Twitter has permanently suspended President Donald Trump's account two days after five people died following violent protests at the U.S. Capitol Building.
"After a 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," Twitter said.
When it comes to the White House and POTUS accounts, Twitter said in an email to EW Scripps Friday evening that they won't suspend those two accounts, but "will take action to limit their use."
"As we’ve said, using another account to try to evade a suspension is against our rules," Twitter said in a statement. "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."
On Friday, Twitter also suspended accounts they say are “solely dedicated to sharing QAnon content.”
The accounts included General Michael Flynn, Trump attorney Sidney Powell, and 8kun co-owner Ron Watkins.
QAnon is a group of loosely connected conspiracy theories associated with the far-right on the political spectrum. The president has retweeted some of these baseless conspiracies.
In a statement to NBC and Buzzfeed News, Twitter said “the account(s) has/have been suspended in line with our policy on Coordinated Harmful Activity. We’ve been clear that we will take strong enforcement action on behavior that has the potential to lead to offline harm, and given the renewed potential for violence surrounding this type of behavior in the coming days, we will permanently suspend accounts that are solely dedicated to sharing QAnon content.”
BREAKING: Twitter is taking dramatic action on remaining QAnon accounts for breaking their "Coordinated Harmful Activity" rules, some of whom heavily promoted Wednesday's storming of the Capitol.
Mike Flynn, Sidney Powell, 8kun's Ron Watkins banned.
Twitter's statement below: pic.twitter.com/gINAtowQSb
— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) January 8, 2021
Flynn is Trump’s former National Security Advisor who pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI. He was recently pardoned by President Trump. In a video posted to Twitter in July, Flynn took an oath to QAnon.
Powell was his attorney, as well as working with Trump and the Trump campaign. Both Flynn and Powell are active within the QAnon online community.
Watkins is the administrator of the website 8Kun, formerly known as 8chan, according to Buzzfeed News.
Last summer, Twitter removed thousands of accounts associated with QAnon and blocked trends on the social media site relating to the conspiracies.
According to The Verge and Axios, Reddit banned the Donald Trump subreddit on Friday "for encouraging and glorifying violence" after a violent riot erupted at the US Capitol on Wednesday.
President Trump issued a statement from the now-suspended Team Trump account, stating that in the wake of being banned from Twitter, he will be "building out" his own social media platform.
