Rest in piss, @realDonaldTrump: Twitter has permanently suspended the president after he incited a riot at the Capitol this week.
“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 wrote in a blog post on Friday evening.
“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 added. “Our public interest framework exists to enable the public to hear from elected officials and world leaders directly. It is built on a principle that the people have a right to hold power to account in the open.”
Ahahahha. Hahahaha. Ah, hahaha. Ahh. Oh god. Hahhahaha.
Ha ha ha, hee hee, ho ho.
In the blog post, Twitter specifically cited the possibility that Trump could use his account to suggest his supporters mount another fascist assault on DC on the off chance it somehow convinces Congress to call a mulligan on the election.
“The mention of his supporters having a ‘GIANT VOICE long into the future’ and that ‘They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!’ is being interpreted as further indication that President Trump does not plan to facilitate an ‘orderly transition’ and instead that he plans to continue to support, empower, and shield those who believe he won the election,” Twitter wrote. “… Plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off-Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the U.S. Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021.”
The decision comes after roughly 350 Twitter employees sent an internal letter this week addressed to CEO Jack Dorsey and other top company executives calling for the company to stop stalling, take a deep breath, pull the cord on the guillotine already. Employees demanded that Twitter’s leaders explain why they allowed Trump to habitually violate the site’s rules with utter impunity, and requested an investigation into moderation missteps they believe contributed to pro-Trump rioters’ assault on the Capitol.
The letter, which was reviewed by the Washington Post, reads in part: “Despite our efforts to serve the public conversation, as Trump’s megaphone, we helped fuel the deadly events of January 6th. We request an investigation into how our public policy decisions led to the amplification of serious anti-democratic threats. We must learn from our mistakes in order to avoid causing future harm. We play an unprecedented role in civil society and the world’s eyes are upon us. Our decisions this week will cement our place in history, for better or worse.”
In a statement to the Post, Twitter spokesperson Brandon Borrman said the company “encourages an open dialogue between our leadership and employees” and welcomed its workers to voice “their thoughts and concerns in whichever manner feels right to them.”
Update: 12:05 p.m. AEDT: According to NBC News reporter Ben Collins, Twitter says it will take action to prevent Trump from using the official @POTUS and @WhiteHouse accounts if he gets real sad and “it becomes clear President Trump is using them to evade his permanent ban” in some sort of desperate attempt to feel anything again.
Donald Trump Jr. remains on Twitter, and is using it to compare his own father to the Supreme Leader of Iran and “numerous other dictatorial regimes” that still have accounts. We’re sure he’ll love you too someday. Or not, whatever.
So the ayatollah, and numerous other dictatorial regimes can have Twitter accounts with no issue despite threatening genocide to entire countries and killing homosexuals etc… but The President of the United States should be permanently suspended.
Mao would be proud.
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) January 9, 2021
In related news, chat service Discord has terminated thedonald.win, a server dedicated to losers who worship our banned president.
Update: 12:45 p.m. AEDT: The president immediately attempted to use the @POTUS account to evade his ban. The tweets then disappeared almost instantaneously, presumably the result of enforcement action by Twitter. Twitter later confirmed as much in an emailed statement to Gizmodo.
In the tweets sent from @POTUS, Trump said he had been “negotiating with various other sites” (conservative internet hellhole Parler comes to mind). The president also suggested that he might just build his own damn site where we can all read his posts forever and ever and ever.
NEW: It appears as though Trump tweeted from the @POTUS account. These tweets have now since been deleted/removed.
Waiting to hear from Twitter: https://t.co/8aS6m0Aofw pic.twitter.com/1CbJIUctTk
— Makena Kelly (@kellymakena) January 9, 2021
Good luck learning PHP and C++, Mr. President.
When reached for comment, Twitter pointed to its ban evasion policy, which says that any accounts used to circumvent a ban will be subject to suspension. Of course, enforcing that policy gets a bit more complicated when the banned user in question resorts to tweeting from government accounts, as a Twitter spokesperson explained:
“We have taken steps to enforce this with regard to recent Tweets from the @POTUS account. For government accounts, such as @POTUS and @WhiteHouse, we will not suspend those accounts permanently but will take action to limit their use.”
Update: 1:45 p.m. AEDT: Twitter has also suspended the Trump campaign’s official Twitter account, @TeamTrump as Trump exhausts the Rolodex of Twitter accounts to his name in a pathetic attempt to sidestep this ban.
Approximately 45 minutes before it was suspended, the account shared nearly identical tweets to the ones that got @POTUS booted, per Mashable. A company spokesperson confirmed that the account has been permanently suspended for violating Twitter’s ban evasion rules.
Update: 2:45 p.m. AEDT: And another one bites the dust. An account for the Trump campaign’s digital director, Gary Coby, has also been suspended after he appears to have handed over the reins to the Trump team. The president has presumably resorted to wandering the streets of D.C. begging for people’s Twitter log-ins.
Update: 4:15 p.m. AEDT: Added additional context provided by a Twitter spokesperson.
This is a developing story, and we’ll be updating it further between extended bouts of chortling.
Alyse Stanley contributed reporting to this article.