There was a lot going on this past week but the complete chaos was when the US Capitol was sieged by insurrectionist mobs last Wednesday.
Donald Trump had incited his supporters to storm the Capitol, urging them to rise up against the outcome of the national election claiming that it was rigged[It wasn’t].
Donald Trump’s presence on social media has driven tech companies like Twitter and Facebook to come up with policies that majorly revolved around him.
They have been endless calls to deplatform Trump and Wednesday’s attacks escalated measures by various platforms to boot him out with critics and employees of said companies saying that this move is a little too late.
Here are all the social media platforms and other websites that have not only removed Donald Trump’s account but also accounts associated with pro-Trump violence and conspiracies including #StoptheSteal and QAnon.
Twitter permanently suspended his account on Friday. In a statement, Twitter said that they had closely reviewed his recent tweets and the context around them and decided to permanently suspend the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.
Facebook has banned Donald Trump from posting on his accounts for at least the next two weeks until the transition of power to President-elect Joe Biden is complete.
Facebook has also blocked the #StormTheCapitol hashtag.
“Over the last several years, we have allowed President Trump to use our platform consistent with our own rules, at times removing content or labeling his posts when they violate our policies. We did this because we believe that the public has a right to the broadest possible access to political speech, even controversial speech. But the current context is now fundamentally different, involving use of our platform to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government,” Mark Zuckerberg said in the post.
“We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great. Therefore, we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete,” Zuckerberg concluded.
Instagram has also instituted the same ban as Facebook. Just like Facebook, Instagram also removed the video Trump posted that addressed the violence in the Capitol without fully condemning it.
Reddit has shut down the subreddit group “r/DonaldTrump,” due to “repeated policy violations” on the forum since Wednesday.
It’s worth noting that the subreddit is not an official group or page hosted by the Trump.
The subreddit had encouraged people to attend the D.C. rally that turned into deadly violence at the Capitol.
“Reddit’s site-wide policies prohibit content that promotes hate, or encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence against groups of people or individuals. In accordance with this, we have been proactively reaching out to moderators to remind them of our policies and to offer support or resources as needed. We have also taken action to ban the community r/donaldtrump given repeated policy violations in recent days regarding the violence at the U.S. Capitol,” reads a statement from Reddit.
Pinterest has been restricting hashtags associated with pro-Trump topics such as #StopTheSteal since around the November election.
Donald Trump doesn’t have a Pinterest account.
“Pinterest isn’t a place for threats, promotion of violence or hateful content. Our team is continuing to monitor and removing harmful content, including misinformation and conspiracy theories that may incite violence,” the company commented.
Snapchat
On Wednesday, the social network disabled Donald Trump’s account.
In June, Snapchat said content from his account was not going to be promoted in the apps Discover tab.
Snapchat has locked his account and will closely monitor the situation before re-evaluating its decision.
“Snapchat simply cannot promote accounts in America that are linked to people who incite racial violence, whether they do so on or off our platform,” said Evan Spiegel, the company’s co-founder and chief executive officer.
The tech giant has removed Parler from the Google Play Store.
Parler is a social media app[It’s UI elements ooks like a mashup of Twitter and Reddit] with less stringent moderation that makes it popular with far-right extremists and conservatives from
“In order to protect user safety on Google Play, our longstanding policies require that apps displaying user-generated content have moderation policies and enforcement that removes egregious content like posts that incite violence,” said a Google spokesperson.
YouTube
YouTube removed a Donald Trump video that addressed the Capitol attack without fully condemning it because of false information about the 2020 election.
“Due to the extraordinary events that transpired yesterday, and given that the election results have been certified, any channel posting new videos with these false claims in violation of our policies will now receive a strike, a penalty which temporarily restricts uploading or live-streaming. Channels that receive three strikes in the same 90-day period will be permanently removed from YouTube,” reads a statement from a YouTube spokesperson.
Apple
Apple has removed Parler from its App Store.
Here’s what Apple said:
“We have always supported diverse points of view being represented on the App Store, but there is no place on our platform for threats of violence and illegal activity. Parler has not taken adequate measures to address the proliferation of these threats to people’s safety. We have suspended Parler from the App Store until they resolve these issues.”
TikTok
From last year, TikTok has been redirecting hashtags like #QAnon and #stopthesteal.
The platform is now removing content violations and redirecting hashtags such as #patriotparty and #stormthecapitol to its community guidelines.
TikTok said that Hateful behavior and violence have no place on their platform and that content or accounts that seek to incite, glorify, or promote violence violate their community guidelines will be removed.
Stripe
Stripe, an online payments processing firm has cut ties with Donald Trump for violating its policies.
The company said that they have halted processing his campaign donations.
A statement on their website says that Stripe restricts payments from “high risk” businesses including those that “engages in, encourages, promotes or celebrates unlawful violence or physical harm to persons or property.”
Discord
Discord has banned ‘The Donald’, a pro-Trump server that also had connections with to the already banned r/The_Donald subreddit.
“We have a zero-tolerance policy against hate and violence of any kind on the platform, or the use of Discord to support or organize around violent extremism. While there is no evidence of a server called The Donald being used to organize the Jan 6 riots, Discord decided to ban the entire server today due to its overt connection to an online forum used to incite violence, plan an armed insurrection in the United States, and spread harmful misinformation related to 2020 U.S. election fraud,” read a statement from the company.
Amazon
Amazon has removed Parler from AWS(Amazon Web Services) its cloud hosting service.
“AWS provides technology and services to customers across the political spectrum, and we continue to respect Parler’s right to determine for itself what content it will allow on its site. However, we cannot provide services to a customer that is unable to effectively identify and remove content that encourages or incites violence against others. Because Parler cannot comply with our terms of service and poses a very real risk to public safety, we plan to suspend Parler’s account,” reads a letter from Amazon.
This is an ongoing article with continuous updates of Donald Trump’s social media downfall. Please refresh for new information.
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