Donald Trump has been blocked by Facebook and Twitter after persistently violating the social media giants' guidelines amid yesterday's storming of the US Capitol by his supporters, the BBC reports.

Amid the riots, which left four people dead, Trump had posted a video urging protesters to "go home", while adding: "We love you" and insisting his usual unfounded claims: "We had an election stolen from us".

"This was a fraudulent election but we can't play into the hands of these people but we have to have peace," he said.

The move by Facebook and Twitter means he is unable to communicate with his 88 million-strong audience on Twitter and his 35 million followers on Facebook.

Facebook has confirmed that Trump's page on the platform has incurred a 24-hour block, which means in that time he will not be able to post.

A spokesperson for the company said: "We removed [Trump's video] because on balance we believe it contributes to rather than diminishes the risk of ongoing violence."

According to the BBC, Instagram has also blocked Trump's account for 24 hours. Furthermore, YouTube removed the video.

The company tweeted on its Facebook Newsroom Twitter account: "We've assessed two policy violations against President Trump's Page which will result in a 24-hour feature block, meaning he will lose the ability to post on the platform during that time."

Twitter wrote in a series of posts on its Safety account that three of Trump's tweets, written yesterday amid the chaos, were in "severe violation" of its "Civic Integrity policy"

They also said Trump's account would remain locked for 12 hours. And the ban would continue if the three tweets were not removed.

Furthermore, any future violations could result in permanent suspension.

Per The New York Times, these three tweets continued to reject the election results and appeared to incite violence.

Twitter wrote on its safety account: "As a result of the unprecedented and ongoing violent situation in Washington, D.C., we have required the removal of three @realDonaldTrump Tweets that were posted earlier today for repeated and severe violations of our Civic Integrity policy."

It continued: "This means that the account of @realDonaldTrump will be locked for 12 hours following the removal of these Tweets. If the Tweets are not removed, the account will remain locked.

"Future violations of the Twitter Rules, including our Civic Integrity or Violent Threats policies, will result in permanent suspension of the @realDonaldTrump account."

The current President of the United States, Donald Trump, has had his Twitter account permanently banned from the platform "due to the risk of further incitement of violence", the company has said.

Referring specifically to the "@realDonaldTrump account" in a statement posted to Twitter's blog site, the company advised that the account had been permanently suspended.

Credit: PA Images

The statement reads in part:

"After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence. 

"In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter Rules would potentially result in this very course of action. Our public interest framework exists to enable the public to hear from elected officials and world leaders directly. It is built on a principle that the people have a right to hold power to account in the open. 

"However, we made it clear going back years that these accounts are not above our rules entirely and cannot use Twitter to incite violence, among other things. We will continue to be transparent around our policies and their enforcement."

Twitter said its decision followed two tweets posted to the account Friday afternoon that would end up being Trump's last.

The tweets, Twitter said, violated its policy against glorification of violence, and, "these two Tweets must be read in the context of broader events in the country and the ways in which the President's statements can be mobilized by different audiences, including to incite violence, as well as in the context of the pattern of behavior from this account in recent weeks."

Credit: PA Images

The first tweeted cited in the statement reads:

“The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”

The second reads:

“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”

You can read the full statement from Twitter here.

Credit: PA Images

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg previously announced that Trump had been banned "indefinitely" from Facebook in a statement issued on Thursday, January 7.

Per the Washington Post, in a post made on Thursday, the Facebook founder stated:

"The shocking events of the last 24 hours clearly demonstrate that President Donald Trump intends to use his remaining time in office to undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden.

"His decision to use his platform to condone rather than condemn the actions of his supporters at the Capitol building has rightly disturbed people in the US and around the world.

"We removed these statements yesterday because we judged that their effect - and likely their intent -- would be to provoke further violence.

"Following the certification of the election results by Congress, the priority for the whole country must now be to ensure that the remaining 13 days and the days after inauguration pass peacefully and in accordance with established democratic norms."

Zuckerberg continued:

"Over the last several years, we have allowed President Trump to use our platform consistent with our own rules, at times removing content or labeling his posts when they violate our policies.

"We did this because we believe that the public has a right to the broadest possible access to political speech, even controversial speech.

"But the current context is now fundamentally different, involving use of our platform to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government. We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great.

"Therefore, we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete."

Donald Trump has been staging a veritable thumb war ever since he was elected as the 45th President of the United States in 2016. I mean, there was the "covfefe" incident, wherein the former Apprentice star and billionaire property mogul took to his favourite social media to perplex the world with the now-infamous 7-character tweet. And it hasn't ended there. Donald Trump's Twitter account has managed to alienate large swathes of people, including a considerable number of women, the LGBTQ community and many South American countries. And as such, last month, a former Twitter employee took it upon himself to shut down the US President's account. While it was only down for 11 minutes, it caused quite the hubbub on the application with people championing the then-unnamed employee as a defender of liberal values. [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/926401530013642765]] But now, it seems as if Trump's bizarre Twitter usage is catching on within his inner circle. After NSA Michael Flynn pled guilty to lying to the FBI in regards to his dealings with a Russian Ambassador, the President's attorney, Ty Cobb, was called in to issue a formal statement to defend his innocence. However, in an unforeseen twist which has completely diverted attention from the matter at hand, Cobb typed the entire statement in Comic Sans. And no, this is not a drill. How do you detract from a collusion investigation? By getting your lawyer to issue a statement typed in the world's least-favourite font, it seems. Bloomberg reporter, Sahil Kapur shared Ty Cobb's rather interesting statement on Twitter, and naturally, all hell broke loose. Cobb wrote: "Today, Michael Flynn, a former National Security Advisor at the White House for 25 days during the Trump Administration, and a former Obama administration official, entered a guilty plea to a single count of making a false statement to the FBI. "The False statements involved mirror the false statements to White House officials which resulted in his resignation in February of this year. Nothing about the guilty plea or the charge implicates anyone other than Mr. Flynn. The conclusion of this phase of the Special Counsel's work demonstrates again that the Special Counsel is moving with all deliberate speed and clears the way for a prompt and reasonable conclusion." But, I mean, who even cares about the content of the statement when it's so offensive to look at? Take a gander at the eyesore below... Twitter users were, of course, outraged by the whole situation. A fellow lawyer wrote, "I’m an attorney and i wouldn’t be caught dead using anything other than times new Roman. Arial is too colloquial for me. Comic sans is malpractice", while a veritable comedian added, "Don't nobody have Times New Roman for that." [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/Ayo48/status/936822304830496768]] [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/JhonnyTopside/status/936732851193524224]]   Now, whether you believe this was a clever political ploy to detract from the issue at hand, or just an ill-thought-out font choice, one thing is for sure, we need to be paying closer attention to what's actually happening in US government, instead of focusing on innocuous (but admittedly hilarious) incidents like this.

After spending a year and a half in office, Donald Trump has definitely made his mark on America. He's arguably been the subject of more sex-based scandals, held responsible for more diplomatic blunders, and certainly experienced more Twitter faux pas than any other serving president in US history, and yet he still has the support of millions of voters.

However, the former businessman might not be able to count on his fanbase for much longer, as it turns out that almost half of the American electorate believe that their current president is a racist.

According to a Quinnipiac University poll released this week, 49 per cent of people think Trump is racist, 47 believe he is not, and the remainder are undecided. Moreover, 44 per cent are convinced that Trump's "racist beliefs" have motivated his tough immigration policy, 60 per cent agreed that separating families at the border is a violation of human rights, and 22 per cent of Republicans believe that the president's actions in office have emboldened racist behaviour in others.

Let's take a quick look at the evidence that might have urged people to come to this conclusion, shall we?

From the beginning of his campaign for the presidency, he kept pushing the narrative that Mexican immigrants were criminals. He showed disdain for Muslim Americans and implemented a ban on immigrants from Muslim countries. He said that 15,000 Haitian immigrants "all have AIDS" and that 40,000 Nigerian immigrants would not want to "go back to their huts" after experiencing the USA. He said that the states did not want more immigrants from "s**thole countries".

But it wasn't just immigrants he showed hatred for.

Famously, Trump tried to argue that Barack Obama was not American. He also has a habit of implying that black and Hispanic people are more violent, and commented in one debate against Hillary Clinton: "Our inner cities, African Americans, Hispanics are living in hell because it’s so dangerous. You walk down the street, you get shot."

[[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/544960917914796032]]

And lest we forget all the white nationalists that support Trump. He famously described the white supremacists at the Charlottesville Rally last year as "very fine people", and accepted endorsements from known KKK members.

Long before he even announced he was running for president, though, Trump was rumoured to exhibit racist behaviour. Former employees of his claimed that he treated black staff differently to white workers, and is reported to have once said of a black accountant, "I think that the guy is lazy. And it’s probably not his fault, because laziness is a trait in blacks."

[[youtubewidget||https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOYMFkFgPzk&feature=youtu.be]]

While the broader extent of Trump's racism may have only become visible due to his highly publicised treatment of immigrants (especially children) at the southern border, the truth is that he has always made these viewpoints known to anyone who was paying close enough attention.

It calls into question, then, what exactly the other 51 per cent are seeing when they watch Donald Trump do all these things?

Even before Donald Trump was voted into power as President of the USA, he was a pretty avid tweeter. The businessman and former The Apprentice host has never been one to shy away from conflict or conceal his viewpoints, and he very frequently used his social media platform in order to express his thoughts. But, while he was still just a member of the general public, there was not much of an issue with this. Since he's become the leader of the free world, however, these habits of his have caused a number of problems. Not only has he damaged international relations with North Korea by tweeting petty insults at Kim Jong Un, he's also alienated the LGBTQ community by trying to ban trans people from the military without consulting the proper channels, and publicly condemned the Muslim population by sharing tweets from a British hate group. And, though he got into some hot water for all of those, none of his tweets have been quite as damaging as this one: [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/937007006526959618]] Obviously, we all know by now that Michael Flynn has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about Russia links. However, before this point, Trump had claimed ignorance of Flynn's supposed dishonesty and had actively encouraged James Comey, the former head of the FBI, to drop the investigation into the matter. With this most recent tweet, though, it appears that Trump knew Flynn was lying all along. "I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI," the President wrote, implying that he had attempted to obstruct an investigation into a member of his administration whom he knew to be guilty. Walter Shaub, the former director of the US Office of Government Ethics, was appalled by the tweet, and considered it an admission of obstructing justice. [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/waltshaub/status/937010410946953218]] He then directly addressed the President, asking whether he knew about Flynn's lies before firing the head of the Department of Justice, Sally Yates. [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/waltshaub/status/937011829439631360]] Shaub then added that, during any other presidency, this would have spelled the end - and it still could. [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/waltshaub/status/937012116158066688]] Other people have responded to Trump's outrageous admission, calling him out for essentially confessing to a crime on Twitter. [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/ezlusztig/status/937014393690136577]] [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/Green_Footballs/status/937028715623546880]] Since the first tweet, Trump has not outrightly backtracked on his statement but is apparently doing his best to deflect the matter. First, he changed the subject to "Crooked Hillary", then he claimed that he never actually asked Comey to stop investigating Flynn, and that the whole report was "fake news". [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/937141061343956992]] [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/937279001684598784]] Unfortunately for him, there's a great deal of evidence that Trump did call for the investigation to be ended. [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/creature_dan/status/937282147152547840]] So, along with Flynn's claim that he is willing to testify against Trump about involvement with the Russians, this tweet could spell the end for the President. Will calls for his impeachment getting louder every day, it seems that he may have to work much harder than he previously has done in order to win back favor with American people.