President Trump has been permanently banned from Twitter due to “the risk of further incitement of violence”.
Twitter issued an official statement shortly after 11pm GMT yesterday. They stated that, due to Trump’s alleged “incitement” of the “horrific events this week”, they had made it very clear that his violations of the Violent Threats Policy could result in a permanent ban.
https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1347684877634838528
This decision comes after Wednesday’s siege of the Capitol Building, in which five people were killed when thousands of pro-Trump supporters, dissatisfied with the certification of the electoral college, stormed Congress.
Twitter also stated that its “framework exists to enable the public to hear from elected officials and world leaders directly”. However, they believe that the accounts of world leaders are not above their rules and “cannot use Twitter to incite violence”.
The permanent ban placed on Trump’s Twitter account, which had a whopping following of 88.7 million people, came on the same day that notable Democrat Representatives and Senators were drafting Articles of Impeachment for the President, and calling for the 25th Amendment to be invoked.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, called for Vice-President Mike Pence to take over immediately and remove President Trump from office on the grounds of “incitement of insurrection”.
This morning, @SenSchumer and I placed a call to Vice President Pence to urge him to invoke the 25th Amendment which would allow the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet to remove the President. We have not yet heard back from the Vice President.
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) January 8, 2021
In recent weeks, other high-profile Trump supporters’ Twitter accounts have also been banned. Examples of these are Michael Flynn, former Trump Administration National Security Advisor, and Sidney Powell, a notable attorney in the attempt to overturn the 2020 Presidential Election and former Federal Prosecutor. They were suspended under Twitter’s “Co-ordinated Harmful Activity Policy” for promoting QAnon conspiracy theories.
