has repeatedly used Twitter and other platforms to
claim his defeat in the November 3 election was due to widespread voter fraud
and to share other conspiracy theories, and had urged supporters to come to
Washington on Wednesday and march on the Capitol to protest the election
result.
Facebook said earlier this week it was suspending his
account through until at least the end of his presidential term.
The Republican president is due to hand over to Democratic
President-elect Joe Biden on January 20.
In a blog post on Friday, Twitter said that two of the
president's tweets posted that day were in violation of its policy against the
glorification of violence.
Twitter had temporarily blocked Trump's account on Wednesday
following the siege of Capitol Hill, and warned that additional violations by
the president's accounts would result in a permanent suspension.
Trump was required to delete three rule-breaking tweets
before his account was unblocked. He returned to Twitter on Thursday with a
video acknowledging that Biden would be the next US president.
Twitter said that Trump's tweet that he would not be
attending Biden's inauguration was being received by a number of his supporters
as confirmation that the November election was not legitimate.
It said another tweet praising "American Patriots"
and saying his supporters "will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in
any way, shape or form!!!" could be seen as "further indication that
President Trump does not plan to facilitate an orderly transition."
Critics of major social media platforms, including top
Democratic politicians, praised Twitter's move and said it was long overdue,
while Trump suppporters expressed outrage.
The president's son, Donald Trump Jr., in a tweet on Friday
decried the ban, saying dictators who had threatened genocide continued to have
Twitter accounts. He did not provide names.
The White House had no immediate direct comment. The Trump
campaign's Twitter account criticised the company for "silencing" the
president of the United States.
Using the @POTUS account, Trump said he would look at
building his own platform.
'Looting and shooting'
Trump's prolific use of social media helped propel him to
the White House in 2016. He has used his personal @realDonaldTrump account,
which has sometimes tweeted more than 100 times a day, to reach supporters,
spread misinformation and even fire staff.
In a 2017 interview on Fox Business, Trump said "I
doubt I would be here if it weren't for social media, to be honest with
you," according to a transcript released by the network.
Both Twitter and Facebook have long afforded Trump special
privileges as a world leader, saying that tweets that may violate the company's
policies would not be removed because they were in the public interest. They
said he would lose access to those privileges upon leaving office, however.
Twitter last year started labeling and putting warnings on
Trump's tweets that broke its rules against glorifying violence, manipulated
media or sharing potentially misleading information about voting processes.
In May, Twitter affixed a warning label to a Trump tweet
about widespread anti-racism protests over the police killing of George Floyd
that included the phrase "when the looting starts, the shooting
starts." Facebook, which has come under fire from employees and lawmakers
for not doing more about Trump's inflammatory posts, declined to act on the
same message.
Trump still has access to the official @WhiteHouse and
@POTUS accounts but will lose this when his presidential term ends. Asked if
Trump could create another account, a Twitter spokeswoman said if the company
had reason to believe he was using accounts to evade Friday's suspension, those
accounts too could be suspended.
© Reuters
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