Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have temporarily suspended US President Donald Trump’s accounts on their platforms, accusing him of breaking their content regulations, after violence broke out at the US Capitol on Wednesday.
While Twitter blocked Trump’s account for 12 hours, Facebook and Instagram have suspended the accounts for 24 hours. Twitter also removed three tweets made by Trump.
“We’ve assessed two policy violations against President Trump’s page which will result in a 24-hour feature block, meaning he will lose the ability to post on the platform during that time,” Facebook said in a statement.
The company also removed certain posts made by the US President during the Capitol Hill violence last night.
Instagram head Adam Mosseri also confirmed via Twitter that Trump’s account has been blocked on the photo sharing platform too.
“We removed from Facebook and Instagram the recent video of President Trump speaking about the protests and his subsequent post about the election results. We made the decision that on balance these posts contribute to, rather than diminish, the risk of ongoing violence,” Facebook said in its statement.
While Twitter had proactively started labeling posts by Trump before the US elections last year, Facebook faced heat from users, employees and critics when it refused to take down certain contentious posts by Trump.
Social media platforms have usually been slow to take action against politicians’ accounts, let alone against a US President.
The US President’s Twitter and Facebook accounts have often been scrutinized by experts, and accused of inciting violence.
