Twitter has permanently banned President Trump from its platform over recent tweets related to the inauguration and his calling those who voted for him “American Patriots.”

The president’s Twitter account, @realdonaldtrump, is now blank except for the words, “Account suspended. Twitter suspends accounts which violate the Twitter Rules.”

“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,” Twitter Safety wrote in a blog post explaining its decision.

Twitter cited two tweets which they say caused them to permanently ban the president.

In the first tweet, President Trump wrote, “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!!!” 

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

Twitter said that the two tweets “must be read in the context of broader events in the country” and that they could “incite violence.”

“We have determined that these Tweets are in violation of the Glorification of Violence Policy and the user @realDonaldTrump should be immediately permanently suspended from the service,” Twitter added.

Twitter than gave five points in bullet point format as to why the president was suspended for the two tweets cited above. They are as follows:

  • “President Trump’s statement that he will not be attending the Inauguration is being received by a number of his supporters as further confirmation that the election was not legitimate and is seen as him disavowing his previous claim made via two Tweets (1, 2) by his Deputy Chief of Staff, Dan Scavino, that there would be an “orderly transition” on January 20th.”
  • “The second Tweet may also serve as encouragement to those potentially considering violent acts that the Inauguration would be a ‘safe’ target, as he will not be attending.”
  • “The use of the words ‘American Patriots’ to describe some of his supporters is also being interpreted as support for those committing violent acts at the US Capitol.”
  • “The mention of his supporters having a ‘GIANT VOICE long into the future’ and that ‘They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!’ is being interpreted as further indication that President Trump does not plan to facilitate an ‘orderly transition’ and instead that he plans to continue to support, empower, and shield those who believe he won the election.”
  • “Plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off-Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021.”

Twitter concluded its statement, “As such, our determination is that the two Tweets above are likely to inspire others to replicate the violent acts that took place on January 6, 2021, and that there are multiple indicators that they are being received and understood as encouragement to do so.”

In the minutes following the announcement, the pro-free speech social media platform Parler was down, likely due to heavy traffic to the platform.

You can follow this author on Parler @ZacharyMettler