Twitter permanently bans US President Donald Trump's account

Twitter today announced that it has permanently banned US President Donald Trump's Twitter account. It said in its official blog -

"After a close review 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 of violence."

Twitter account of President Donald Trump

The 45th President of the United States' account, that had over 88 million followers, was banned for 12 hours initially on January 6, 2021. The move came after the attack on the US' Capitol Hill, where Trump's supporters stormed and vandalised the building. Twitter had mentioned that his tweet, which condemned Vice President Mike Pence, "was severe violations of our Civic Integrity policy."

Twitter further stated - "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. Our public interest framework exists to enable the public to hear from elected officials and world leaders directly. It is built on a principle that the people have a right to hold power to account in the open."

It added, "However, we made it clear going back years that these accounts are not above our rules entirely, and cannot use Twitter to incite violence, among other things. We will continue to be transparent around our policies and their enforcement."

Overviewing some of the tweets by Donald Trump, Twitter said: On January 8, 2021, President Donald J. Trump tweeted:

“The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”

Shortly thereafter, the President tweeted, saying:

“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”

The social media platform added the ongoing tensions in the US followed with a global conversation to the people who stormed the Capital, "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 mobilised by different audiences, including to incite violence, as well as in the context of the pattern of behaviour from this account in recent weeks."

"We assessed the two Tweets referenced above under our Glorification of Violence policy, which aims to prevent the glorification of violence that could inspire others to replicate violent acts, and determined that they were highly likely to encourage and inspire people to replicate the criminal acts that took place at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021."

Apart from this, Facebook, too, has banned US President Donald Trump from posting anything on his account — including Instagram — in response to his supporters storming into Capitol Hill on Wednesday morning in Washington DC.

The storming into the United States Capitol by a mob of Donald Trump's supporters has evoked widespread condemnation from the CEOs of Tesla, Apple, Google, Facebook, and JP Morgan to name a few.