Even Spotify and Pinterest have banned him pic.twitter.com/W5y4Pt9o4h
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) January 9, 2021
Updated Jan. 10 8:45am
The President of the United States and numerous conservatives saw their accounts purged from online platforms late this week in a nearly-unprecedented removal of major accounts – and many of their followers.
On Thursday morning Facebook announced that it was banning President Trump for “at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete,” citing the violence that took place at the Capitol Building on Wednesday.
Citing the same, at about 6pm last night Twitter announced that it was permanently banning President Trump’s personal account “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”
Shortly after Twitter’s ban of the President, YouTube announced it was banning a popular broadcast by one-time Trump senior adviser Steve Bannon. Bannon’s show, Warroom Pandemic, had grown into one of the most popular podcasts and video-casts in the world in fact.
Posting from the official White House account @POTUS, Mr. Trump decried Twitter’s actions. “Twitter employees have coordinated with the Democrats and Radical Left in removing my account from their platform,” he wrote.
“We have been negotiating with various other sites, and will have a big announcement soon, while we also look at the possibilities of building out our own platform in the near future,” he added.
Twitter deleted those posts minutes after their being posted, citing violations of policy where banned individuals aren’t allowed to tweet using other accounts.
Many concluded, that President Trump would join Parler, a popular conservative alternative to Twitter.
Shortly after the President’s second set of tweets were deleted, Google announced it was banning the Parler app from its marketplace. It had been available on Google’s marketplace since 2018.
Soon after, Apple announced it was considering doing the same. On Saturday it announced it would be following through with a ban on Parler.
What followed, starting last night and continuing into today, was a long list of conservatives being either were banned, having their accounts suspended or losing many of their followers. (Twitter has called the deletion of followers routine).
I’ve had 30k followers removed.
Even more crazy considering I’ve gained around 20k cancel culture trolls. https://t.co/YWDBCJIwVC
— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) January 9, 2021
Total social media blackout coming.
— Stew Peters (@realstewpeters) January 8, 2021
The mass email service President Trump uses has banned him.
— Mark Dice (@MarkDice) January 9, 2021
The most powerful corporations in the world banded together to silence an elected president.
No election empowered them to do that. No constitution granted them that authority.
But tell me more about the great MAGA threat to democracy.
— Allum Bokhari (@LibertarianBlue) January 9, 2021
Check your accounts. @jack’s Nazis have removed 31,000 of my followers in the last few hours.
— Sebastian Gorka DrG (@SebGorka) January 9, 2021
Twitter just suspended Rush Limbaugh.
— Catturd ™ (@catturd2) January 9, 2021
Apple has just pulled the Parler App…
This is unbelievable… This is Tyrannical…
— Matt Couch (@RealMattCouch) January 8, 2021
I’m lost about 40,000 Twitter followers this week. How much of that is people leaving the platform? (On the plus side, I’m gaining lots of subscribers at https://t.co/lAH9ItGcvv.)
— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) January 9, 2021
Parler CEO John Matze states that he will be suing Apple if Parler is removed from the Apple store. His post states, “If they remove us from the store you BET”
— Parlertakes🇺🇸 (@parlertakes) January 9, 2021
Bro they can suspend me 41 times, ban the President of the United States, suspend my friends but they leaving the pedophiles alone?
— Hike Meadly (@HikeMeadly) January 9, 2021
Big-Tech just declared war on half the country
— Rep. Anthony Sabatini (@AnthonySabatini) January 9, 2021
And yes, for those that are asking I have lost many followers. I had 102k yesterday morning and now I’m at 80k
— McKayla J (@McKaylaRoseJ) January 9, 2021
We have lost nearly 60K followers
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) January 9, 2021
This is how you create an echo chamber… pic.twitter.com/aPDA37qKS0
— Mike Pompeo (@mikepompeo) January 9, 2021
I lost over 20,000 followers in the past 18 hours. https://t.co/d5cOBx4pq3
— BobbyPiton (@BobbyPiton3) January 9, 2021
Wednesday 656K
Today 594K
🤔— Scott Baio (@ScottBaio) January 9, 2021
There are no coincidences… https://t.co/9iL7vMUOSJ
— Steve Cortes (@CortesSteve) January 9, 2021
— Arizona Republican Party (@AZGOP) January 9, 2021
And tonight’s purge has all been choreographed too. Everything was planned.
— Military Mom of 2 🇺🇸 (@DebiC37936) January 9, 2021
To clear up confusion about fluctuations in follower counts:
In order to prevent spam, we regularly challenge accounts to confirm details like email and phone number. Until that info is confirmed, these accounts aren’t included in follower counts. https://t.co/8BYcBCmxxA
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) January 9, 2021
Did the major tech platforms and social media companies coordinate this effort? Was there any communication between the companies either before or after the first of the removals started?
In an email to ITN a spokesman for Apple did not address the question of coordination directly, pointing us only to the company’s public statement on Parler’s ban:
“We have always supported diverse points of view being represented on the App Store, but there is no place on our platform for threats of violence and illegal activity. Parler has not taken adequate measures to address the proliferation of these threats to people’s safety. We have suspended Parler from the App Store until they resolve these issues.”
ITN has also reached out to Twitter, Facebook and Google (which owns YouTube) with requests for comment on those questions as well. None of them have been returned as of yet.