The action by the social media giants came in the wake of posts by the US President that claimed fraud in the election he lost to Joe Biden and allegedly incited violence by Trump supporters. Facebook and Twitter have suspended US President Donald Trump’s account after he tweeted to his supporters who mounted a brazen attack on the US Capitol, disrupting lawmakers as they were about to certify Democrat President elect Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election. The posts allegedly incited rampant mob violence.
Facebook blocked Trump from posting on the site for 24 hours, the company said in a note. The decision came after the company had already removed posts Trump made in support of the mob. “We’ve assessed two policy violations against President Trump’s Page which will result in a 24-hour feature block, meaning he will lose the ability to post on the platform during that time,” a Facebook statement read.
Trump’s account on Facebook-owned Instagram will also be locked for 24 hours. Earlier on Wednesday, Facebook had removed a video posted hours after the attack began where Trump called on protestors to “go home” and stated falsely that “we had an election that was stolen from us”.
Twitter locked Trump’s account for 12 hours after removing three tweets that the company said were “severe violations of our Civic Integrity policy”. The company said the President’s account would remain locked for good if the tweets were not removed forthwith. “Future violations of the Twitter Rules… will result in permanent suspension of the @realDonaldTrump account,” the company said.
‘I TOTALLY DISAGREE‘
Meanwhile, Dan Scavino, White House Director of Social Media, used his own account to publish a statement on the President’s behalf. “Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20th,” it quoted Trump as saying. “I have always said we would continue our fight to ensure that only legal votes were counted. While this represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history, it’s only the beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again!”
