How Donald Trump Could Lose His Twitter Account When His Presidency Is Over

For the past four years, America has gotten used to President Trump's rampant and frenzied tweeting. While some of the president's tweets have been restricted by the social media platform if they are inaccurate or incite violence, they still remain up on the platform for all of the world to see. Meanwhile, the everyday Twitter user could potentially have their tweets removed or face other consequences for posting tweets of a similar nature.

Throughout his presidency, President Trump's tweets have been the focus of many of the questions raised regarding his ability to lead the country. His tweets have also caused quite a bit of backlash, and Twitter has taken various actions to try and limit his influence, including hiding and applying fact-check labels to his tweets, as Engadget reports.

This will all change on Jan. 20, 2021, however, when President-elect Joe Biden takes office. Upon leaving the White House, Twitter says Donald Trump will have to follow the same policies every other Twitter user does. Considering his Twitter history for the past four years, this could be difficult for the soon-to-be-former president, but if he does not comply, he could lose his account (per The Verge).

Keep reading to learn more about how Trump could potentially be banned from Twitter.

As he is the president of the United States, Twitter has decided to grant "public interest" protections to Donald Trump's account. These protections, which also apply to other world leaders and officials, allow rule-breaking content to remain online.

"Twitter's approach to world leaders, candidates, and public officials is based on the principle that people should be able to choose to see what their leaders are saying with clear context. This means that we may apply warnings and labels, and limit engagement to certain tweets. This policy framework applies to current world leaders and candidates for office, and not private citizens when they no longer hold these positions," a Twitter spokesperson told The Verge.

Trump definitely took advantage of this privilege during the past four years, which got out of hand when his tweets started to promote violence and were not factually correct. Twitter took steps to limit these tweets, though, including hiding them and applying fact-check warning labels to the president's tweets.

As votes were counted right after the 2020 election, Twitter really ramped up its limiting of Trump's inaccurate, baseless tweets. According to Engadget, Twitter "hid four posts on November 6th alone, when Trump made unsupported claims of voter fraud."

His posts could be more than just hidden come January, though, as Twitter can easily crack down on his tweets or ban him from the app. Twitter confirmed to The Verge that he will be subject to the same rules as everyone else.