The chorus of social platforms banning President Donald Trump keeps growing stronger.
On Wednesday, after a day which saw Donald Trump use Twitter to seemingly encourage violent extremists storming the U.S. Capitol building, the company temporarily locked Trump’s Twitter account and laid out the conditions under which it would permanently suspend the President.
Soon after, Facebook announced it had banned Trump from posting to his Facebook profile for 24 hours. Then Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, made the same call. Then Snapchat followed suit, though without any stipulation on duration. And by Thursday, Facebook and Instagram said they were banning Trump indefinitely. Twitch joined in and disabled Trump’s account Thursday as well, noting in a statement to Mashable that it would “reassess his account after he leaves office.”
“As a result of the unprecedented and ongoing violent situation in Washington, D.C., we have required the removal of three @realDonaldTrump Tweets that were posted earlier today for repeated and severe violations of our Civic Integrity policy,” Twitter wrote in a tweet explaining its plan. “This means that the account of @realDonaldTrump will be locked for 12 hours following the removal of these Tweets.”
The three tweets in question included a wild video in which Trump falsely claimed the election “was stolen.”On Thursday, Twitter confirmed that Trump has deleted the violating tweets, but wouldn’t specifically say if Trump currently is able to tweet.
“We can confirm that the violative Tweets have been deleted. Confirming the 12 hour lock did begin after the Tweets were deleted, but we’ve nothing more specific to share on timing,” a Twitter spokesperson said. This appears to contradict an earlier statement by Twitter to Mashable, which suggested the 12-hour countdown began when Twitter hid the tweets. Trump has yet to tweet since complying with Twitter’s demand.
Source: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Twitch ban Donald Trump