Washington: US President Donald Trump’s Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts have been temporarily suspended for breaking their content regulations after he tweeted to supporters who attacked the US Capitol Hill building during a Congress session on Wednesday.
While Twitter blocked Trump’s account for 12 hours, Facebook and Instagram have suspended the accounts for 24 hours. Twitter also removed three tweets made by Trump.
In a social media message to protesters, he said “I love you” before telling them to go home. He also repeatedly made false claims about election fraud.
Twitter said it required the removal of three tweets for “severe violations of our Civic Integrity policy”.
The company further said the president’s account would remain locked for good if the tweets were not removed. “Future violations of the Twitter Rules... will result in permanent suspension of the @realDonaldTrump account”, it added.
“We’ve assessed two policy violations against President Trump’s page which will result in a 24-hour feature block, meaning he will lose the ability to post on the platform during that time,” Facebook said in a statement. The company also removed certain posts made by the US President during the Capitol Hill violence last night.
Instagram head Adam Mosseri also confirmed via Twitter that Trump’s account has been blocked on the photo-sharing platform too. YouTube has also removed the video.
Snapchat also stopped Mr Trump from creating new posts but did not share if or when it would end the ban.
Soon after, White House director of social media accounts posted a statement on the President’s behalf that read: “Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20th.”
“I have always said we would continue our fight to ensure that only legal votes were counted. While this represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history, it’s only the beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again!,” it quoted Mr Trump as saying. (UNI)
