Once one platform started, the rest followed: the suspension of Trump’s social media accounts

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Casey Chang

Two days after the Capitol insurrection, Trump got most forms of communication with the outside world taken away from him.

Kennedy Mayo, Senior Staff Writer

On January 8, Twitter permanently suspended President Trump’s Twitter account “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”

Twitter was Trump’s megaphone to the world, from which he could say anything that came to mind. Now, his other resorts are limited because several other apps have recognized his destructive tweeting, officially cutting him off from their platforms. 

“I felt that President Trump’s revoked Twitter account was a positive and mature play by the company because he is known for using that platform as a way of spreading his opinions of social matters…as of lately, he has been using it to spark chaos and violence amongst the people,” said Simarpal Singh (’21).

During the insurrection, Trump tweeted:

“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!!!”

And soon after, he tweeted:

“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”

Twitter immediately flagged the tweet because of the tension that was happening in the US. Twitter assists the language if the tweet and flagged it for being a violation of the Glorification of Violence Policy. 

The insurrection took people by surprise, and the world wanted to know how it was planned. They soon realized that much of it was organized through social media. 

Many far-right extremists were angered by this censorship and left many platforms themselves. The hashtag #goodbyetwitter was trending shorty after the presiden’t account was suspended.

These supporters have moved to apps such as Reddit, Shopify, Google (Parler) to communicate and incite violence. These apps were then observed, and the companies banned potentially dangerous groups. 

“I believe that removing trump from multiple social media apps was the right thing to do because of all the unnecessary drama he was bringing into the world,” said Alisa Ottaway (’21).

Last Wednesday could have been avoided. Unfortunately, Donald Trump had the vast decision to incite violence day that and due to those actions, he got his megaphone to the world taken away from him. 

Once one platform started, the rest followed. The majority of the platforms stated that he was a threat and should be prevented from inciting violence. Last Friday, Trump was banned from using over 10 apps.