Twitter suspends accounts for evading Trump ban

Twitter Inc suspended several accounts this week that were set up to share statements from a new part of former U.S. President Donald Trump's website, saying they broke its rules against evading an account ban.

Jayson Albano reports.

Twitter suspended several accounts for promoting statements from former U.S. President Donald Trump's blog this week, and helping to evade the ban on his account.

Before the ban, Trump had more than 88 million followers.

Twitter booted him from the platform after the deadly siege on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters in January.

On Tuesday a page was added to Trump's website dubbed "From the Desk of Donald J.

Trump".

There he posts messages that can be shared by his audience to both Twitter and Facebook.

A Twitter spokesman said in a statement, "As stated in our ban evasion policy, we'll take enforcement action on accounts whose apparent intent is to replace or promote content affiliated with a suspended account." A Trump representative said they had nothing to do with the suspended accounts.

Twitter said Trump's ban is permanent even if he runs for office again.

While on Wednesday, Facebook's oversight board upheld Trump's suspension from their platform, but said the company should not have made it indefinite.

Facebook now has six months to decide a more proportionate response.

Trump is reportedly planning to launch his own social media platform.