President Donald Trump walks to board Air Force One prior to departure from Joint Base Andrews in Md., on Dec. 23, 2020. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
Trump Responds to Twitter’s Permanent Account Suspension
President Donald Trump responded to Twitter’s move to permanently suspend his account from its platform late Friday, condemning the big tech giant and saying that it does not stand for free speech.
The president also said he anticipates a “big announcement” soon and that his team is negotiating with other sites and is also looking at building a separate platform.
“As I have been saying for a long time, Twitter has gone further and further in banning free speech, and tonight, Twitter employees have coordinated with the Democrats and the Radical Left in removing my account from their platform, to silence me—and YOU, the 75,000,000 great patriots who voted for me,” Trump said in a statement.
“Twitter may be a private company, but without the government’s gift of Section 230 they would not exist for long,” he added.
Twitter late on Friday permanently suspended Trump’s Twitter account @realDonaldTrump, citing violation of its “Glorification of Violence” policy. It cited two of the president’s most recent posts as justification for its action.
The first post read, “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!!!”
Subsequently, the president posted, “To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.” This was the last Twitter post before Trump’s account was removed from the platform.
Twitter said that the two posts had violated its “Glorification of Violence policy,” which aims to “prevent the glorification of violence that could inspire others to replicate violent acts.”