SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — Following other social media platforms, streaming service Twitch has suspended President Donald Trump’s account indefinitely, citing yesterday’s violence at the U.S. Capitol.
The platform also removed the popular PogChamp emote after the person depicted, Ryan Gutierrez, “encouraged further violence” online yesterday, the platform said in a tweet announcing its decision.
Facebook banned President Donald Trump indefinitely from its Instagram and Facebook platforms earlier in the day.
Mark Zuckerberg confirmed the ban on Thursday morning after already suspending his account the previous day.
The Facebook founder and CEO said “We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period [of transition] too great.”
Zuckerberg said the decision to ban the president from the social media platforms was made because the context in which he used the platform during and after the riots was fundamentally different from previous controversial posts.
He specified, “involving use of our platform to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government.”
Trump will be banned for at least two weeks, after President-elect Joe Biden has been inaugurated.
Facebook originally blocked Trump’s account from posting for 24 hours. A statement said:
“We’ve assessed two policy violations against President Trump’s Page which will result in a 24-hour feature block, meaning he will lose the ability to post on the platform during that time.”
Twitter also suspended Trump’s account, for 12 hours, on Wednesday after removing a video clip of Trump’s first official statement on the riots on Capitol Hill, when his supporters broke glass and doors on the building and invaded while lawmakers were inside.
In the video clip, he addresses his supporters, saying “we love you,” rather than condemning the attack.
Twitter said Trump’s account could be permanently suspended if there are further violations to their policies.
The rioters on Wednesday disrupted a session to certify Biden’s victory, an event that takes place before each inauguration and when the current Vice President announces the winner of the presidential election after Congress counts the electoral votes.
Vice President Mike Pence before the riots had acknowledged that he did not have the power to unilaterally throw out electoral college votes, revealing his intention to move past Trump’s false claims of election fraud.
Early Thursday, Congress officially certified the vote and Trump had said, “there will be an orderly transition on January 20th,” in a statement posted to Twitter. However, he maintained that he “disagrees” with the outcome of the election.