UPDATES WITH FREEZING OF ACCOUNTS BY FACEBOOK, INSTAGRAM; CHANGES HEADLINE, LEDE, EDITS THROUGHOUT
By Michael Hernandez and Servet Gunerigok
WASHINGTON (AA) - Twitter, Facebook and Instagram locked US President Donald Trump's accounts for varying amounts of time Wednesday over his inflammatory rhetoric after his supporters besieged the Capitol building.
Twitter, the first to take action, warned that its initial 12-hour freeze could be extended if Trump fails to take down posts that violated its policies, and further warned that future violations will result in his account's suspension.
"As a result of the unprecedented and ongoing violent situation in Washington, D.C., we have required the removal of three @realDonaldTrump Tweets that were posted earlier today for repeated and severe violations of our Civic Integrity policy," the social media company said on its platform.
Twitter earlier blocked three tweets on Trump's account in which he addressed his supporters.
In one of the tweets, Trump attached a video message, repeating his false claims that the presidential election "was stolen from us" and urged his supporters to go home. In a second tweet, Trump defended what the supporters did earlier in the day as the capital was marred by violence.
The company replaced all three posts with a notice saying: “This tweet is no longer available.”
Facebook and YouTube also took down the video while Facebook and its subsidiary Instagram later went further, locking Trump's accounts 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 in a statement.
Trump and his political allies have for months falsely alleged that the election he lost to his Democratic rival Joe Biden by 7 million votes was rigged, stirring emotions among his supporters with conspiracy theories that have been repeatedly rejected in court. The Justice Department also found no evidence to support his claims of widespread voter fraud.
The Capitol was overrun earlier in the day for the first time since the British burned it to the ground in 1814. Lawmakers were set to convene a joint session of Congress that is traditionally a routine affair of Electoral College vote counting ahead of Biden’s Inauguration Day on Jan. 20.