Twitter Permanently Suspends President Trump

Twitter’s actions deprive the president of the megaphone by which he has incited violence and chaos for the last four years.

Social media platform Twitter has announced that President Donald Trump’s account has been permanently suspended.

The news comes amid growing calls for the president’s removal, resignation, or impeachment. Facebook and Instagram earlier this week indefinitely suspended the president’s account citing the violent threats posed by President Trump in the wake of the Jan. 6 terrorist attack on the US Capitol, which has left five people dead. The Daily Beast reports that those platforms may issue a permanent ban as well.

In its statement, Twitter said that President Trump had continued to violate its policies against promoting violence.

“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,” the statement read. “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.”

The ban comes just hours after Twitter permanently removed thousands of accounts associated with the QAnon conspiracy theory, including those of high-profile Trump allies Michael Flynn and Sidney Powell. Twitter also banned the account of Ron Watkins, who runs the website 8kun, which hosts posts from Q, the false digital “prophet” behind the QAnon conspiracy theory believed by several of the terrorists who stormed the US Capitol earlier this week.

Friday’s bans represent the most significant step the company has taken to crack down on misinformation and calls for violence.

“The accounts have been suspended in line with our policy on Coordinated Harmful Activity,” a Twitter spokesperson told NBC News on Friday. “We’ve been clear that we will take strong enforcement action on behavior that has the potential to lead to offline harm, and given the renewed potential for violence surrounding this type of behavior in the coming days, we will permanently suspend accounts that are solely dedicated to sharing QAnon content.”