REVEALED: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey banned Trump from his vacation in French Polynesia and caused president to 'go ballistic' in the White House when he lost his 88.7M followers and tweeted furiously through other accounts
- Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was on vacation on an island in French Polynesia while he and executives were debating on how it would handle President Trump's account
- About 350 Twitter employees wrote a letter to management urging them to permanently ban Trump and called for an investigation into the corporate actions leading up to Wednesday's riots
- Sources told the NYT Dorsey and fellow execs said they wanted to be consistent with Twitter's policies
- Twitter announced Trump's ban on Friday evening citing risks of 'further incitement to violence'
- Sources said the president went 'ballistic' and was 'scrambling to figure out what his options are'
- At least two other accounts were suspended after attempts were made to give Trump access to the platform after he was locked out
- Trump appeared to have found a loophole by using the @POTUS account to share a message to his followers claiming that he would set up his own social media network
- Yet Twitter deleted the tweets and also suspended the Trump campaign account for sharing the message
- Trump resorted to issuing his statement on the Twitter ban to the White House press pool as efforts to reach his followers directly were thwarted
- Former national security adviser Michael Flynn and attorney Sidney Powell - two Trump loyalists - were also permanently banned by Twitter earlier on Friday
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey reportedly made the extraordinary call to permanently suspend President Trump's account amid mounting pressure from his employees while he was vacationing in French Polynesia.
Dorsey on Friday was forced to tune into virtual meetings with staff from his remote island getaway as the company grappled with how they would handle Trump's Twitter account, the New York Times reported.
Sources told the paper that employees during the discussion had questioned why the company had stopped short of permanently banning the president from the platform that he has used as his preferred means of communication and personal soapbox.
The meeting came just a day after Dorsey sent an email to his staff saying it was important to remain consistent with Twitter's policies which allows users to regain access to their accounts following a temporary suspension if the problematic tweets are removed, one source said.
The CEO, along with his fellow executives, reiterated those concerns on Friday but also said he believed he had 'drawn a line in the sand' that Trump was not likely to cross in fears of losing his privileges for good, according to the report.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tuned into virtual meetings from his vacation in French Polynesia, as the company debated how they would handle President Trump's account, sources said
The Twitter account of Donald Trump on Friday night after it was permanently suspended
As pressure mounted for Twitter to take action, company CEO Jack Dorsey was more than 4,000 miles away on an island in French Polynesia
Twitter had come under intense pressure from the public as well as its own staff this week to take action after Trump was accused of inciting a riot with his incendiary speech on the social media site.
In a letter addressed to Dorsey and executives, including head of legal and safety Vijaya Gadde, 350 Twitter employees called for a permanent suspension as well as an investigation into the corporate actions over the years leading up to Wednesday's insurrection, The Washington Post reported.
'Despite our efforts to serve the public conversation, as Trump's megaphone, we helped fuel the deadly events of January 6th,' employees wrote in the letter, referring to the violent siege of the US Capitol that left four people dead.
'We request an investigation into how our public policy decisions led to the amplification of serious anti-democratic threats. We must learn from our mistakes in order to avoid causing future harm.'
Staff also issued a warning about the stakes at hand, adding: 'Our decisions this week will cement our place in history, for better or worse.'
The company's final nail on Trump's Twitter coffin on Friday did not sit well with the president who initially tried to get around the ban by using the @POTUS handle before his tweets were swiftly deleted.
One anonymous senior administration official told Politico Trump had gone 'ballistic' upon learning he had been permanently locked out of his account and was 'scrambling to figure out what his options are.'
The White House also said in a statement that Trump was 'negotiating with various other sites' and they were looking 'at the possibilities of building out our own platform in the near future.'
Trump has been relatively quiet since, however, one official told the publication there are now talks for the president to conduct a final 'farewell interview' but noted it is unknown if those plans will materialize.
'I'm not sure if they're going to come to fruition,' the source said.
'I don't want the lasting impression of this administration to be what happened at the Capitol.'
Twitter spent Friday night playing whack-a-mole with Trump as he tried to address his supporters on the social media platform through other people's accounts.
Trump had initially tried to relay a message to his followers using the official President of the United States Twitter account, but they were deleted within minutes.
In the four-tweet thread, the president claimed that Twitter was not a network for free speech and said that he was now in talks to set up his own social media platform following his suspension.
The POTUS account, which will be handed over to Joe Biden from Inauguration Day, remains active.
President Trump on Friday night found a loophole around his Twitter ban by using the @POTUS account. The tweets claimed that he may set up his own social media platform but were quickly deleted again
Digital director for the Trump campaign, Gary Coby, was next on the chopping block after he appeared to change his username to Donald J. Trump and in a tweet, offered the handle over to the president's Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino
Coby's account was also suspended after he tried to offer it over to President Trump's team
However, the Trump 2020 campaign Twitter account was the next to receive a suspension after it tweeted the president's message amid increasingly desperate efforts to reach his following.
Digital director for the Trump campaign, Gary Coby, was next on the chopping block after he appeared to change his username to Donald J. Trump and in a tweet, offered the handle over to the president's Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino.
'@DanScavino texting you my Twitter login … I already updated the profile pic, name, etc.' the tweet read. 'Feel free to use!'
Twitter has not commented on the suspensions since it announced the permanent ban on Trump's account on Friday evening.
Trump had initially appeared to find a way around his permanent Twitter ban by using the @POTUS handle before his tweets were swiftly deleted.
He urged his supporters to 'STAY TUNED!' as he claimed that Twitter is working with 'Radical Left and Dems' to silence him and to silence those who voted for him.
'As I have been saying for a long time, Twitter has gone further and further in banning free speech, and tonight, Twitter employees have coordinated with the Democrats and the Radical Left in removing my account from their platform, to silence me — and YOU, the 75,000,000 great patriots who voted for me,' he wrote.
Twitter outlined the suspension in a thread on Friday night
The president issued a further threat to Twitter by claiming that they would not exist without the 'government's gift of Section 230'.
Trump also claimed that he has 'been negotiating with various other sites' and promised a 'big announcement soon' as he vowed 'We will not be SILENCED!'
'Twitter is not about FREE SPEECH. They are all about promoting a Radical Left platform where some of the most vicious people in the world are allowed to speak freely,' Trump managed to fit in before his tirade was quickly shut down.
Minutes after the tweets were deleted, an official statement was issued to the White House press pool repeating his claims.
Twitter had announced on Friday night it has permanently banned Trump's account, claiming in a blog post that it was due to the risk of 'further incitement to violence', after the president's supporters rioted through the U.S. Captiol on Wednesday.
'After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,' the company wrote.
The account had 88.7million followers, which is nearly half of the company's total base of monetizable daily active users.
Earlier on Friday, former national security adviser Michael Flynn and attorney Sidney Powell - two Trump loyalists - were also permanently banned by Twitter, and the YouTube account for Steve Bannon's 'War Room' podcast was 'terminated for a violation of YouTube's Terms of Service'.
Youtube had warned earlier this week that it would ban accounts that continued to spread misinformation about voter fraud.
Discord also announced Friday that it has banned the server The Donald which was connected the TheDonald dot Win and the Donald subreddit.
Trump's final tweets: Twitter said that Trump was guilty of the glorification of violence by calling Wednesday's rioters 'American patriots' in one of his final tweets on Friday morning before he was permanently banned from the platform
In his second last tweet, the president said he would not attend the inauguration. Twitter said that this tweet could be interpreted by Trump's supporters as him indicating that the inauguration event will be a safe target to attack
Facebook and Instagram had already banned the president's account 'at least' until his term is over on January 20, if not indefinitely.
Donald Trump Jr. immediately spoke out about the ban, taking to his own Twitter account to claim that 'free-speech no longer exists in America'.
'We are living Orwell's 1984,' he fumed. 'It died with big tech and what's left is only there for a chosen few. This is absolute insanity!'
'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,' he added in a second tweet. 'Mao would be proud.'
Twitter has long given Trump and other world leaders broad exemptions from its rules against personal attacks, hate speech and other behaviours.
But in its lengthy statement the company said recent Trump tweets amounted to glorification of violence when read in the context of the Capitol riot and plans circulating online for future armed protests around the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.
Donald Trump Jr. immediately spoke out about the ban, claiming that 'free-speech no longer exists in America'
Within an hour of the announcement Twitter shared have fallen 1.95 points and continued to fall
Twitter said it made the decision after deeming that two Trump tweets from Friday were in breach of its Glorification of Violence policy.
The first tweet read: 'The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future.
'They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!'
In the second called out by Twitter, the president wrote that he would not be attending Joe Biden's inauguration.
Twitter claimed that the tweets had to be 'read in the context of broader events in the country and the ways in which the President's statements can be mobilized by different audiences, including to incite violence, as well as in the context of the pattern of behavior from this account in recent weeks'.
The company said that Trump was guilty of the glorification of violence by calling Wednesday's rioters 'American patriots' in the first tweet.
It claimed that the tweet could be interpreted as a sign that Trump agreed that there should be no 'orderly transition' as they warned of information is already circling on the social media platform about 'a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17'.
Twitter also concluded that Trump stating he would not attend the inauguration is him indicating it 'would be a 'safe' target' for his loyalists to attack.
'In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter rules would potentially result in this very course of action,' the statement added.
'Our public interest framework exists to enable the public to hear from elected officials and world leaders directly. It is built on a principle that the people have a right to hold power to account in the open.
'However, we made it clear going back years that these accounts are not above our rules entirely and cannot use Twitter to incite violence, among other things.'
The social media platform has been under growing pressure to take further action against Trump following Wednesday's deadly insurrection at the US Capitol that led to the deaths of five people.
It came after hundreds of Twitter employees wrote a letter to CEO Jack Dorsey, pictured, calling for action
Twitter initially suspended the president's account for 12 hours after he posted a video that repeated false claims about election fraud and praised the rioters who stormed the Capitol.
Trump was reportedly livid at being blocked from Twitter, and complained to aides that he could not send messages to his followers, sources told the Daily Beast.
He allegedly claimed his ban was an example of Big Tech firms trying to silence him.
Yet after his 12-hour suspension, Trump resumed tweeting on Thursday. Twitter had said it could take further action as it kept track of 'activity on the ground and statements made off Twitter'.
The company also announced the decision after hundreds of Twitter employees signed a letter to CEO Jack Dorsey asking for the account to be removed as Trump continued to praise the Capitol rioters.
Twitter confirmed Friday that several hundred employees signed the letter saying they were disturbed by the 'insurrection' carried out by Trump supporters, who had been rallied by the president.
The employees called for Twitter to assess the role its platform played in Wednesday's events.
'Despite our efforts to serve the public conversation, as Trump's megaphone, we helped fuel the deadly events of January 6th,' the employees wrote.
As the events unfolded this week, Dorsey himself was vacationing on an island in French Polynesia but called into meetings about how to deal with Trump's account, according to the New York Times.
After the announcement, stocks in Twitter fell by 3.8 percent within an hour and continued to crash.
At the same time, there were reports that social meda app Parler crashed as it appeared that Trump's followers fled to the more conservative-leaning platform, abandoning Twitter.
On Friday, Twitter also permanently banned two Trump loyalists — former national security adviser Michael Flynn and attorney Sidney Powell — as part of a broader purge of accounts promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory. Twitter vowed to take action on behavior that has the potential to lead to offline harm.
'Given the renewed potential for violence surrounding this type of behavior in the coming days, we will permanently suspend accounts that are solely dedicated to sharing QAnon content,' Twitter said in a statement.
The company also said Trump attorney Lin Wood was permanently suspended on Tuesday for violating its rules, but provided no additional details.
The company says that when it determines a group or campaign is engaged in 'coordinated harmful activity' it may suspend accounts that it finds primarily encourages that behavior.
An explosion caused by a police munition is seen while Trump supporters gather in front of the Capitol on Wednesday
'Now, Congress has certified the results, and new administration will be inaugurated on January 20. My focus now turns to ensuring a smooth orderly and seamless transition of power,' he said
Pro-Trump insurgents stormed Capitol Hill on Wednesday in an attack that left nation stunned
Other tech companies also acted more swiftly against Trump's accounts this week, citing threats of violence.
Snapchat locked Trump's account 'indefinitely.' Twitch, the live-streaming site owned by Amazon and used by Trump's campaign to stream speeches, disabled Trump´s account until he leaves office.
E-commerce company Shopify shut down two online Trump memorabilia stores.
YouTube also announced more general changes that will penalize accounts spreading misinformation about voter fraud in the 2020 election, with repeat offenders facing permanent removal.
Reddit on Friday banned a forum for Trump supporters, called 'donaldtrump.'
Twitter's shares had already dropped Thursday after the 12-hour ban suggesting that it may be hit by the loss of Trump's followers if they begin to look to other platforms.
Meanwhile Facebook - which went far further than Twitter with an 'indefinite' suspension on Trump's account - saw its shares rise by two percent on Thursday, mirroring a broader surge among top tech stocks.
The difference between the companies' showings likely stemmed from the fact that Trump's presence on Twitter has a much bigger impact on its bottom line, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The 89 million followers on Trump's main Twitter account, @realDonaldTrump, represented nearly 48 percent of the company's total base of monetizable daily active users at the end of the third quarter.
Facebook has a much larger base of 1.8 billion daily active users, and less than two percent of them - 35 million - are followers of Trump.
Twitter's stock losses reflect investors broader concerns about what the platform will be in a post-President Trump world, WSJ reported.
Sidney Powell, who served on Trump's legal team for just over a week, has been banned from Twitter as of Friday
Michael Flynn, Trump's former National Security Advisor, has also been banned from Twitter
It comes as the site faces other uncertainties with engagement, which skyrocketed in 2020 amid a volatile political climate and the coronavirus pandemic.
Now that COVID-19 vaccines have arrived and a more moderate president is taking office, Twitter is expected to see engagement drop precipitously, closer to where it was early last year.
Twitter has long had a tumultuous relationship with Trump, who has repeatedly skirted its rules regarding misinformation and harmful content.
Facebook, however, stood firm on its suspension of the president's Facebook and Instagram account, which will remain in place at least until the end of his term on January 20.
In an extraordinary blog post, Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg accused Trump of using the platform 'to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government'.
Zuckerberg said the president used his Facebook page 'to condone rather than condemn the actions of his supporters at the Capitol building' and that allowing him to freely post in the final 13 days of his term would pose too great a risk.
'The shocking events of the last 24 hours clearly demonstrate that President Donald Trump intends to use his remaining time in office to undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden,' he wrote.
'His decision to use his platform to condone rather than condemn the actions of his supporters at the Capitol building has rightly disturbed people in the US and around the world.
'We removed these statements yesterday because we judged that their effect - and likely their intent - would be to provoke further violence.
'Following the certification of the election results by Congress, the priority for the whole country must now be to ensure that the remaining 13 days and the days after inauguration pass peacefully and in accordance with established democratic norms.
'Over the last several years, we have allowed President Trump to use our platform consistent with our own rules, at times removing content or labeling his posts when they violate our policies.
'We did this because we believe that the public has a right to the broadest possible access to political speech, even controversial speech.
'But the current context is now fundamentally different, involving use of our platform to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government.'
In the 13 days left in his presidency, Trump will not be able to communicate to his 35.2 million followers on Facebook
Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg, pictured above with the president, accused Trump of using the platform 'to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government' on Thursday
Zuckerberg concluded: 'We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great.
'Therefore, we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete.'
Trump had tweeted just twice on Friday, announcing his refusal to uphold tradition by going to Biden's swearing in as his remaining aides and allies described him as a 'total monster' and 'mad King George' as his presidency ends in chaos.
Trump isolated himself from his staff and the Republican Party, holed up in the Oval Office with a bunker mentality as aides pleaded with him to send a message of healing to the country in the aftermath of the MAGA mob storming Capitol Hill.
He returned to Twitter Thursday night - after the social media network locked his account - with a call for 'peace' and 'unity' although no acknowledgment of his own role in whipping up the mob who stormed the Capitol, leaving a dead police officer and four dead of their own in their wake.
But on Friday morning, the peacemaking ended: he launched a tweet partly in all capitals to thank his supporters, calling them 'great American Patriots.'
The last president not to attend his successor's swearing-in was President Andrew Johnson in 1869 - who had also been impeached. Both John Adams and John Quincy Adams snubbed their successors too.
Shortly after Trump announced the snub, Barack and Michelle Obama and Bill and Hillary Clinton announced they would attend. George W Bush and wife Laura had already confirmed they would attend. Jimmy Carter, 96, and wife Roslynn, 93, will not attend, the first inaugural they have missed since 1977, while they attempt to keep safe from COVID.
Trump and the first family will reportedly leave the White House on January 19 to go to his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida - a decision made so that he gets to fly on a plane with the call sign Air Force One, a privilege he loses as soon as he is not the sitting president.
Now that Trump has been knocked off one of his favorite pulpits, he may resort to other online channels such as Parler, a 2-year-old, more freewheeling alternative to Twitter that has become increasingly popular among the president's most ardent supporters.
Many have used the forum to spread falsehoods and hateful comments.
But Parler, which was already tiny compared to Twitter, has bigger problems that could threaten its future.
Google suspended Parler from its app store on Friday over continued postings that seek 'to incite ongoing violence in the U.S.'
The company cited an 'ongoing and urgent public safety threat' and said Parler won´t be reinstated until the issues are addressed.
Apple has issued Parler a similar warning and given it 24 hours to fix things. Parler CEO John Matze said in a post that the company 'won't cave to politically motivated companies and those authoritarians who hate free speech'.
While Trump could migrate to Parler, Gab or some other alternative site, doing so will greatly limit his influence, said Shannon McGregor, an assistant professor of journalism and media at the University of North Carolina.
Trump has always craved legitimacy and standing in the mainstream media despite his complaints about normal reporting he has long referred to as 'fake news.' He won't get that on other platforms, she said.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMicWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmRhaWx5bWFpbC5jby51ay9uZXdzL2FydGljbGUtOTEyOTE5NS9KYWNrLURvcnNleS1iYW5uZWQtVHJ1bXBzLWFjY291bnQtdmFjYXRpb24tRnJlbmNoLVBvbHluZXNpYS5odG1s0gF1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZGFpbHltYWlsLmNvLnVrL25ld3MvYXJ0aWNsZS05MTI5MTk1L2FtcC9KYWNrLURvcnNleS1iYW5uZWQtVHJ1bXBzLWFjY291bnQtdmFjYXRpb24tRnJlbmNoLVBvbHluZXNpYS5odG1s?oc=5
2021-01-09 15:32:00Z
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