Twitter permanently suspends President Donald Trump’s accounts

SAN FRANCISCO (NewsNation Now) — Twitter permanently suspended the @realDonaldTrump account “due to the risk of further incitement of violence” Friday night. Later, President Trump tried to use the @POTUS and @TeamTrump accounts to post a statement. Those tweets were removed and Twitter permanently suspended the @TeamTrump account.

Twitter said it made a decision after a review of recent tweets from President Donald Trump and the context around them.

“Specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter,” Twitter said in a statement.

After his personal Twitter account was banned, President Trump appeared to send some tweets Friday evening from the official presidential Twitter account @POTUS, but those tweets were eventually removed and the account was suspended.

NewsNation took screenshots before that happened and Trump said:

“As I have been saying for a long time, Twitter has gone further and further in banning free speech, and tonight, 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. Twitter may be a private company but without the government’s gift of Section 230 they would not exist for long. I predicted this would happen. We have been negotiating with various other sites, and will have a big announcement soon, while we also look at the possibilities of building out our own platform in the future. We will not be SILENCED! Twitter is not about FREE SPEECH. They are all about promoting a Radical Left platform where some of the most vicious people in the world are allowed to speak freely…STAY TUNED!”

President Trump also used his campaign’s Twitter account — @TeamTrump — to post the same statement. Twitter also suspended that account.

The suspension is permanent, a Twitter spokesperson confirmed to NewsNation.

As we’ve said, using another account to try to evade a suspension is against our rules. We’ve permanently suspended the @TeamTrump account.

Twitter Spokesperson

Earlier in the week, Twitter had suspended Trump’s personal account for 12 hours after the U.S. Capitol riots.

Twitter released a “comprehensive analysis of our policy enforcement approach in this case.”

Twitter analysis

Overview

On January 8, 2021, President Donald J. Trump tweeted:

“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!!!”

Shortly thereafter, the President tweeted:

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

Due to the ongoing tensions in the United States, and an uptick in the global conversation in regards to the people who violently stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, 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. After assessing the language in these Tweets against our Glorification of Violence policy, we have determined that these Tweets are in violation of the Glorification of Violence Policy and the user @realDonaldTrump should be immediately permanently suspended from the service.

Assessment

We assessed the two Tweets referenced above under our Glorification of Violence policy, which aims to prevent the glorification of violence that could inspire others to replicate violent acts and determined that they were highly likely to encourage and inspire people to replicate the criminal acts that took place at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

This determination is based on a number of factors, including:

– President Trump’s statement that he will not be attending the Inauguration is being received by a number of his supporters as further confirmation that the election was not legitimate and is seen as him disavowing his previous claim made via two Tweets (1, 2) by his Deputy Chief of Staff, Dan Scavino, that there would be an “orderly transition” on January 20th.
– The second Tweet may also serve as encouragement to those potentially considering violent acts that the Inauguration would be a “safe” target, as he will not be attending. 
– The use of the words “American Patriots” to describe some of his supporters is also being interpreted as support for those committing violent acts at the US Capitol.
– The mention of his supporters having a “GIANT VOICE long into the future” and that “They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!” is being interpreted as further indication that President Trump does not plan to facilitate an “orderly transition” and instead that he plans to continue to support, empower, and shield those who believe he won the election. 
– Plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off-Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021. 

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

Twitter

NewsNation has reached out to The White House for comment.

The president’s son responded on Twitter:

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

NewsNation asked Twitter about the suspension of other accounts. The company responded in a statement:

“The accounts have been suspended in line with our policy on Coordinated Harmful Activity. We’ve been clear that we will take strong enforcement action on behavior that has the potential to lead to offline harm, and given the renewed potential for violence surrounding this type of behavior in the coming days, we will permanently suspend accounts that are solely dedicated to sharing QAnon content.”

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