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TORONTO —
U.S. President Donald Trump has used Twitter to float unfounded claims about the validity of the U.S. election, belittle political foes and lob demeaning epithets at women who’ve accused him of sexual assault.
But @realDonaldTrump’s time on Twitter came to an end Friday after Twitter announced that it would permanently suspend the president’s account, citing “the risk of further incitement of violence.”
Trump’s 88.7 million followers will no longer be able to view any of his past tweets. Instead, visitors to his account are met with a blank grey page with a plain notification in bold letters: “Account suspended.”
The ban came after Trump’s account was previously suspended for 12 hours for posting a video in which he reiterated baseless claims of election fraud and called rioters who broke into the Capitol building “patriots.”
“Go home. We love you,” Trump said in the video.
Two people died during the attempted insurrection, including an ardent Trump supporter and a police officer.
The permanent ban adds Trump’s account to a short list of similar cases in which users saw their tweets wiped from the social media platform forever.
TRUMP ALLIES
Trump’s former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon was kicked off Twitter two days after the 2020 election after he suggested in a video that Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray should be beheaded. YouTube and Facebook also removed the video of Bannon making the incendiary comments.
In 2017, Trump ally Roger Stone was kicked off Twitter for an expletive-laden tirade in which he mocked a number of prominent journalists and media personalities.
MURDERERS AND HATE GROUPS
Anders Behring Breivik, the far-right Norwegian serial killer who murdered 69 people at a summer camp in 2011, was kicked off Twitter shortly after his account was created, just days before the attack. Before being taken offline, the account was hacked.
Back in 2017, in an effort to crack down on hate groups, Twitter carried out a flurry of permanent suspensions, including the American Nazi Party and Vanguard America, the white supremacist group that gained international attention during the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017.
CELEBRITIES
Rocker Courtney Love was the first celebrity to be sued over tweets after she allegedly defamed a fashion designer. The case was later settled. Her account was subsequently banned, but Love has since made a new account with more than 620,000 followers.
Rapper Azealia Banks has been suspended from Twitter multiple times for picking fights with a drag queen and mocking former One Direction star Zayn Malik.
ALT-RIGHT PERSONALITIES
Alt-right personality Milo Yiannopoulos was temporarily blocked from Twitter several times before getting the permanent boot in 2016 after a drawn-out racist attack against Saturday Night Live comedian Leslie Jones.
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was permanently suspended from Twitter in 2018 after years of peddling blatant falsehoods, including a conspiracy theory that a deadly school shooting was a hoax. Twitter said Jones’s behaviour violated the company’s abusive behaviour policy.
INFAMOUS AMERICANS
George Zimmerman, the Florida man who was acquitted in the killing of unarmed Black teenager Trayvon Martin in 2012, saw his Twitter account removed for posting revenge porn of an ex-girlfriend.
Former pharmaceutical exec Martin Shkreli, who gained infamy for unapologetically raising the price of a drug used by HIV patients, was permanently kicked off the social media platform in 2017 for lewd comments he made about a female journalist.
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