President Donald Trump speaks during a 60 Minutes interview recorded and published by the White House.
Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET
After Twitter permanently suspended President Donald Trump’s account because of “the risk of further incitement of violence” on Friday, celebs, journalists, comedians, companies, political figures and others took to social media with a multitude of reactions.
“It’s now safe to turn off your computer,” Microsoft tweeted.
It’s now safe to turn off your computer.
— Microsoft (@Microsoft) January 9, 2021
Mark Hamill tweeted screenshot of the suspended account along with the text “And how is YOUR day going?”
The permanent suspension follows Wednesday’s temporary lock on Trump’s account, which had more than 88 million followers, for three tweets the social network said violated its rules against interfering in elections and civic processes.
In a blog post on Friday, Twitter said two of Trump’s tweets posted on Friday violated its rules against glorification of violence. Twitter’s action comes after a violent mob stormed the US Capitol, which in turn left five people dead and delayed the certification of Joe Biden as the next US president.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Read more: Trump’s impeachment process to start Monday? Here’s where the situation stands
Reactions to the move range from snarky to angry Twitter didn’t make the move sooner.
This is the first time a sitting president has been banned from Twitter going back to 1812
— Dave Brown (@dave_brown24) January 8, 2021
There’s even a fake Trump-in-disguise Twitter account already racking up the views.
Hello I am brand new to Twitter, what are you guys up to
— John Barron (@barronjohn1946) January 9, 2021
Since Trump’s Facebook account has already been locked indefinitely, MySpace started to trend on Twitter thanks to people predicting Trump would try his luck at other social media outlets, no matter how arcane.
Looks like Myspace Tom just got his first friend in a decade
— Nish Kumar (@MrNishKumar) January 8, 2021
Others tweeted criticism that the Twitter suspension is too little, too late given there are just days left until President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
don’t thank twitter for banning Trump. they only did it because someone died. if the riot hadn’t happened, trump would still be tweeting. twitter had been warned someone would get hurt because of his tweets and they waited until 5 people died. @TwitterSafety gets no thanks
— grace spelman: totally exonerated, no wrongdoing (@GraceSpelman) January 8, 2021
I hate to be a cynic but all these social media platforms banning Trump / senators denouncing him with 2 weeks left of his presidency seems a lot like an attempt to go down on the right side of history after squeezing as much money out of his harmful rhetoric as they possibly can https://t.co/dA4pFqcR2w
— Anwen Kya 🏳️🌈🇪🇺🏴 (@Kyatic) January 8, 2021