Twitter Permanently Bans Sitting US President Donald Trump
Twitter permanently suspended the account of sitting US President Donald Trump on 8 January 2021, two days after the Capitol events, citing risk of "further incitement of violence." The decision was made by Vijaya Gadde and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. No external judicial or regulatory process was involved. The ban was the most consequential single act of platform-level political deplatforming in history — removing a sitting head of state from the world's primary political discourse platform. Gadde later acknowledged in congressional testimony that the decision was made under intense external pressure and in an atmosphere of internal political consensus at the company. The Twitter Files subsequently showed internal discussion among Twitter employees expressing satisfaction at the ban and framing it in explicitly political terms.