By Elizabeth Culliford and David Shepardson
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Twitter Inc said on Friday that it has permanently suspended U.S. President Donald Trump’s account due to the risk of further incitement of violence following the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday by hundreds of his supporters.
“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” the company said in a tweet.
Social media companies have cracked down on Trump’s accounts in the wake of the turmoil on Wednesday. Facebook Inc said earlier this week it was suspending his account through until at least the end of his presidential term.
The Republican president is due to hand over to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden on Jan. 20.
The White House did not immediately comment.
In a blog post on Friday, Twitter said that two of the president’s tweets posted that day were in violation of its policy against the glorification of violence.
Twitter had temporarily blocked Trump’s account, which had more than 88 million followers, on Wednesday following the siege of Capitol Hill, and warned that additional violations by the president’s accounts would result in a permanent suspension.
Trump was required to delete three rule-breaking tweets before his account was unblocked. He returned to Twitter on Thursday with a video acknowledging that Joe Biden would be the next U.S. president.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Culliford, David Shepardson, Katie Paul and Eric Beech; Editing by Leslie Adler and Sonya Hepinstall)
