Facebook Shuts Down Trump’s Account for 24 Hours for ‘Two Policy Violations’

Facebook announced on Wednesday night that it was temporarily locking down President Donald Trump’s account for 24 house after “two policy violations” related to fomenting and support for the violent assault and rioting inside the Capitol building.

This move came after Facebook (and Twitter) pulled down a post from Trump that, rather than condemning the violent thugs who stormed the Capitol, dredged up the same election fraud conspiracy theories and seemed to tacitly approve those who rioted and looted on his behalf.

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.

— Facebook Newsroom (@fbnewsroom) January 7, 2021

In a longer explanation on its newsroom website about “Our Response to the Violence in Washington,” Facebook VP for Integrity, Guy Rosen, and VP for Global Policy Management, Monika Bickert, said that the company was “appalled by the violence at the Capitol today. We are treating these events as an emergency.”

As a result, the pair said the social media platform was taking a number of steps to staunch the flow of online support for the violence and unrest that laid siege to the House and Senate.

First, we have been searching for and removing the following content:

• Praise and support of the storming of the US Capitol
• Calls to bring weapons to locations across the US — not just in Washington but anywhere in the US — including protests
• Incitement or encouragement of the events at the Capitol, including videos and photos from the protestors. At this point they represent promotion of criminal activity which violates our policies.
• Calls for protests — even peaceful ones — if they violate the curfew in DC
• Attempts to restage violence tomorrow or in the coming days

As a part of this, we removed from Facebook and Instagram the recent video of President Trump speaking about the protests and his subsequent post about the election results. We made the decision that on balance these posts contribute to, rather than diminish, the risk of ongoing violence.

Almost simultaneous with Facebook’s move, Twitter also locked down Trump’s account (for just 12 hours) and warned that any further violations of its civic integrity and violent threats policy would result in “permanent suspension.”