Twitch Bans Trump and Can We Get an Emote For That

Twitch Bans Trump and Can We Get an Emote For That

Twitch is the latest platform to ban Donald Trump’s account after the mobbing of the Capitol building in Washington D.C. on Thursday.

“In light of yesterday’s shocking attack on the Capitol, we have disabled President Trump’s Twitch channel,” a Twitch spokesperson said in an email to Kotaku.

“Given the current extraordinary circumstances and the President’s incendiary rhetoric, we believe this is a necessary step to protect our community and prevent Twitch from being used to incite further violence.”

It is currently unclear if or when this ban will be lifted so for the present time it is indefinite.

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“We are focused on minimising harm leading up to the transition of government and will reassess his account after he leaves office,” the spokesperson said.

This news comes off the back of Facebook and Instagram also blocking Trump’s accounts indefinitely.

“Over the last several years, we have allowed President Trump to use our platform consistent with our own rules, at times removing content or labelling his posts when they violate our policies,” Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, said in a statement.

“We did this because we believe that the public has a right to the broadest possible access to political speech, even controversial speech. But the current context is now fundamentally different, involving use of our platform to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government.”

Both Facebook and Twitch blocked Trump’s accounts after the President released a video addressing his supporters who stormed the Capitol.

While Trump told them to go home peacefully, he did not condemn the violence. He also repeated his false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from “them” and that he won by a “landslide”.

trump video tweet youtube twitter

These claims of election fraud, which Trump has been repeating for months, resulted in YouTube and Facebook removing the video.

Twitter initially took a softer stance by restricting the tweet and adding a disclaimer: “This claim of election fraud is disputed, and this Tweet can’t be replied to, Retweeted, or liked due to risk of violence.”

However, within a few hours Twitter deleted the video as well as two other tweets. It also locked Trump’s account for 12 hours but threatened a permanent ban if he continued to incite violence.

Facebook quickly followed suit by locking Trump’s account for 24 hours, but has since suspended the account indefinitely.

Until now President Trump has largely escaped social media rules due to his special privileges as a world leader. In the case of Twitter, thyis has enabled him to get away with tweets that are inflammatory or containing false information due to being in “a clear public interest value to keeping the tweet on the service.”

Trump is set to lose these privileges when President-Elect, Joe Biden, is sworn-in on January 20. But it looks like it may have happened a little earlier.


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