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Twitter permanently suspended President Donald Trump’s account Friday, citing “the risk of further incitement of violence.”
The move came just two days after Twitter temporarily suspended Trump’s account after a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol following the president’s speech egging supporters on. It deprives Trump of his preferred tool to communicate with the American people, whether it be policy changes or misinformation.
“After 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 wrote in a blog post Friday.
Trump posted a video on Twitter calling the mob “very special” people and saying he loved them following the breach of the Capitol. Five people died, including a Capitol Police officer.
Trump has more than 8.8 million followers on the social media platform.
Twitter also removed the accounts of Dallas lawyer Sidney Powell, Michael Flynn and other high-profile QAnon supporters.
It followed other social media websites in an effort to quell disinformation and extremism by Trump — and his allies. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg blocked Trump from posting on his platform “until the peaceful transition of power is complete.”
“We believe the risks of allowing the president to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great,” Zuckerberg said in a post.
The Google Play Store has removed Parler, the social media network used by right-wing groups for its free-speech focus.
“We recognize that there can be reasonable debate about content policies and that it can be difficult for apps to immediately remove all violative content, but for us to distribute an app through Google Play, we do require that apps implement robust moderation for egregious content,” Google said in a statement.
Apple has threatened to ban Parler for failing to moderate calls for violence and illegal activity, according to the Wall Street Journal. YouTube has suspended the account of “War Room,” a podcast by Trump’s former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, for violating its terms of service after Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani made false claims of election fraud in a live-stream on the channel.
Twitter said the decision was based on multiple factors, and it cited two tweets from Friday that violate its “Glorification of Violence” policy:
“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!!!” Trump tweeted Friday.
Shortly after he said he would not attend President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.
“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th,” he tweeted.
Twitter said it has found plans for “future armed protests” both on and off the social media website as a result of Trump’s tweets.
“As such, our determination is that the two Tweets above 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 in its statement.
Rep. Veronica Escobar of El Paso took to Twitter to criticize the platform for taking so long to act, saying Trump’s words cost lives when a gunman shot 23 people in El Paso in the worst mass shooting of Hispanics in recent U.S. history.
“As El Pasoans learned on August 3, 2019 when a domestic terrorist killed 23 people, injured dozens, and left an entire community in mourning: Donald J. Trump’s words are a matter of life and death,” Escobar said.
Trump’s Twitter ban came as Democrats in Congress, including all 13 Texas Democrats, said they are prepared to move forward with impeachment proceedings next week if Trump does not resign.
Julian Castro, former Democratic presidential candidate and mayor of San Antonio, said Trump’s ban was another reason he should be impeached, in a tweet.
“If Trump is too dangerous for Twitter, he’s too dangerous for the nuclear codes,” he said.
Rep. Chip Roy, a Republican from Austin responded to the move, saying social media is “bad for the soul,” in a tweet. But in a separate tweet, he said he’s stayed on the platform, so he can give followers instant information.