Twitter announced last night, January 8, that it will permanently block Donald Trump’s official social media account. The decision was made hours after the current President of the United States was granted access to re-publish on his profile.
To recap, Donald Trump’s official accounts were suspended not only on Twitter but also on Facebook and Instagram, for example. The blockades were carried out after the invasion of supporters to the Capitol at the time when the recount of the votes of electoral colleges was made, which would sacrament the victory of Joe Biden in the election, by 306 votes to 232.
While Mark Zuckerberg’s social networks – Instagram and Facebook – had already decreed that Trump would remain without access to his profiles at least until Joe Biden’s inauguration, scheduled for January 20, Twitter again accepted the politician’s publications.
However, a new wave of publications by Donald Trump, Twitter decided to reevaluate its position and announced the permanent suspension of the profile @RealDonaldTrump – the official page of the politician who had more than 88 million followers.
In its decision, the social network explained that some publications were taken into account and could cause further upheavals by supporters in favor of violence.
https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1347684877634838528
“After careful analysis of recent @realDonaldTrump tweets and the context around them, we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement to violence.”
In the publication that follows the thread, the social network still explains that it had foreseen this action last Wednesday, January 6, when the profile was suspended the first time: “In view of the terrible events of this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that further violations of Twitter rules would result in this action. ”
Use of the presidential account
After having his personal account blocked on Twitter, Donald Trump appealed to his last major channel of communication with supporters – the presidential Twitter account.
During his tenure, Trump rarely used the @POTUS (acronym for President of the United States) profile, the official account of who holds the position of president of the United States. Instead, he posted on his profile, and messages were retweeted on @POTUS.
However, with the suspension of his personal account, Trump decided to give new “messages” to supporters. In one of the messages, Trump commented on building a “new platform” to communicate directly with supporters.
In the messages, the ex-businessman also comments that Twitter “is not about free speech” and that the social network “is about promoting a radical left platform where the most cruel are allowed to speak freely”
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The social network, in turn, has taken further action and removed Donald Trump’s most recent tweets on presidential Twitter. The company explained that this measure was taken because a user banned from the network cannot use secondary accounts to “circumvent” the block. From then on, the profile remains on the air, but only shows publications made until 2020.
Source: nytimes