Twitter silences its ‘Commander-in-Chief’!
Twitter permanently suspended his account @realDonaldTrump Friday evening
He was indeed the most 'chirping' bird in the garden that we know as Twitter. Albeit his heavy position and a busy schedule, Donald Trump, the departing US president tweeted 18 times in average daily since the first day of his presidency becoming not only the US but also 'Twitter Commander-in-Chief'.
Starkly different from traditional PR method, Twitter granted the already powerful man enormous capacity to connect with people for sending messages in mere seconds to his followers on the platform. In turn, the internet giant itself benefitted from his loud presence as each controversial tweet from POTUS spiked the mass engagement online.
However, that reciprocal relation has come to a halt which seemingly will not resume anytime soon. Twitter locked out Donald Trump from his account on 6 January for 12 hours as he tweeted in favour of the people who stormed the US Capitol.
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Later, Twitter permanently suspended his account @realDonaldTrump Friday evening "due to the risk of further incitement of violence". One most powerful man on earth who has tweeted around 26,000 times in 1449 days, has not published a single post in over 24 hours!
Hundreds of his supporters entered the complex as the US Congress attempted to certify Joe Biden's victory in the presidential election. The ensuing violence led to the deaths of four civilians and a police officer. Trump dubbed the trespassers as 'patriots' before being locked out of his account.
Twitter's official statement said, "After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them -- specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter -- we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence."
As of Saturday, Trump is 11 days away from officially handing over the oval office to the president-elect Joe Biden of Democratic party on 20 January.
Before being permanently banned, Donald Trump in his last tweet wrote, "To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th."
Following the ban, Trump made four tweets from the official Twitter handle of US President, @POTUS, lashing out at Twitter. "Twitter is not about FREE SPEECH. They are all about promoting a Radical Left platform," he wrote.
Trump also hinted opening a 'new platform' similar to Twitter! His tweet said, "We have been negotiating with various other sites, and will have a big announcement soon."
However, all of the tweets were removed immediately after they were posted.
Twitter first started taking actions against Donald Trump in May 2020 flagging two of his tweets for glorifying violence. Trump famously wrote against Black Lives Matter protest 'when the looting starts, the shooting starts', in one of them.
Over the course of four years, Trump often engaged in insulting public figures, spreading false information and target political rivals. He in fact fired people on Twitter making a post immediately before or after the actions! All of it kept the social media platform abuzz which has now seemingly stopped but arguments for or against the step is still going on.
Twitter clarified that as it is a privately owned company, not a state actor, it does not contradict the constitutional rights to freedom of speech.
Celebrities and political figures have since long cried to Twitter to ban him from the platform and it looks like the bell has finally tolled for Mr President!
