Mr Trump, who had around 90 million followers and had used the platform as a springboard for his surprise victory in the 2015 Republican nomination contest and as a bully pulpit throughout his presidency, was removed with immediate effect.
Leaders of the Stop Hate for Profit campaign, which persuaded more than 1,000 companies to boycott Facebook last year and had called for a total Trump ban on Friday morning, hailed the decision and called for Facebook to follow suit. Â
Donald Trump Jr, the President’s youngest son, reacted with fury, comparing Twitter’s leadership to Mao Zeon, while his 2020 campaign aide Steve Cortes called the ban “a direct assault upon the United States our way of life, constitution, and duly elected president”.
In its explanation of the decision, Twitter cited two tweets made by Mr Trump on Friday. In the first, he said: 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!!!
The second said simply noted that he would not be attending the inauguration of his victorious opponent Joe Biden on January 20, the first time any US president has done so in 152 years.
Those tweets, the San-Francisco-based social network said, were already being interpreted by Mr Trump’s most extreme supporters as a retraction of his promise on Thursday of an “orderly” handover, and a signal that the inauguration ceremony would be a “safe” target for further violence.
“Plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021,” Twitter said.
