Twitter permanently suspends Trump’s account

Twitter announced Friday evening that it has permanently suspended President Donald Trump’s account with the social media giant.

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In a blog post, Twitter wrote that “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.”

Trump was locked out of his account on Twitter, his preferred social medial platform, for 12 hours earlier this week after a crowd loyal to him stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday.

Friday’s move comes after hundreds of Twitter employees wrote a letter to the company, demanding permanent suspension of Trump’s account, The Washington Post reported.

“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,’” according to Twitter’s blog post. “Our public interest framework exists to enable the public to hear from elected officials and world leaders directly. It is built on a principle that the people have a right to hold power to account in the open.

“However, we made it clear going back years that these accounts are not above our rules entirely and cannot use Twitter to incite violence, among other things. We will continue to be transparent around our policies and their enforcement.”

Twitter said it assessed two tweets by the President under the company’s “Glorification of Violence” policy. The policy was set up to “prevent the glorification of violence that could inspire others to replicate violent acts.”

Twitter determined that the tweets were “highly likely to encourage and inspire people” to repeat the actions that took place Wednesday at the U.S. Capitol. The violence that day resulted in the deaths of four protesters and one U.S. Capitol Police officer.

The President’s son, Donald Trump Jr., called Twitter’s action “absolute insanity.”

“We are living Orwell’s 1984,” Trump Jr. tweeted. “Free speech no longer exists in America. It died with big tech and what’s left is only there for a chosen few. This is absolute insanity.”

Here are the tweets that caused the suspension, according to Twitter:

“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!!!”

And, “To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”

In its blog, Twitter said that Trump’s first tweet “is being received by a number of his supporters as further confirmation that the election was not legitimate,” and was also viewed as the President disavowing his previous claim made through two tweets by Dan Scavino, his deputy chief of staff, that there would be an orderly transition on Jan. 20 when Joe Biden is sworn in as the nation’s 46th president.

Twitter added that the second tweet “may also serve as encouragement to those potentially considering violent acts” on Inauguration Day. Twitter said the implication it drew from the tweet was that the inauguration would be a “safe” target, as Trump will not be attending the ceremony.

“As such, our determination is that the two tweets above are likely to inspire others to replicate the violent acts that took place on Jan. 6, 2021, and that there are multiple indicators that they are being received and understood as encouragement to do so.” Twitter wrote.

Trump had more than 80 million followers on Twitter.

Trump attempted to return on Twitter through @POTUS, the official account of the President of the United States. Trump said in a tweet that he was looking “at the possibilities of building out our own platform.”

“We will not be silenced. Twitter is not about free speech,” Trump tweeted. " They are all about promoting a Radical Left platform where some of the most vicious people in the world are allowed to speak freely.”

Twitter quickly took down the tweets.

Cox Media Group