Twitter suspends accounts posting Trump's statements amid ban; cites 'breach of policy'

Twitter on Thursday suspended several accounts as a part of a crackdown against violation of the former US President Donald Trump’s ban on its platform. Several of Trump’s 88 million followers retweeted his statements, messages, and video from his newly launched platform From the Desk of Donald J. Trump posted on his website. A Twitter account with the handle “@DJTDesk” also appeared online, which violated Trump’s communication ban on the platform. The account’s bio read: “Posts copied from Save America on behalf of the 45th POTUS; Originally composed via DonaldJTrump/Desk.” 

“Free Speech has been taken away from the President of the United States because the Radical Left Lunatics are afraid of the truth, but the truth will come out anyway, bigger and stronger than ever before,” Trump said in a statement on Wednesday.

A spokesperson for Twitter, in a statement to NBC, cited the platform’s ‘Ban evasion policy’ for enforcing suspension against the pro-Trump accounts that were promoting his messages and content affiliated to the former President. Jason Miller said that the account that popped up on Twitter was never authorized or verified by the platform and hence it was taken down. Twitter slammed the users it dismissed from its site for bypassing Trump’s suspension while the company had attempted to restrict his speech in fear of incitement of violence. Miller reiterated that it is against the Twitter rules to evade an account ban. “We prohibit attempts to circumvent prior enforcement, including through the creation of new accounts,” the firm said in a blog post. Miller stressed that the users repurposing an already-existing account or circumventing the ban have indulged in the breach of policies. 

“You can’t circumvent permanent suspensions. If an account has been permanently suspended for severe violations of the Twitter Rules, Twitter reserves the right to also permanently suspend any other account we believe the same account holder or entity may be operating in violation of our earlier suspension, regardless of when the other account was created,” Twitter stated in a blog post as it suspended accounts sharing Trump’s website communication. 

Trump's new feature allows 'reshare, retweet' 

On Wednesday, US former commander-in-chief Trump launched his first communication on his own platform ‘From the Desk of Donald Trump.’ The Twitter-like board was added to Trump’s official website ‘Save America’ on the URL DonaldJTrump.com. The new feature allowed him to send messages and videos like the platforms Facebook and Twitter. Each message also carried a repost button underneath that lets his audience share his communication on their own Twitter handle or Facebook profiles. Trump posted an official “promotional video” that marked the launch of his feature wherein he can be heard talking about his Facebook and Twitter account suspension. “In a time of silence, and lies, a beacon of freedom arises,” read the text on the screen over audio.