Twitter said it has blocked President Donald Trump’s account for 12 hours and warned for the first time that it could permanently suspend him.
The temporary lock reflects Trump’s violation of Twitter rules, the company said.
“We have demanded the removal of three @realDonaldTrump tweets that were posted today for repeated and serious violations of our civic integrity policy,” he said on Twitter. “This means that the @realDonaldTrump account will be blocked for 12 hours after these tweets are removed. If the tweets are not removed, the account will remain blocked.”
Twitter added that “future violations … will result in the permanent suspension of the @realDonaldTrump account.”
“We have assessed two policy violations against President Trump’s page that will result in a 24-hour feature block, meaning he will lose the ability to post on the platform during that time,” Facebook said in a tweet.
Facebook spokesman Andy Stone did not immediately answer questions about whether Trump could face a permanent suspension if he continues to violate Facebook’s policies.
The announcement marks a major escalation of the two social media companies against Trump’s account and responds to requests from civil rights groups for Trump to be banned from the platforms.