Trump Accuses Twitter of 'Banning Free Speech' After Ban of His Account
President Donald Trump tried to bypass Twitter’s permanent suspension of his personal account.
Trump tore into Twitter on the official presidential account, @POTUS, for banning him permanently. He accused Twitter of “banning free speech.”
“As I have been saying for a long time, Twitter has gone further and further in banning free speech, and tonight, Twitter employees have coordinated with the Democrats and the Radical Left in removing my account from their platform, to silence me — and YOU, the 75,000,000 great patriots who voted for me,” Trump wrote.
The president added, “Twitter may be a private company, but without the government’s gift of Section 230 they would not exist for long.”
Trump continued, in the since-deleted message (which Twitter deleted):
“I predicted this would happen. We have been negotiating with various other sites, and will have a big announcement soon, while we also look at the possibilities of building out our own platform in the near future. We will not be SILENCED!”
Trump added, which he also wrote in an official statement following its deletion, “Twitter is not about FREE SPEECH. They are all about promoting a Radical Left platform where some of the most vicious people in the world are allowed to speak freely. STAY TUNED!”
Business Insider reports that “Twitter and Facebook are on solid legal ground when it comes to banning Trump.”
Trump’s attempt to tweet from the @POTUS account came after Twitter permanently banned the president’s account, @realDonaldTrump, on Friday.
The platform said in a blog post, “We have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”
A spokesperson for Twitter told the Washington Examiner regarding the message that was deleted from the @POTUS account, “As we’ve said, using another account to try to evade a suspension is against our rules.”
The spokesperson added, “We have taken steps to enforce this with regard to recent Tweets from the @POTUS account. For government accounts, such as @POTUS and @WhiteHouse, we will not suspend those accounts permanently but will take action to limit their use.”
Twitter also suspended Trump’s campaign account @TeamTrump.
The suspensions of the accounts follow a day after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Thursday that Facebook and Instagram would be extending the suspension of Trump’s account indefinitely.
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