Twitter describes how it decided to suspend Trump's account, specifying how two tweets were in violation of its Glorification of Violence Policy

Twitter 2021-01-10

Context & Ripple Effects

Twitter had already moved from warning that Trump could be suspended for policy violations to placing notices on protest-related posts. Its shift toward labeling misleading and violence-glorifying posts followed years of internal deliberation, making this explanation the culmination of an escalating enforcement record.

The related coverage also records Twitter's permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump over further-incitement risk. By tying the action to two posts and a named policy, Twitter supplies a specific enforcement rationale rather than treating the account as exempt from its rules.

First-order effects

Trump loses access to Twitter's distribution through the suspended account, while Twitter publicly commits its enforcement decision to the Glorification of Violence Policy.
Twitter's trust-and-safety team must defend a policy-based standard applied to one of the platform's most consequential accounts.

Second-order effects

Twitter's earlier labels on Trump's protest posts become part of a clearer escalation path from notice to suspension, raising the stakes for other accounts that violate the same violence policy.
Facebook's earlier decision to preserve Trump's account in the name of political discourse now stands in sharper contrast with Twitter's willingness to remove a political leader for rule violations.

Third-order effects

The episode points toward political-speech moderation being governed less by blanket leader exemptions and more by documented, account-level enforcement rationales when platforms identify violence risks.

The trend: Major platforms are moving from exceptional treatment of political leaders toward formalized enforcement explanations for speech they classify as violence-related rule violations.

Discussion

Vox Meredith Haggerty on x
The controversy over Sean Hannity's Olive Garden “Pasta Pass,” explained
@sama Sam Altman on x
There are exemptions to free speech defined by the Supreme Court, and we urgently need new ones for the age of social media. What those exceptions are should be decided by the government, and fairly applied by companies.
@mmasnick Mike Masnick on x
I had some thoughts about Twitter's decision. I wrote a post. https://www.techdirt.com/...
@jameeljaffer Jameel Jaffer on x
Another way to look at this is that forcing publishers to publish the government's speech is what happens in China. https://twitter.com/...
@donaldjtrumpjr Donald Trump Jr on x
So the ayatollah, and numerous other dictatorial regimes can have Twitter accounts with no issue despite threatening genocide to entire countries and killing homosexuals etc... but The President of the United States should be permanently suspended. Mao would be proud.
@levie Aaron Levie on x
This is the tweet that ends all the tweets. https://twitter.com/...
@davidsacks David Sacks on x
Yes. Break them up. They deserve it. https://twitter.com/...
@suzanneevans1 Suzanne Evans on x
They've been dying to do this for the last five years. And whatever you think of Trump, they fact they've only done it to him and not numerous totally despotic and genocidal leaders around the world tells you everything you need to know. https://twitter.com/...
@edbott Ed Bott on x
This is the single best summary of the issues involved that I have read. https://twitter.com/...
@wired @wired on x
What changed was not Trump's behavior, but rather the facts on the ground: With the Capitol in shambles and blood spilled, the hypothesis that Trump's language could lead to violence had been replaced by the straightforward fact that it had. https://www.wired.com/...
@wired @wired on x
After Wednesday's attack, Trump's repeated election lies on Twitter seemed more likely to instigate violence than to quell it. https://www.wired.com/...
@deanobeidallah @deanobeidallah on x
What's remarkable is if you read the reason Twitter banned Trump is that they sincerely believed he was sending coded messages to his supporters to attack the Capitol again. This is where we are as a nation thanks to MAGA https://www.nytimes.com/...
@triketora Tracy Chou on x
you must be kidding me. jack dorsey is vacationing on an island in french polynesia. i'm mad enough about the shamelessly rich privileged and selfish people jaunting around the world during a pandemic already, but when you run a platform used to incite armed insurrection...??!?!!…
@gesfandiari Golnaz Esfandiari on x
“Without the tweets, I wouldn't be here,” Mr. Trump told The Financial Times in April 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@donie Donie O'Sullivan on x
No man is an island https://twitter.com/...
@wongmjane Jane Manchun Wong on x
Photo of Jack being on a remote island https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@emilydreyfuss Emily Dreyfuss on x
In determining whether to ban Trump's account permanently, @Twitter took into account statements made off platform. We need all social platforms to do this more proactively. Often what is planned in a semi private space has bearing on the open web. https://blog.twitter.com/... ht…
@wired @wired on x
Two days after a mob of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol, Twitter permanently banned Donald Trump “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.” The pair of tweets that did him in, however, wouldn't even crack his thousand most egregious: https://www.wired.com/...
@nxthompson @nxthompson on x
The Tweets that got Trump banned were not in his top 1000 most egregious. Given the week, and how the Tweets were interpreted, one can see why Twitter did it. But it's not a sustainable model for content moderation. https://www.wired.com/...
@lukelpearson @lukelpearson on x
Yes, the government should decide who gets to speak on privately owned social platforms... I mean, I wish there was a govt agency responsible for choosing who gets to host IndigenousX or write articles for our website. It would be an Orwellian dream, as the saying goes. https://t…
@lukelpearson @lukelpearson on x
Also, there is no real precedent here. Privately owned media, including social media, have always reserved the right to prevent people from making comment on their platforms. The only precedent is that it happened to a sitting US president. https://twitter.com/...
@stevekopack Steve Kopack on x
Jack Dorsey is on a remote island as the company he runs bans Donald Trump, his campaign, and deletes tweets from @POTUS? https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@maxkennerly Max Kennerly on x
Yep. Banning a political figure is a complex, unique decision. Putting aside First Amendment issues—because there are none—I'm not troubled by the larger free speech implications because LOOK WHAT IT TOOK TO GET HERE. He deliberately incited an insurrection! He got people killed!…
@jameeljaffer Jameel Jaffer on x
Excellent. Worth reading. https://twitter.com/...
@lyssaslounge Katharina Borchert on x
Finally!! Quite late in the game and after leaving a trail of devastation. But yes, it's done. #TrumpOverAndOut https://twitter.com/...
@emptywheel Dr. emptywheel on x
If Twitter has proof that Donald Trump is involved in planning a[nother] terrorist attack for January 17, they need to share that with the House for impeachment purposes. https://blog.twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@samfbiddle Sam Biddle on x
this entire explanation is so completely incoherent, it really just drives home the point that 99% of Facebook and Twitter's “rules” are determined by “whatever will make people yell at us the least amount” https://blog.twitter.com/...
@carnage4life Dare Obasanjo on x
The analysis of his last two tweets was stellar. It didn't even cross my mind that the reason for announcing he wouldn't be attending the inauguration was to send a signal that it was safe for a no holds barred attack https://blog.twitter.com/...
@alexleavitt Alex Leavitt, Ph.D. on x
If you care about social media moderation, read this adjudication. They *interpret* speech. That interpretive move from explicit content evaluation to implicit meaning is one of the most important decisions in content moderation policy enforcement in years https://blog.twitter.co…
@chrisfralic Chris Fralic on x
How it started “Just setting up my twttr” - @jack How it's going https://blog.twitter.com/...
@morningmoneyben Ben White on x
Twitter's full explanation is quite interesting. I hadn't thought of the inauguration tweet as potential incitement but it makes sense. Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump https://blog.twitter.com/...
@goangelo Angelo Carusone on x
So here is the thing people on Twitter need to understand. If you screenshot Trump's parler posts and then share them on Twitter, you are serving as a horocrux for Trump. You are also defeating the purpose of having him removed in first place. Don't do that. https://twitter.com/.…
@laurenthehough Lauren Hough on x
“All the other genocidal dictators have Twitter accounts” is a hell of a take https://twitter.com/...
@micsolana Mike Solana on x
an absolutely terrifying precedent https://twitter.com/...
@karaswisher Kara Swisher on x
This explanation by Twitter is chilling. They concluded that his obvious dog whistling today to supporters was encouraging a second coup attempt on 1/17 in DC: Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump https://blog.twitter.com/...
@caseynewton Casey Newton on x
Going to be a magical 24 hours on Parler before Apple shuts it down https://twitter.com/...

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