Facebook bans Donald Trump until end of his presidency
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Facebook bans Donald Trump until end of his presidency

FACEBOOK has suspended Donald Trump's account and won't allow him to log back on until the end of his presidency.

The announcement was made on Thursday by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who revealed that the president's Instagram account has also been locked.

The decision was made after hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol Building on Wednesday in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden's election victory.

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

He added that Trump's actions in response to the saga have "rightly" disturbed people all over the world and that Trump's statement had since been removed from Facebook in order to prevent any further violence.

Zuckerberg went on to say that now "the priority for the whole country" was to ensure that the next 13 days leading up to Biden's inauguration pass peacefully.

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

"We did this because we believe 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."

During what some have described as an attempted coup, Trump was active on social media, and controversially refused to condemn or criticise the actions of his supporters, despite pleading for peace and urging them to go home.

Mr Zuckerberg said that Trump's accounts will be suspended "indefinitely," and at least until a "peaceful transition of power is complete".

Trump's presidency will end of January 20 when Mr Biden is officially inaugurated.