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Following chaos on Capitol Hill today and President Donald Trump’s repeated violations of policy, both Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc. temporarily banned his accounts.

Twitter was the first to take action. “As a result of the unprecedented and ongoing violent situation in Washington, DC, we have required the removal of three @realDonaldTrump tweets that were posted earlier today for repeated and severe violations of our Civic Integrity policy,” said Twitter. “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.”

If Trump transgresses again, Twitter warned, his account could face a permanent ban. The president has trod a fine line for years now with his often outlandish tweets. His account, which has close to 88 million followers, has been issued warnings before but nothing more than that.

One of his most controversial tweets included a line that might well go down in history. That was “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” relating to the Black Lives Matter protests. Even though that broke the rule pertaining to inciting violence, Twitter did not remove the comment for the reason that posts from world leaders are in the public’s interest.

During his presidency, Trump faced less scrutiny than U.S. citizens’ accounts. But Twitter said in December that when he once leaves the White House, he will be subject to the same policies as everyone else.

Trump’s 35 million-follower Facebook account was also suspended today and will stay down for at least 24 hours. Update: On Thursday, Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg wrote on his Facebook page that the company is extending the block for at least the next two weeks “until the peaceful transition of power is complete.”

“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,” he added. “We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great.”

The company said previously that two of his posts had violated its policies. In a blog post, Facebook said the two posts were Trump talking about the Capitol Hill protests and another about election results. Trump’s Instagram account was also suspended.

In an internal memo to employees, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said he was “saddened” by the violence today and he called what had happened an “emergency.” Zuckerberg added that the peaceful transition of power “is critical to the functioning of our democracy, and we need our political leaders to lead by example and put the nation first.”

Photo: vhines200/Flickr