OAKLAND, Calif. – Twitter announced on Friday that it had permanently suspended President Trump “because of the risk of further incitement to violence”, effectively cutting him off from his favorite megaphone to reach the public and a range of actions to end mainstream sites in order to limit its online reach.
Twitter said in a blog post that Mr. Trump’s personal @ realDonaldTrump account, which has more than 88 million followers, would be banned immediately. The company said two tweets Mr Trump posted on Friday – one calling his supporters “patriots” and another saying he would not go to the President’s inauguration on Jan. 20 – violated its rules against the glorification of violence.
The tweets “most likely encouraged and inspired people to repeat the criminal acts that took place in the US Capitol on January 6, 2021,” said Twitter, referring to the storming of the Capitol by a bunch of Trump loyalists.
Within minutes, Mr. Trump’s Twitter account was no longer accessible. His contributions were replaced by a label: “Account blocked.”
Mr Trump attempted to evade the ban late Friday by using the @POTUS Twitter account owned by the incumbent US president and other accounts to attack the company. But almost all of his messages were removed from Twitter almost immediately. The company prohibits users from avoiding being banned with secondary accounts.
The moves were a staunch rejection of Mr. Trump on Twitter, who had used the platform to build his base and spread his messages, which were often filled with falsehoods and threats. Mr Trump regularly tweeted dozens of times a day and sent a flurry of messages early morning or late evening. In his posts, he gave his live reactions to television news broadcasts, increased supporters, and attacked his perceived enemies.
“Twitter’s permanent suspension of Trump’s Twitter account is long overdue,” said Shannon McGregor, senior researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “This is the most important de-platform for Trump. The inability to tweet prevents his direct access to the press – and thus also to the public. “
In a statement late Friday, Mr Trump said Twitter tried to silence him. He said he was negotiating with other websites and promising a “big announcement soon” adding that he wanted to build “our own platform”.
“Twitter is not about FREE SPEECH,” Trump said. “It’s about promoting a radical left platform where some of the most evil people in the world can speak freely.”
The day before, Facebook had banned Mr. Trump for the remainder of his tenure, and other digital platforms – including Snapchat, YouTube, Twitch, and Reddit – recently restricted Mr. Trump to their services as well.
The actions were a strong example of the power of social media companies and how they could act almost unilaterally if they wanted to. Twitter, Facebook and other platforms had for years positioned themselves as defenders of free speech, saying that the posts of world leaders like Mr. Trump should be allowed because they were current. The companies had refused to touch his account even after being attacked for allowing misinformation and falsehoods.
Twitter decided to permanently suspend Mr Trump due to pressures from lawmakers, his own staff and many others, including Michelle Obama. Other world leaders and leaders have also posted brand tweets asking whether Twitter has come down a slippery slope and needed to close other accounts.
On Friday, the company also permanently suspended the accounts of several prominent Trump supporters who used the platform to spread conspiracy theories, including attorney Sidney Powell and former National Security Advisor to President Trump Michael T. Flynn. Rush Limbaugh, the Conservative talk show host, also appeared to have deactivated his account.
Donald Trump Jr., Mr. Trump’s son, described Twitter’s move against his father as “absolute madness” and said the tech companies were overwhelmed. “We live Orwell’s 1984,” he tweeted.
“Now is the time for Congress to repeal Section 230 and put Big Tech on the same legal footing as any other company in America,” said Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina on Friday.
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Mr Trump had repeatedly said to allies who had raised the possibility of social media companies banning him, “They will never ban me.”
There was an extensive process in place in the White House for creating official tweets. But at night and early in the morning, Mr. Trump composed his own tweets on his iPhone, often to the chagrin of advisers and Republican lawmakers who would spend hours or days studying the aftermath.
“I wouldn’t be here without the tweets,” Trump told the Financial Times in April 2017.
At a meeting at the White House last year, Brad Parscale, then Trump’s campaign manager, suggested that the president switch to Parler, an alternative social media site that has become popular with right-wing users. But Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, later turned down the idea, sharing Mr Trump’s trust that Twitter would not act, and it never happened, such a person who was briefed on what happened.
While the White House still has official Twitter accounts like @POTUS and @WhiteHouse until it opens, Twitter has announced that it will make it easier to transfer these accounts to the incoming Biden administration. Prior to Wednesday’s mob attack, Twitter’s executive director Jack Dorsey was involved in discussions about the transfer of these accounts, said a person familiar with the discussions.
The backlash against Mr. Trump online began Wednesday after his President-challenged loyalists breached the Capitol building. As a result, Twitter temporarily blocked Mr. Trump’s account, followed by Facebook. At the time, Twitter said the risk of having his comment live on its website had become too high.
The company said Mr Trump could return to his platform if he deleted multiple tweets containing falsehoods about the elections or calls for violence in violation of its guidelines. One of the tweets was a video Mr. Trump posted after police pushed the mob back where he told his followers, “We love you. You are something special. ”
After Mr Trump cut those posts, he was put back on the site Thursday. Late Thursday he issued a conciliatory message saying he was outraged by the violence and would allow a peaceful change of power.
But Mr. Trump tweeted on Friday that his supporters were “American patriots” with a “HUGE VOICE well into the future”. He also said he would not attend the inauguration on January 20.
Twitter said the news appeared to condone Wednesday’s violence and was likely to fuel further violence. It added that the one about the inauguration offered the date as a target.
“Plans for future armed protests have already spread on and off Twitter, including a planned secondary attack on the US Capitol and the state capitol building on January 17, 2021,” Twitter said.
Within Twitter, employees and executives have discussed how to treat Mr. Trump’s account. Mr Dorsey was vacationing on an island in French Polynesia this week but has been invited to meetings, said three people with knowledge of his location. On Thursday, he sent an email to employees saying it was important for Twitter to adhere to its policies, including the policy that a user can return after being temporarily banned, according to someone who received the email Has.
Hundreds of employees soon signed a petition urging the company to remove Mr Trump’s account immediately, said three people familiar with the petition. The petition was previously reported by the Washington Post.
On Friday, Twitter held a meeting with employees, two people with knowledge of the event said. During the meeting, workers urged executives why they hadn’t permanently banned Mr. Trump from the platform.
Mr Dorsey and other executives, like Vijaya Gadde, director of law and security at Twitter, said the company wants to be in line with its policies. These say that users can tweet again after deleting the messages that violate the rules.
But Mr Dorsey also said he “drew a line” in the sand that the president could not cross for fear of losing his account privileges, people with knowledge of the event said. Mr Dorsey said Twitter would issue a suspension if Mr Trump crossed that line.
Emerson Brooking, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, said the closure of Mr. Trump’s Twitter account was in some ways too late, given that the president had already been promoting so many conspiracy theories on the platform in recent years.
“Removing Trump from Twitter will not fix our policies, nor will it bring millions of Americans back to reality,” Brooking said. “But it makes it a lot harder for disinformation to go mainstream. And it makes it harder for Trump to reach his supporters. “
Aside from muting Mr. Trump’s largest megaphone, Twitter’s decision could be a headache for the Trump administration when it comes to complying with the Presidential Records Act of 1978, which requires the retention of materials and communications from the President.
Maggie Haberman, Katie Rosman and Maggie Astor contributed to the coverage.
