Twitter Permanently Bans Donald Trump

Donald Trump has reacted with fury, after Twitter late last week extended its sanctions against the outgoing US President.

Five people died when Trump encouraged his supporters to storm the US Capitol building on Wednesday 6 January, where senators had gathered to ratify the election of Joe Biden.

The tech industry responded quickly to this attempted coup, with Twitter and Facebook quickly banned him from his accounts. Twitter initially imposed a 12 hour ban on his account, whereas Facebook banned him for 24 hours.

Permanent ban

But by Friday as the seriousness of Trump’s action began to be considered, with politicians on both sides calling for his impeachment and immediate removal from office, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg decided to go one stage further and banned Donald Trump ‘indefinitely’ from its platforms.

In a post on Facebook, Zuckerberg said the risk of allowing the President to continue to use its service are simply too great.

Twitter meanwhile had already indicated that its patience with Donald Trump was wearing thin, when it warned the US president on Wednesday that “Future violations of the Twitter Rules, including our Civic Integrity or Violent Threats policies, will result in permanent suspension of the @realDonaldTrump account.”

Many speculated last week that could spell the end of Donald Trump on Twitter, as he was well known for not paying much attention to Twitter’s community guidelines.

Twitter takedown

Trump used his twitter account to deliver a video message in which he promised an ‘orderly transition’ and then on Friday he posted two tweets that the company cited as the final straws, and it quickly took his last messages down.

In one, Trump wrote: “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 reported said that tweet “is being interpreted as further indication that President Trump does not plan to facilitate an ‘orderly transition'”.

In the next, the president tweeted: “To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”

Twitter said last week this was “being received by a number of his supporters as further confirmation that the election was not legitimate”.

Twitter said both of these tweets were “in violation of the Glorification of Violence Policy”.

Twitter then late on Friday then decided enough was enough, and it permanently took down Donald Trump’s Twitter account, citing the possibility that it would be used in the final 12 days of Trump’s presidency to incite violence.

Trump ballistic

Media reports stated the president went “ballistic,” according to a senior administration official, and he was “scrambling to figure out what his options are.”

In a statement issued by the White House, Trump said he’d been “negotiating with various other sites” and it was even touted he would build his own platform to promote his views.

Accessing the realDonaldTrump account (which used to have 88 million followers), reveals the following message.

“Account suspended. Twitter suspends accounts which violate the Twitter Rules.”

Twitter also on Friday permanently banned the accounts of two Trump loyalists: former national security adviser Michael Flynn and attorney Sidney Powell.

Trump and his supporters are accusing Twitter of stifling free speech.