Twitch has disabled President Donald Trump’s account indefinitely following his encouragement of a pro-Trump mob’s attack of the US Capitol on Wednesday.
“In light of yesterday’s shocking attack on the Capitol, we have disabled President Trump’s Twitch channel,” a Twitch spokesperson said in a statement. “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.” The company says it will reassess Trump’s account after he leaves office.
Trump’s account remains live, so archived videos and his profile are still available. But while the account is disabled, he won’t be able to stream.
In June, Twitch temporarily banned Trump’s account for “hateful conduct” that was aired on his stream. The ban was lifted after two weeks. On Wednesday evening, Twitch deleted the well-known PogChamp emote because the person on whose face it was based made statements “encouraging further violence after what took place in the Capitol today,” according to Twitch. The streaming platform plans to work with the community to design a new emote.
Earlier on Thursday, Facebook placed an indefinite ban on Trump’s account and said the ban would not be lifted before Inauguration Day. Twitter locked Trump’s account Wednesday evening and said that further violations of its policies will result in a “permanent suspension” of his account.
Update January 7th, 2:34PM ET: Trump’s account is still live, so the account has not been entirely banned. We have updated the headline to reflect this.
