President Donald Trump has been allowed to tweet again after being locked out of his account for 12 hours.
Before his account was locked, he had posted several messages on Wednesday in which he called the people who stormed Capitol Hill “patriots”. He also reiterated false claims of voter fraud.
Trump has been warned by the social media site that he will be banned “permanently” if he breaches the platform’s rules again.
So far, he’s playing it safe – only tweeting a video where he takes a more conciliatory tone and pledges to facilitate a peaceful transition of power.
Other social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram and popular gaming platform Twitch have been stricter. Twitch has placed an indefinite ban on Mr Trump’s channel while Facebook has suspended the president from its site and Instagram for the next two weeks.
The shocking events of the last 24 hours clearly demonstrate that President Donald Trump intends to use his remaining time in office to undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden.
His decision to use his platform to condone rather than condemn the actions of his supporters at the Capitol building has rightly disturbed people in the US and around the world. We removed these statements yesterday because we judged that their effect — and likely their intent — would be to provoke further violence.
Following the certification of the election results by Congress, the priority for the whole country must now be to ensure that the remaining 13 days and the days after inauguration pass peacefully and in accordance with established democratic norms.
Over the last several years, we have allowed President Trump to use our platform consistent with our own rules, at times removing content or labeling his posts when they violate our policies. 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.
We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great. Therefore, we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete.
