On Wednesday night, Twitter locked President Donald Trump’s account over three tweets they said contained “repeated and severe violations” of the platform’s Civic Integrity policy. Twitter said Trump’s account will remain locked for 12 hours after he deletes the three tweets, and said further violations of the policy could see his account permanently suspended.
The Twitter action came after Trump tweeted a video calling for demonstrators who stormed the U.S. Capitol to go home. In the video, Trump urged the demonstrators to leave peacefully but also repeated his claims challenging U.S. election results. The video is one of the three tweets no longer available on Trump’s Twitter page.
“As a result of the unprecedented and ongoing violent situation in Washington, D.C., we have required the removal of three @realDonaldTrump Tweets that were posted earlier today for repeated and severe violations of our Civic Integrity policy,” Twitter Safety tweeted.
“This means that the account of @realDonaldTrump will be locked for 12 hours following the removal of these Tweets. If the Tweets are not removed, the account will remain locked,” the social media platform added.
The lockdown on Trump’s account comes after demonstrators stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, as Trump called on his supporters to rally in D.C. as he challenges the 2020 U.S. election.
Twitter’s Civic Integrity policy states users are not allowed to share information “intended to undermine public confidence in an election or civic process” including “disputed claims that could undermine faith in the process itself, such as unverified information about election rigging, ballot tampering, vote tallying, or certification of election results; and misleading claims about the results or outcome of a civic process which calls for or could lead to interference with the implementation of the results of the process, e.g. claiming victory before election results have been certified, inciting unlawful conduct to prevent the procedural or practical implementation of election results.”
Three tweets on Trump’s Twitter page are no longer visible. While Twitter did not show which tweets violated the policy, Trump’s video message to demonstrators was among the tweets no longer available.
“We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election and everyone knows it, especially the other side, but you have to go home now,” Trump said in the now locked video. “We have to have peace.”
An archived link to Trump’s Twitter page shows one of the other tweets no longer visible is one in which he said, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!”
Twitter Safety also tweeted, “Future violations of the Twitter Rules, including our Civic Integrity or Violent Threats policies, will result in permanent suspension of the @realDonaldTrump account.”
