Twitter permanently bans Trump; Facebook and Twitch disable him “indefinitely”

Twitter permanently banned President Donald Trump on Friday, days after a pro-Trump mob stormed the US Capitol leaving five dead.

“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,” Twitter said in a statement Friday.

The ban comes after the president incited a mob that broke into the US Capitol building, disrupting Congress’ certification of Joe Biden as the President Elect. Twitter initially put a 12-hour ban on Trump’s account for “repeated and severe violations of our Civic Integrity policy” after he posted messages repeating lies that the election was stolen.

At the time, Twitter said Trump would be banned permanently if he continued to violate its rules, including those around civic integrity or violent threats. Twitter said in a statement Friday that two new tweets posted since Trump’s initial suspension violated the platform’s rules, prompting the permanent suspension.

“Due to the ongoing tensions in the United States, and an uptick in the global conversation in regards to the people who violently stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, 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 mobilized by different audiences, including to incite violence, as well as in the context of the pattern of behavior from this account in recent weeks,” Twitter said in its Friday blog.

Twitter decided the new tweets were “highly likely to encourage and inspire people to replicate the criminal acts” at the Capitol.

Earlier Friday, more than 300 Twitter employees signed onto an internal petition calling for Trump to be permanently banned following the January 6th Capitol riots. “We must examine Twitter’s complicity in what President-Elect Biden has rightly termed insurrection. Those acts jeopardize the wellbeing of the United States, our company, and our employees,” the employees wrote in the letter.

Additionally, last Thursday, Facebook put an “indefinite” ban on Trump that it said would last at least through Inauguration Day. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the risks “are simply too great” to allow Trump continued access after he used the platform to “incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government.”

And Twitch also disabled Trump’s account indefinitely, issuing a statement from a spokesperson which read, “In light of yesterday’s shocking attack on the Capitol, we have disabled President Trump’s Twitch channel.”. “Given the current extraordinary circumstances and the President’s incendiary rhetoric, we believe this is a necessary step to protect our community and prevent Twitch from being used to incite further violence.” The company says it will reassess Trump’s account after he leaves office. Trump’s account remains live, so archived videos and his profile are still available. But while the account is disabled, he won’t be able to stream.

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