Two days after throngs of his supporters staged a violent riot through the Capitol, Twitter said Trump’s latest posts on the platform posed too great a risk to keep up. This came after the company temporarily locked Trump’s account Wednesday and publicly warned that additional violations against its rules would result in his indefinite expulsion.
In place of Trump’s notoriously prolific Twitter feed, where nearly 89 million followers read his insults, conspiracy theories and threats against adversaries like “Little Rocket Man,” the @realDonaldTrump page reads simply: “Account suspended.”
Donald Trump Jr., who still has a Twitter account, denounced the move as “absolute insanity!” — the kind of alleged censorship his father had tried to punish using the might of the federal government.
“We are living Orwell’s 1984,” Trump Jr. tweeted Friday night. “Free-speech no longer exists in America. It died with big tech and what’s left is only there for a chosen few.”
The president’s former United Nations ambassador, Nikki Haley, tweeted: “Silencing people, not to mention the President of the US, is what happens in China not our country.”
Trump’s ouster culminates years of friction between the outgoing president and Twitter. But it came too late for many critics of both Trump and Twitter, who say the company has allowed him to flout its rules with rhetoric such as threats of war or violence against racial justice protesters.
After his account was reactivated Thursday, Trump tweeted out two messages saying his supporters “will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form,” and announcing he would not attending President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration. Twitter cited those messages as motivating their decision to permanently deactivate his account.
“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,” the company said in its statement. It added that the tweets violated its policy on glorification of violence.
The final straw came shortly after pro-Trump rioters breached the Capitol during a deadly assault, when Trump posted a series of tweets that urged his supporters to leave but continued to claim falsely that the November election had been stolen from him. Those included a tweet attacking Vice President Mike Pence for refusing to overturn the election results, and another describing the rioters as “great patriots.”
Twitter and Facebook, where Trump posted some of the same messages, temporarily locked Trump’s account in response. Further rule-breaking, Twitter said, “will result in permanent suspension of the @realDonaldTrump account.” The actions marked the harshest confrontation to date between the president and Silicon Valley companies over his incendiary posts and accounts.
Facebook and Instagram subsequently locked Trump’s accounts at least through Inauguration Day. “We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a statement posted to his personal page the day after the mayhem.
Democratic lawmakers, civil rights leaders and other activists have long called for Twitter and Facebook to take more forceful action against Trump, with some urging for his permanent removal. But Republicans have pushed back on those efforts, accusing tech companies of an anti-conservative bias, a charge they deny.
“Enough is enough!” tweeted House Energy and Commerce Chair Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) on the night of the attack on the Capitol. “Trump is inciting violence and spreading dangerous misinformation that is undermining our democracy and our way of life. Social media continues to amplify his anti-democratic rhetoric.”
He added, “It’s time for [Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey] and [Facebook CEO] Mark Zuckerberg to remove Trump from their platforms.”
Twitter’s decision late Friday to boot Trump off the platform for good immediately drew muted praise from Democratic officials, who welcomed it but chastised the company for not stepping in sooner.
“Good step @Twitter. But the damage can’t be undone. And what took so long?” tweeted Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois.
“Thank you @twitter for taking this action,” tweeted Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). “We must come together as a country to heal and find a common path forward.”
Republicans swiftly rebuked the social media platform’s decision Friday.
“Twitter’s permanent suspension of President Trump is beyond disturbing,” tweeted Republican Rep. Diana Harshbarger of Tennessee. “Instead of fostering open debate, this move will deepen the divide in this country. Unacceptable does not even begin to describe this move.”
Matthew Choi contributed to this report.
Source Article from https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/08/twitter-suspends-trump-account-456730
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