Donald Trump, the apparent owner of a Snapchat account, will soon be permanently banned from Snapchat.
According to Axios, the platform will become the latest to give Trump the boot on January 20 following his incitement of a violent and deadly uprising that took place inside the U.S. Capitol on January 6.
“Last week we announced an indefinite suspension of President Trump’s Snapchat account, and have been assessing what long term action is in the best interest of our Snapchat community,” a spokesperson for the platform told Axios. “In the interest of public safety, and based on his attempts to spread misinformation, hate speech, and incite violence, which are clear violations of our guidelines, we have made the decision to permanently terminate his account.”
In response to his role in encouraging protesters to take up arms against U.S. Congress in retribution for what he has repeatedly and falsely referred to as a “stolen election,” Trump also earned permanent or partial suspensions or bans from Twitter, Facebook and Instagram this week. In addition to his social media exile, Trump has also been ostracised by some large companies, with Deutsche Bank vowing to sever ties with Trump and his businesses on Tuesday, and even some large cities, with New York City officially terminating its contracts with the Trump Organisation on Wednesday.
For Snapchat, the decision to ban Trump was reportedly a long time coming, with company sources telling Axios that the president violated the platform’s policies around misinformation, hate speech and glorifying or inciting violence “dozens of times” in recent months. The company has also reportedly had its eye on Trump’s account for months now, and in June stopped promoting his account in its “Discover” section, which features content from particularly prolific users.
Like Facebook, Snapchat has also recently scrubbed its platform of the phrase “Stop the Steal” — a classic Trumpism popularised in order to delegitimize the 2020 election results — by preventing it from showing up in its search bar.