Donald Trump’s Twitter Account Has Been Permanently Suspended

Twitter has permanently suspended Donald Trump’s account, the social platform announced on Friday, January 8. 

“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them—specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter—we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” Twitter said in a statement. 

The company continued, “In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter Rules would potentially result in this very course of action. Our public interest framework exists to enable the public to hear from elected officials and world leaders directly. It is built on a principle that the people have a right to hold power to account in the open. ” 

Twitter added, “However, we made it clear going back years that these accounts are not above our rules entirely and cannot use Twitter to incite violence, among other things. We will continue to be transparent around our policies and their enforcement.”

The company then laid out a detailed analysis of its policies and how it came to this decision. 

For months, President Donald Trump has used his Twitter to spread blatantly false information about the 2020 election. He claimed there was fraud, that the Democrats “stole” this election from him—but time and time again, this was proven untrue. Still, he kept tweeting. 

That tweeting is what, in large part, emboldened a group of Trump supporters to dangerously storm the Capitol on January 6 in “protest” of this “stolen election.” Five people died as a result. 

Former President Obama eloquently put it when he wrote of the riot, “History will rightly remember today’s violence at the Capitol, incited by a sitting president who has continued to baselessly lie about the outcome of a lawful election, as a moment of great dishonor and shame for our nation.” 

Unsurprisingly (but ironically), the Twitter reactions to this are off the charts. “THANK YOU TWITTER” started trending within moments of the announcement: 

This message perhaps sums it up: “Tweet in such a way that the entire world doesn’t trend THANK YOU TWITTER when you get banned.”