Micro-blogging site Twitter on Friday permanently suspended the account of US President Donald Trump, citing a violation of its 'Glorification of Violence' policy. In the wake of the incidents that took place three days ago in the US Capitol, which was stormed by Trump's supporters, Twitter said that it has suspended the account to mitigate the risk of further violence.
"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", it said in a statement.
After the ban, Trump tried to tweet from the official account of the President of the United States (@POTUS), but those two tweets were immediately deleted. In the deleted tweets, he accused Twitter of censorship, of being a "Radical Left" platform, and called for the creation of a new social media platform. An archive of the deleted tweets can be found here.
His campaign account (@TeamTrump) has also been suspended.
This is not the first instance of action being taken by Twitter over the course of the last few days. Just after the violence at the US Capitol, it locked Trump out of his account for 12 hours and deleted three tweets that purportedly egged his followers on to commit violence. While suspending Trump for the first time, Twitter warned that further violation would be met with a permanent ban.
With this backdrop, Twitter cites two tweets made after the temporary ban that have led to the suspension imposed by them just now. Trump's latest tweet said,
"To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th."
A tweet before that said,
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!!!"
Twitter assessed that when these tweets are read with role of inciting violence that the account played in the Capitol violence, its went against their policy. Further, it continued to deny the election outcome, which Trump says is rigged, and referring to a few of his supporters as "American Patriots" is being interpreted by Twitter as support for the violence.
It also said that plans for a secondary attack are also being planned on and off Twitter for January 17, 2021.
Twitter has been used the preferred mode of communication for Trump who used its 280 character limit to bypass conventional media and directly communicate with his followers. While he has used the platform to rail against the outcome of the November 3 election, he is known for his unusual style of tweeting; often in all blocks, sarcastically, and at times in third person to his almost 89 million followers. The Department of Justice in late 2017 asserted that his tweets be treated as official statements coming from the President of the United States.