Twitter Removes Exact Copies of Donald Trump's Tweets for 'Glorifying Violence,' But Keeps POTUS' Intact

A Twitter account that posts copies of President Donald Trump's tweets ran into some issues on Monday after violating the platform's community standards. The account, named '@SuspendThePres,' was suspended for 12 hours after re-pasting Trump's tweet proclaiming "when the looting starts, the shooting starts," referring protesters across the U.S.

Twitter user Bizarre Lazar, who also runs the 'Suspend' account, posted screenshots of Twitter flagging the tweet. After being flagged for "glorifying violence," the platform banned the account for 12 hours, in addition to making them delete the tweet in question. Along with the screenshots, Lazar also remarked that the experiment to get banned from Twitter, even temporarily, "took longer than expected." The tweets from Trump, incidentally, are still on the platform.

Experiment Update - Well it finally happened. Took longer than expected. 12 hour suspension and had to delete the offending tweet. Here’s the screenshots @suspendthepres. Will post to the account when suspension is lifted. pic.twitter.com/wvKV9HDKBn

— Bizarre Lazar (@BizarreLazar) June 1, 2020

The experiment comes after repeated criticism that Trump's social media remarks would result in severe consequences for normal users. Twitter initially responded by placing a 'fact check' tag on some of the president's tweets, the first of which appeared calling out his remarks regarding the upcoming election in November. The move was met resoundingly derided from numerous conservatives, as well as the president himself, while critics felt that it didn't go far enough.

Similarly, SnapChat announced that it would no longer promote Trump's posts on their 'Discover' tab, though it stressed the posts themselves would remain accessible to users. The decision was met with the same round of criticism, with Trump's campaign manager Brad Parscale accusing the company of trying to rig the upcoming elections.

Facebook, on the other hand, has elected not to do anything about the president's often-inflammatory rhetoric. While CEO Mark Zuckerberg has remained steadfast in his assistance to not enforce community standards on the president, a number of Facebook staff have strongly disagreed with the decision, which resulted in mass walkouts in protest.

One such employee told the New York Times that the walkout was "the most serious challenge to Mr. Zuckerberg's leadership since the company was founded 15 years ago." Facebook spokesperson Liz Bourgeois responded on behalf of the company, saying: "We recognize the pain many of our people are feeling right now, especially our Black community. We encourage employees to speak openly when they disagree with leadership."