On Friday, Twitter moved to permanently suspend President Donald Trump's account. The San Fransico based social network company attributed its decision citing the risk of further instigation of violence.
The permanent suspension of Trump's Twitter account was announced on the company's official blog on Jan. 8. The company's Twitter Safety handle also posted a tweet confirming Trump's permanent suspension from the platform.
Twitter raised concerns over Trump's recent tweets, saying they appeared to support the protestors, and that plans for upcoming armed protests have been doing the rounds on, as well as off the platform. This includes a proposed invasion of the U.S. Capitol and the state capitol buildings on Jan. 17.
Following this ban, Trump will no longer be able to access his account and his tweets. His profile picture has also been deleted. Trump had a whopping 88.7 million followers before his account was suspended. However, it is worth noting that Institutional accounts, including @WhiteHouse and @POTUS, are still active, CNBC reported.
Twitter has refrained from this taking this step for Trump’s entire presidency. President Barack Obama was the first U.S. President to use Twitter. However, he used the institutional @POTUS account but barely relied on the social media platform to convey his message, unlike Trump, who used his personal account to encourage supporters and even edit press releases before sharing them with his followers.
During an interview with Financial Times in 2017, Trump admitted that he wouldn't be here without the tweets, indicating the crucial role Twitter has played in getting his messages out to his supporters. Following the suspension of his account on Twitter, Trump can easily switch to using other social networking services such as Parler, which claims to be a less restrictive platform.
Trump and his allies have slammed Twitter every time the company labeled or fact-check his posts. When Twitter first added a fact-check link to Trump's posts in the spring, the president introduced an executive order aiming at Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which alludes to the law that protects social media platforms like Twitter from being held responsible for their users' posts and for moderating them.
The move was widely seen as retaliation for Twitter's decision. With some of Trump's previous supporters criticizing the president after the riot at the U.S. Capitol, Twitter moved ahead with its decision that many Democrats have been suggesting for a long time. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris had urged Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey to ban Trump's account during her presidential campaign in fall 2019.