All the Social Media Platforms That Have Banned Donald Trump
In the wake of last week’s violence, tech companies are deplatforming the president and his dangerous views.
Last week’s violent assault on the U.S. Capitol, encouraged and condoned by Donald Trump, was the final straw for big tech. Once opposed to regulating the president’s posts spewing misinformation and hate, Facebook‘s Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter‘s Jack Dorsey finally banned the outgoing politician from their platforms. A bevy of major apps and websites including TikTok, Snapchat and Reddit followed suit, suspending and restricting Trump and the insurrectionists who acted on his claims of election fraud.
The move to “deplatform” Trump will shrink his digital reach and help curb his continued assertions that the election was stolen, a baseless belief that incited last week’s display of violence. Though some experts say the extremists who led the insurrection will simply find alternative ways to connect online, others argue that deplatforming is an effective way to reign in hate speech and hamper the attention it attracts.
Keep reading for a list of all the social media platforms, apps, websites and tech companies that have banned Donald Trump and right-wing extremists.
Amazon
On January 10, Amazon removed Parler, the social network favored by conservatives, conspiracy theorists and members of the far right, from its cloud hosting service. According to a report by The New York Times, Amazon found numerous posts on the platform encouraging violence. In November, The Guardian columnist Malaika Jabali discovered that over 10,000 posts on Parler included the hashtag #civilwar and similar phrases advocating for destruction in the wake of the election. Unsurprisingly, Parler users reacted to the ban with outrage — in a screenshot posted by Buzzfeed News, one user even suggested detonating explosives at an Amazon Web Services training center.
Apple
Apple‘s App Store suspended Parler after giving it a chance to modify its inadequate content moderation policies. “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,” Apple told The New York Times.
Discord
Group chatting platform Discord, popular among gamers, banned a pro-Trump server called “The Donald.” The server had ties to now-defunct subreddit r/The_Donald, where users frequently circulated racist, misogynist and anti-Semitic content. “While there is no evidence of a server called The Donald being used to organize the Jan 6 riots, Discord decided to ban the entire server today due to its overt connection to an online forum used to incite violence, plan an armed insurrection in the United States, and spread harmful misinformation related to 2020 U.S. election fraud,” Discord said in a statement.
Trump is blocked from using Facebook until the end of his term, if not longer. CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the move in a Facebook post reading, “Over the last several years, we have allowed President Trump to use our platform consistent with our own rules…But the current context is now fundamentally different, involving use of our platform to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government.”
The Google Play Store removed Parler for failing to comply with its content moderation requirements. “We’re aware of continued posting in the Parler app that seeks to incite ongoing violence in the US,” a Google representative told CNN. ”We recognize that there can be reasonable debate about content policies and that it can be difficult for apps to immediately remove all violative content, but for us to distribute an app through Google Play, we do require that apps implement robust moderation for egregious content. In light of this ongoing and urgent public safety threat, we are suspending the app’s listings from the Play Store until it addresses these issues.”
Facebook’s suspension of Trump extends to Instagram, where he is blocked from posting until the end of his term, a period of time which may be extended.
Though Trump doesn’t operate a Pinterest account, the photo-sharing platform has limited hashtags including #StopTheSteal since the November election, a representative told Axios. “Pinterest isn’t a place for threats, promotion of violence or hateful content,” the spokesperson said. “Our team is continuing to monitor and removing harmful content, including misinformation and conspiracy theories that may incite violence.”
Reddit banned the r/DonaldTrump subreddit, a forum dedicated to promoting the president, after users took to the page with posts glorifying the attack on the Capitol. “Reddit’s site-wide policies prohibit content that promotes hate, or encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence against groups of people or individuals,” a spokesperson told The New York Times. ”In accordance with this, we have been proactively reaching out to moderators to remind them of our policies and to offer support or resources as needed. We have also taken action to ban the community r/donaldtrump given repeated policy violations in recent days regarding the violence at the U.S. Capitol.”
Shopify
On January 7, Shopify permanently removed The Trump Organization merchandise store, as well as the merchandise section of Trump’s election website. “Shopify does not tolerate actions that incite violence,” a Shopify spokesperson told Vox. “Based on recent events, we have determined that the actions by President Donald J. Trump violate our Acceptable Use Policy, which prohibits promotion or support of organizations, platforms or people that threaten or condone violence to further a cause. As a result, we have terminated stores affiliated with President Trump.”
Snapchat
Snapchat locked Trump’s account, a decision confirmed by a Snapchat spokesperson on January 7. The move follows Snapchat’s call, announced in June 2020, to stop promoting the president’s content on the Discover page. ”We will not amplify voices who incite racial violence and injustice by giving them free promotion on Discover,” a representative told Business Insider.
TikTok
An ironic twist of events considering Trump’s attempts to ban TikTok from the U.S., the short-form video app removed videos of the president’s speech condoning the attack on the Capitol, as well as related hashtags including #StopTheSteal. “Hateful behavior and violence have no place on TikTok. Content or accounts that seek to incite, glorify, or promote violence violate our Community Guidelines and will be removed,” TikTok told Axios.
Twitch
Live streaming platform Twitch disabled Trump’s account, marking the second time the president was booted from the site. Back in June, the service temporarily suspended Trump for “hateful conduct” on one of his streams. Now, Twitch has banned the outgoing president indefinitely, a decision that will be reassessed after Joe Biden‘s inauguration. “Given the current extraordinary circumstances and the President’s incendiary rhetoric, we believe this is a necessary step to protect our community and prevent Twitch from being used to incite further violence,” a Twitch spokesperson told The Verge.
Twitter permanently suspended Trump for violating its ”Glorification of Violence Policy.” A company post explains that two of his tweets in particular — one in which he announces he won’t attend the inauguration — continue to proliferate his belief that the election was not legitimate, suggesting hesitance to facilitate an orderly and peaceful transition of power.
YouTube
Though YouTube failed to delete Trump’s channel (a spokesperson told Fortune that the video-sharing platform honors a three-strike rule, the requirements of which Trump hasn’t met), it did remove a video in which he sympathizes with the Capitol rioters.
