The permanent suspension of former President Donald Trump from Twitter’s platforms was greatly needed. Trump’s Twitter account was where he spread most of his misinformation to the public. Many tweets from Trump have been improper over the past year, and his final tweets before suspension led to the horrific riot at the nation’s Capitol Building.

The influence of Trump’s tweets on the events at Capitol Hill, which led to five people’s deaths, was the last straw for Twitter. Twitter had been monitoring and posting disclaimers on his tweets over the past months until his account was finally suspended.

“Well for the longest time, Trump has spread a lot of false or misleading information … and simply holding the position as president, he had a lot of influence, a lot of power,” Elaine Lee (12) said.

Of the many benefits to Trump’s suspension, one is that people can no longer rely on him for information about COVID-19. Trump had consistently undermined the virus’s power in his tweets, and many people chose to ignore science and trust him.

“People are going to believe him, and that is probably why you see a lot of people who are like, ‘Oh, well Trump said this, so I’m not going to go around wearing a mask, or I’m not going to social distance,’” Amalia Morton (11) said. “They just take into account … [that] he is the president, so what he says must be right.”

After the election, Trump claimed for months that it was fraudulent on his Twitter platform, and he told his supporters that something needed to be done. This led to the vandalizing of the Capitol and the deaths of four rioters and one policeman, which Trump denied accountability for. Some believe that Twitter’s timing of Trump’s suspension prevented any more chaos to possibly happen at the inauguration of President Joe Biden.

“I think that if he continued to have his Twitter account and continued tweeting, … maybe Biden could have gotten hurt, or killed,” Dinah Keegin (10) said. “I think that some of [Trump’s supporters] have proved that they would commit treason for him, that they would commit acts of violence for him.”

The banning of Trump’s Twitter platform should have been done a lot sooner, but many are content that it was accomplished.

“I’m just glad that Trump is finally off Twitter, but I think the damage has already been done,” Lee said. “This could have all been resolved or just not as severe if they had taken action a lot sooner.”