Donald Trump uses official White House account to re-send 'violent' banned tweet

Donald Trump has used the official White House Twitter account to resend a tweet that was barred from appearing on his own feed for glorifying violence. The tweet, sent shortly after 8am on Friday, said: ‘”These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen.

‘Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!”’

The message was contained within inverted commas to indicate it was a quote, and was pasted above an embedded version of the first part of the president’s tweet, which did not fall foul of any rules and has remained visible.

The White House’s Twitter account – usually used for uncontroversial policy announcements and schedule updates – has over 22 million followers, to President Trump’s 80 million.

Trump used the account to retweet several other baying quotes from Fox News hosts he’d first shared on his own account. One said: ”“The President has been targeted by Twitter.” @MariaBartiromo What about all of the lies and fraudulent statements made by Adam Schiff, and so many others, on the Russian Witch Hunt Plus, Plus, Plus? What about China’s propaganda? WHO’s mistakes? No flags? @foxandfriends’

Another added: ‘“Regulate Twitter if they are going to start regulating free speech.” @JudgeJeanine@foxandfriends Well, as they have just proven conclusively, that’s what they are doing. Repeal Section 230!!!’

And a third tweet retweeted from Trump’s account simply said: ‘CHINA!’

The president says he plans to hold a press conference on China today. He has repeatedly blaming the country’s communist government for helping spread the coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 101,000 Americans.

Trump first sent the now-hidden tweet from his own account in the early hours of Friday. Twitter hid it shortly afterwards after saying it breached its terms of service by ‘glorifying violence.’ Twitter users can still see the original tweet, but they must first read Twitter’s explanation of why it was hidden, then click a ‘view’ button.

Twitter has yet to hide the tweet sent by the White House account from public view, with Trump making the remarks in response to ongoing riots in Minneapolis after unarmed black man George Floyd died after having his neck crushed by a white police officer on Monday.

The president has spent the week at war with Twitter and other social media giants, and signed an executive order Thursday which paved the way for people to sue social media giants over defamatory comments about them made online.

Social networks had previously been protected from any such lawsuits by the US First Amendment, which guarantees the right to free speech.

Trump claimed his order was intended to prevent ‘bias’ against conservative voices on social media, with some right-wing commentators complaining that their posts have been barred for no reason, or obscured from view.

Twitter first sparked Trump’s fury after it began fact-checking his tweets on Wednesday. It annotated two tweets claiming that voting by mail was vulnerable to fraud to say that Trump’s comments had not been fact-checked.

Trump has railed against mail-in voting amid fears the coronavirus pandemic will deter voters from going to the polling booth for November’s presidential election.

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