Donald Trump did not react well to being banned permanently from Twitter on Friday night after the platform determined that recent tweets could have been interpreted as inciting more violence against U.S. democratic institutions.
Politico reports: “The president is ‘ballistic,’ a senior administration official said after Twitter permanently took down his account…The official said Trump was ‘scrambling to figure out what his options are.'”
Politico adds: “When Trump’s eldest son, Don Jr. offered up a URL to those hoping to keep tabs of his father’s whereabouts, it was a site that had been purchased in 2009 and, in recent years, a place where his books were sold. For those who did sign up, an email was sent, plugging his latest work: ‘Liberal Privilege’.”
The Daily Beast reports that Trump tried to get on other official accounts and express his fury: “Shortly after being banned permanently from Twitter late Friday, President Trump used the official government @POTUS account to rant about the social media giant supposedly being in cahoots with the ‘radical left’ to silence him and the ‘patriots’ who support him. The tweets were almost immediately removed by Twitter, which had announced just hours earlier that the president’s personal account had been “permanently suspended” and warned that any attempt by him to evade that ban with government accounts would lead to further suspensions. An attempt to use the @TeamTrump account to rant to his followers was also swatted down, with the account almost immediately suspended. “
Ahead of Trump’s ban, Twitter had banned the accounts of former national security adviser Michael Flynn and President Trump’s lawyer Sidney Powell for breaking the platform’s “Coordinated Harmful Activity” policy, Axios reports. “The action comes as part of the platform’s crackdown on QAnon-related content. Both Flynn and Powell have promoted the far-right conspiracy theory that purports without evidence that the ‘deep state’ is waging war against President Trump.”
Apple threatened to ban the conservative Twitter-esque platform Parler from its app store, Buzzfeed News reports: “Apple has given Parler, the social network favored by conservatives and extremists, an ultimatum to implement a full moderation plan of its platform within the next 24 hours or face expulsion from the App store. In an email sent this morning and obtained by BuzzFeed News, Apple wrote to Parler’s executives that there had been complaints that the service had been used to plan and coordinate the storming of the US Capitol by President Donald Trump’s supporters on Wednesday. The insurrection left five people dead, including a police officer.”
