UPDATE: Facebook confirms at 8:30 p.m ET that Trump's account will be locked for 24 hours.
Original Story:What will it take for Twitter to take action on Donald Trump's account? Today we found out.
On Wednesday night, following a brazen attack on the US Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, Twitter locked the president's @realDonaldTrump account "for repeated and severe violations of our Civic Integrity policy" in three, specific tweets. If Trump deletes them, his account will be locked for 12 hours before the president can tweet once again. If not, the account will remain locked.
Facebook has also reportedly locked Trump's account for 24 hours.
"Future violations of the Twitter Rules, including our Civic Integrity or Violent Threats policies, will result in permanent suspension of the @realDonaldTrump account," Twitter said in a statement. "Our public interest policy — which has guided our enforcement action in this area for years — ends where we believe the risk of harm is higher and/or more severe."
The offending tweets included a video in which Trump continued to lie about winning the 2020 election before telling those gathered at the Capitol to "go home now." But the clip ended with him telling them "We love you, you’re very special."
The video was subsequently pulled from Facebook and Instagram. "We made the decision that on balance these posts contribute to, rather than diminish, the risk of ongoing violence," Facebook said in a statement. YouTube also pulled the clip, Variety reports.
The theme of another tweet basically boiled down to "this is what you get if you steal an election," which is obviously not the best way to calm the situation, not to mention steeped in the type of nonsense conspiracy theories that resulted in today's violence.
Twitter promised to "continue to evaluate the situation in real time, including examining activity on the ground and statements made off Twitter. We will keep the public informed, including if further escalation in our enforcement approach is necessary."
The @POTUS account does not appear to be affected, though Trump usually keeps his more inflammatory statements on his personal account.
Twitter has long grappled with how best to respond to Trump's tweets. It has mostly argued that since Trump is president, his tweets are different; there's a public interest aspect. That privilege was set to expire on Jan. 20 following President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration, but today's events were apparently a breaking point.
Editors' Note: Editors' Note: This story was updated with information about Facebook.