The actions and rhetoric of U.S President Donald Trump that culminated into the storming of the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, were not without consequences.

Following the riot that has been tagged an “assault on democracy”, Donald Trump and many of his allies have been banned by many big tech companies.

Below is a list of platforms that have either banned or restricted Trump and his allies:

Twitter
Twitter, on January 8, 2021, announced that they had permanently suspended Trump due to the “threat of further incitement of violence”.

“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” Twitter said in a statement.

This is Twitter’s strongest-ever penalty against Trump as the platform as ….

Facebook and Instagram
Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, on the 7th of January, 2021, announced that Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts would be suspended until the end of his tenure as the U.S President.

“The shocking events of the last 24 hours clearly demonstrate that President Donald Trump intends to use his remaining time in office to undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden. We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great,” Zuckerberg wrote in a post.

Snapchat
On January 6, Snapchat disabled Trump’s Snapchat account because it believes the account promotes and spreads hate and incites violence.

Earlier in June, Snapchat announced that it would no longer promote Trump’s account on its “Discover” page, which curates stories from celebrities and politicians.

YouTube
YouTube, in a Twitter thread, said it would issue strikes to any channels posting videos with false claims — including about widespread voter fraud — that violate the platform’s policies. The company said it has removed thousands of videos in the past month, including several posted by Trump, that “spread misinformation claiming widespread voter fraud changed the result of the 2020 election.”

Reddit
Reddit has banned the subreddit group r/DonaldTrump for “repeated policy violations in recent days regarding the violence at the U.S. Capitol,” a Reddit spokesperson told Fox Business.

TikTok
Also, it is blocking hashtags used by rioters such as #stormthecapitol, #patriotparty, and #QAnon, and if these terms are searched, people will be redirected to the platform’s community guidelines.

“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,” a TikTok spokesperson told TechCrunch.

Google
On January 8, Google announced suspended Parler, a social media app popular amongst Trump supporters and far-right extremists, from the Google Play Store. Google contended that Parler’s lack of “moderation policies and enforcement” posed a “public safety threat”.

Apple
Apple wrote to Parler’s executives that there had been complaints that the service had been used to plan and coordinate the storming of the US Capitol by President Donald Trump’s supporters. Apple requested Parler submit a “moderation improvement plan” within 24 hours or face removal from the app store. On Parler, founder John Matze posted that Parler would not “cave to pressure”, and accused Apple of being anti-competitive. Apple followed through with their warning the next day, removing Parler from the app store on January 9.

Amazon
On January 9, Amazon announced that it would suspend Parler from Amazon Web Services, effective at 11:59 p.m. PST the next day. Amazon said that Parler’s failure to police violent content made the site “a very real risk to public safety”.

“Every vendor, from text message services to email providers to our lawyers, all ditched us, too, on the same day,” Parler founder John Matze said.

Parler went offline on January 10 2021, when Amazon withdrew its cloud computing services from the app.

Twitch
Twitch disabled Donald Trump’s account indefinitely on January 7.

A Twitch spokesperson said in a statement: “In light of yesterday’s shocking attack on the Capitol, we have disabled President Trump’s Twitch channel. 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.”

Stripe
Stripe Inc. no longer process payments for President Trump’s campaign website following the riot at the Capitol.

The financial-technology company handled card payments for millions of online businesses and e-commerce platforms, including Mr. Trump’s campaign website and online fundraising apparatus.

Shopify
Canadian multinational e-commerce company Shopify removed two online stores connected to Trump – his organisation and his campaign’s merchandise sites – for violating the platform’s policies.

“Shopify does not tolerate actions that invite violence,” a spokesperson told the Financial Times.

Pinterest
Pinterest has been limiting hashtags related to pro-Trump topics such as #StopTheSteal since around the November election.

“Pinterest isn’t a place for threats, promotion of violence or hateful content,” a Pinterest spokesperson said. “Our team is continuing to monitor and removing harmful content, including misinformation and conspiracy theories that may incite violence.”

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