Trump’s Snapchat account to be permanently banned
Snapchat plans to permanently ban President Trump’s account from the social media platform once President-elect Joe Biden takes office later this month, a Snapchat spokesperson confirmed to The Hill.
Axios first reported the decision Wednesday. A spokesperson for the platform told The Hill in an emailed statement that, following the platform’s announcement last week of an indefinite suspension on Trump’s account in the aftermath of the pro-Trump violent siege on the Capitol, Snpachat has “been assessing what long term action is in the best interest of our Snapchat community.”
“In the interest of public safety, and based on his attempts to spread misinformation, hate speech, and incite violence, which are clear violations of our guidelines, we have made the decision to permanently terminate his account,” the spokesperson added.
Snapchat noted that Trump has for months repeatedly violated its community guidelines and terms of service since the platform in June decided to stop promoting the president’s account on the “Discover” section, which features professional content and content from prominent people.
The latest decision by Snapchat, whose platform the Trump campaign and digital team used to reach younger audiences, comes as other social media companies have also taken action to permanently or indefinitely suspend accounts from Trump and some of his supporters to prevent further violence from arising over Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of a “stolen” election.
Twitter last Friday permanently banned Trump’s account, arguing that his posts posed “the risk of further incitement of violence.” Days later the platform announced it had banned more than 70,000 accounts that shared content surrounding the QAnon conspiracy theory in the wake of the Capitol riot.
Facebook has indefinitely suspended Trump’s account at least until Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration, and the president’s YouTube channel was temporarily suspended Wednesday due to violations of the platform’s policies and concerns about the “ongoing potential for violence,” the company said in a statement.
Last week’s violent mob at the Capitol forced lawmakers into lockdown for hours. Five people died amid the chaos, including a Capitol Police officer who was struck by a fire extinguisher, and a California woman who was fatally shot by another officer as she tried to storm the Speaker’s lobby just off the House floor.
Trump criticized social media platforms Tuesday, telling reporters that he believed the tech companies were being “divisive” and said it is “very, very bad for our country.”
“I think that Big Tech is doing a horrible thing for our country and to our country and I believe it’s going to be a catastrophic mistake for them,” Trump said.
The House on Wednesday voted to impeach Trump for the second time, with the latest article charging the president with inciting last week’s Capitol violence. Trump for months repeated unsupported claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, and told a crowd of supporters at a rally ahead of last week’s riot to march to Congress to stop the certification of Biden’s win.
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