US: Twitter takes down Donald Trump's tweets from official POTUS account
US: Twitter takes down Donald Trump's tweets from official POTUS account
Twitter on Friday (local time) announced that it is permanently suspending outgoing president Donald Trump's account after blocking him several times this week. The social media platform cited a risk of further incitement of violence following a pro-Trump mob breaching the US Capitol on Wednesday.
Trump posted a message on the official government Twitter account @POTUS (President of the United States), blasting the platform for banning @realdonaldtrump and vowing, "We will not be silenced!"
"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 microblogging platform said that the @POTUS account will be kept active but will be monitored continuously. Within minutes of posting, Trump's tweets were also removed from that account, too.
With 88 million Twitter followers, the platform had been his preferred method of communication for the past four years.
Posting on the @POTUS account Trump lashed out at Twitter alleging that it has gone "further and further on banning free speech". He also alleged that the Twitter employees had coordinated with the democrats in "removing" his account.
"As I have been saying for a long time, Twitter has gone further and further in banning free speech and tonight, Twitter employees have coordinated with the Democrats and the Radical Left in removing my account from their platform to silence me -- and YOU, the 75,000,000 great patriots who voted for me," Trump wrote from the official account.
The outgoing President wrote that he predicted that this would happen, adding that he would have a big announcement very soon as they look out at the possibility of looking at the possibility of "building out our own platform".
"Twitter may be a private company but without the government's gift of Section 230 they would not exist for long. I predicted this would happen. We have been negotiating with various other sites, and will have a big announcement very soon, while we also look at the possibility of building out our own platform in the future," he added.
Trump said that the microblogging site "is not about "FREE SPEECH" further vowing that "we will not be silenced."
"We will not be silenced! Twitter is not about FREE SPEECH. They are all about promoting a radical left platform where some of the most vicious people in the world are allowed to speak freely," Trump wrote and concluded, "Stay Tuned!"
In a tweet on Friday, Trump said that millions of those who voted for him would have "a giant voice long into the future" and they will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way.
"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!!!" he said.
"To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th," he said in another tweet.
Chaotic and violent scenes erupted at the Capitol on Wednesday as supporters of Trump stormed the building to protest the Electoral College vote, forcing a lockdown and various confrontations with police. At least five people died in the melee.
Wednesday's violence came hours after Trump encouraged his supporters to fight against the election results as Congress was certifying Biden's victory in the November vote.
Twitter had blocked Trump's account from posting on their platform after the protests broke out in Washington, while Facebook on Thursday suspended his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely. Popular gaming platform Twitch has also banned Donald Trump's official channel on its platform indefinitely.
Twitter had unlocked the president's @realDonaldTrump Twitter account after Trump removed three rule-breaking tweets. He returned to Twitter on Thursday with a video acknowledging that Joe Biden would be the next US president.
(ANI)