Facebook, YouTube and Twitter have removed posts from President Donald Trump on Wednesday as some of his supporters violently entered the US Capitol on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Twitter said that Trump's account will be locked for at least 12 hours.
This means that the account of @realDonaldTrump will be locked for 12 hours following the removal of these Tweets. If the Tweets are not removed, the account will remain locked.
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) January 7, 2021
While Trump has been angered by Twitter for flagging his tweets in the past, Twitter has not previously deleted the president's tweets to preserve his posts for public record. But given the violence in DC, Trump’s tweets were removed.
Among the tweets deleted was a video sent to supporters telling them to “go home.” The video, however, once again made false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
All told, three Twitter posts were deleted.
The video was also deleted from Facebook and YouTube.
Guy Rosen, the vice president of integrity at Facebook, said in a tweet the social media site was removing the video because "on balance we believe it contributes to rather than diminishes the risk of ongoing violence."
Facebook later stated that Trump's account will be locked for 24 hours.
"We've assessed two policy violations against President Trump's Page which will result in a 24-hour feature block, meaning he will lose the ability to post on the platform during that time," Facebook said.
Twitter also released a statement.
"In regard to the ongoing situation in Washington, D.C., we are working proactively to protect the health of the public conversation occurring on the service and will take action on any content that violates the Twitter Rules," Twitter tweeted. "In addition, we have been significantly restricting engagement with Tweets labeled under our Civic Integrity Policy due to the risk of violence. This means these labeled Tweets will not be able to be replied to, Retweeted, or liked."
