Social media giants, Twitter, and Facebook, have temporarily locked the accounts of US President, Donald Trump, as they scrambled to crack down on his claims about the US presidential elections after his supporters stormed the US Capitol in Washington, DC, and temporarily stopped proceedings.
Twitter hid and required the removal of three of Trump’s tweets “as a result of the unprecedented and ongoing violent situation in Washington, DC,” after the president’s supporters attempted to force Congress to block the appointment of President-elect Joe Biden.
While urging his supporters to “go home,” Trump also praised the mob as “special” and telling them that they were “loved.”
Twitter officials said in a statement:
Future violations of the Twitter Rules, including our Civic Integrity or Violent Threats policies, will result in permanent suspension of the @realDonaldTrump account.
The social media handle used by the president is followed by 88 million people.
Twitter said Trump’s account would be locked for 12 hours and that if the offending tweets were not removed, “the account will remain locked.”
In a rapidly evolving sequence of events, Facebook and YouTube also took down videos posted by the president.
Facebook Vice President of Integrity Guy Rosen said in a tweet:
This is an emergency situation and we are taking appropriate emergency measures, including removing President Trump’s video.
We removed it because on balance we believe it contributes to rather than diminishes the risk of ongoing violence.
Meanwhile, Trump’s account on Instagram, with 24.5 million followers, remains active. Instagram is owned by Facebook.
YouTube also removed a Trump video that repeated his attacks on the integrity of the election he lost in November, following its policy barring claims challenging election results.
YouTube spokesman, Alex Joseph, said:
As the situation at the United States Capitol Building unfolds, our teams are working to quickly remove live streams and other content that violates our policies, including those against incitement to violence or regarding footage of graphic violence.
Facebook subsequently said it would search for and remove content which praised the storming of the Capitol or encouraged the violence.
The enormous social network said it would also seek to take down additional calls for protests, including peaceful ones, if they breached a curfew imposed in the US capital or any attempts to “restage” the storming of Congress, which a Facebook spokesman described as a “disgrace”.