Twitter Has Permanently Suspended Donald Trump's Account
By Ryan Phillips | Jan 8, 2021, 7:02 PM EST
Twitter has suspended Donald Trump's Twitter account permanently. The company posted that after carefully reviewing Trump's tweets and the context around them, it decided the risk of further incitement of violence was too great not to suspend him.
Here is the notice the company posted:
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. https://t.co/NrANZJcAfo
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) January 8, 2021
However, we made it clear going back years that these accounts are not above our rules and cannot use Twitter to incite violence. We will continue to be transparent around our policies and their enforcement.
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) January 8, 2021
This is an enormous step from Twitter and founder Jack Dorsey. We saw Facebook suspend Trump's account at least through Joe Biden's upcoming inauguration, but to permanently ban the sitting President of the United States is a monumental step.
This is all you see when you go to Trump's account:
Trump had 88 million Twitter followers at the time he was suspended.
This whole thing is ironic, of course, because Trump used Twitter to develop the following that eventually propelled him to the White House. Social media companies received huge boosts by his presence and the discussion around his actions. But after the events of this week, including the riot at the U.S. Capitol, those companies appear to have finally had enough.