Twitter Permanently Suspends Accounts of Trump, Flynn, and Powell

Twitter has permanently suspended President Donald Trump from its platform on Friday due to the "risk of further incitement of violence."

Trump's Twitter account holds 88 million followers, which was initially banned for 12 hours on Jan. 6 due to severe violations of its Civic Integrity Policy. The suspension came after Trump used the social media platform to tweet condemnation against Vice President Mike Pence as his supporters breached and caused a riot at the U.S. Capitol.

"After a close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence," the company tweeted, as reported by NBC News.

Twitter said in a blog post that their public interest framework exists to enable the public to hear from elected officials and world leaders directly. The social media giant noted that its platform was built on the principle that the people have a right to hold power to account in the open.

Twitter added that they made it clear that these accounts are not above their rules and cannot use Twitter to incite violence.

"We will continue to be transparent around our policies and their enforcement," Twitter said, as NPR reported.

Twitter has been Trump's preferable tool for announcing major changes in federal policy and even in personnel changes. He also reportedly fired cabinet secretaries and aides via tweets occasionally.

Aside from Trump, Twitter also banned some supporters of the president on their platform.

Twitter Banning Accounts of Flynn, Powell

Trump's first national security adviser Michael Flynn and former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell were both suspended on Twitter. These permanent bans are among the highest-profile that Twitter instituted under its "coordinated harmful activity" policy.

In recent weeks, Flynn and Powell both met with Trump at the White House as part of efforts to alter the presidential election results. They are also high-profile figures in the QAnon community that Flynn even took an oath to the conspiracy theory last year.

On the other hand, Powell amplified the Dominion voting machine conspiracy, claiming that the company's devices switched votes from Trump to Biden. Dominion Voting Systems sued Powell for defamation on Friday, seeking more than $1.3 billion in damages.

Flynn was also allegedly involved in Trump's efforts to overturn the November election results. In 2017, he pleaded guilty to lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation during the probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

According to a Tech Crunch report, the Justice Department dropped the federal case against him despite his pleading, and Trump eventually issued a pardon for him.

Meanwhile, Twitter has also removed the Twitter account of Ron Watkins. He is the administrator of the website 8kun, or previously named 8chan, and hosts posts from Q.

Q is reportedly the false digital "prophet" of the QAnon conspiracy theory. 8chan changed its name after white supremacists used the site to post manifestos before carrying out mass murder, including the terror attack in El Paso, Texas that left 17 people dead in 2019.