Twitter Has Permanently Suspended Trump’s Account, Which Means He Now Has No Social Media Account at All

If US President Donald Trump says something, no matter how ridiculous, his supporters tend to believe it.

When he claimed there was widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, his supporters believed it, and parroted the unverified claim.

It was an attempt to delegitimise Joe Biden’s win, and it seems to have worked, because even though the rest of the world has accepted the outcome of the election, Trump’s supporters are protesting the results.

This anger about supposed voter fraud – that was never substantiated, even in court – led to a violent assault on the Capitol Building, a meeting place of the United States Congress in Washington, D.C, as protestors hoped to overturn the election defeat.

Instead, it led to five deaths.

Many pointed fingers at Trump for inciting anger over the election, including some world leaders.

But he continued to cry foul about the imagined voter fraud, and now he may no longer have a medium to spout his every thought.

Twitter Has Permanently Suspended Trump’s Account, Which Means He Now Has No Social Media Account at All

Friday (8 Jan) was a momentous day.

Citing the “risk of further incitement of violence” in the US, Twitter permanently suspended Donald Trump’s account.

“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 company said.

“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence”.

Twitter first temporarily blocked Trump’s account after the Capitol Hill assault, warning that additional violations would lead to a permanent suspension.

But of course, Trump has never been one to heed warnings.

Twitter’s decision came after two tweets that Trump posted on Friday afternoon.

The first was about Trump’s supporters:

“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!!!”

In the second, Trump confirmed that he wouldn’t be attending Joe Biden’s inauguration:

“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”

Twitter said this two tweets “must be read in the context of broader events in the country and the ways in which the President’s statements can be mobilized by different audiences, including to incite violence, as well as in the context of the pattern of behavior from this account in recent weeks.”

It said the inauguration tweet, for instance, could be seen as a further statement that the election was not legitimate.

It could also be viewed as confirmation that the inauguration would be a “safe” target for violence, since he wouldn’t be there.

Could Trump Make a New Twitter Account?

At the time of his suspension, Trump had more than 88.5 million followers.

It’s important to note that Twitter has not banned Donald Trump specifically, only “the @realDonaldTrump” account.

As to whether Trump can create new accounts on the platform, no one knows.

Trump’s Twitter suspension comes a day after his accounts on Facebook and Instagram were banned “indefinitely”.

This means that Trump currently has no social media account at all.

But rest assured, Trump will find another platform to give the world, and more importantly, his supporters, access to his every thought.

Let’s just enjoy the silence while it lasts.

Featured Image: Twitter (Screenshot)