Twitter has explained the reasons behind its decision to permanently suspend the account of outgoing US President Donald Trump.
The account was temporarily locked on 6 January following violence at the US Capitol.
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While Twitter restored access to the account 12 hours later, the president received a permanent suspension on 8 January.
Why was Trump banned from Twitter?
According to Twitter, the suspension resulted from two tweets made on 8 January.
The first tweet said:
“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!!!”
The second tweet said:
“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”
According to Twitter, the two tweets were assessed based on the company’s glorification of violence policy.
“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,” Twitter said.
The company took particular issue with the use of “American Patriots”, which some supporters have interpreted as referring to the Capitol attackers as well. The president had previously referred to those who stormed the Capitol as patriots.
Meanwhile, the president’s tweet that he would not be attending the inauguration was also an issue. Some saw it as implying that there would not be an orderly transition of power.
Furthermore, some have interpreted this to mean that the inauguration would be a “safe” target for a potential attack.
“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,” Twitter said.
The social network says that plans for future armed protests and a second attack have spread on social media.
As such, the company has taken action to prevent the encouragement of violent acts.
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