Earlier on Friday, the social media company permanently
suspended the president’s @realDonaldTrump account and wiped all his old
tweets.
The Twitter Safety account posted shortly afterwards,
saying: “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.”
It comes after Mr Trump was similarly banned from Facebook
and Instagram following riots at the US Capitol on Wednesday.
In response, Mr Trump posted a series of tweets from the
@POTUS account accusing the company of going “further and further in banning
free speech”.
The rambling tweets were swiftly deleted but not before
screengrabs were taken and circulated online.
The message continued: “Twitter employees have coordinated
with the Democrats and the Radical Left in removing my account from their
platform, to silence me – and YOU, the 75,000,000 great…patriots who voted for
me.”
He said he is considering building his own social media
platform in the near future and finished the post saying “we will not be
SILENCED!”
Twitter said the ban was the result of two of the
president’s tweets, posted on Friday, which had violated its glorification of
violence policy.
The first was: “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!!!”
The second offending tweet was: “To all of those who have
asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th”.
Twitter said the two messages “were highly likely to
encourage and inspire people to replicate the criminal acts that took place at
the US Capitol”.
The social media giant said its assessment of the tweets
found they were being “received by a number of his supporters as further
confirmation that the election was not legitimate” and seen as “disavowing” his
previous claim that there would be an “orderly transition” on 20 January when
President-elect Joe Biden takes over.
Additionally, Twitter said his second tweet on Friday “may
also serve as encouragement to those potentially considering violent acts that
the inauguration would be a ‘safe’ target”.
Mr Trump has no plans to attend Mr Biden’s inauguration,
making him the first president in more than 150 years – and just the fourth in
US history – to miss the occasion.
Twitter initially suspended Mr Trump’s account for 12 hours
on Wednesday after he posted a video that repeated false claims about election
fraud and praised the rioters who stormed the Capitol.
It lead prominent Democrats to push for his removal from
office early, under the 25th amendment.
Five people were killed in the violence, including police
officer Brian Sicknick, who was seriously hurt “while physically engaging with
protesters”.
Meanwhile, Twitter said plans for future armed protests
have already begun “proliferating on and off” the platform, including a
proposed secondary attack on the Capitol on 17 January.
Earlier, they permanently banned two Trump loyalists –
former national security adviser Michael Flynn and attorney Sidney Powell.
It was part of a broader purge of accounts promoting the
QAnon conspiracy theory, whose supporters made up a large portion of the
rioters.
The company also said Trump attorney Lin Wood was permanently
suspended on Tuesday for violating its rules, but provided no additional
details.
Separately, Democrats laid plans to impeach Mr Trump a
second time, with articles of impeachment expected to be introduced on Monday.
A draft of the resolution charges Mr Trump with abuse of
power, saying he “willfully made statements that encouraged – and foreseeably
resulted in – imminent lawless action at the Capitol.” – Sky News
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