Four years late, Twitch suspends Donald Trump's account

Donald Trump's Twitch channel has been suspended in the wake of this week's deadly attack on the US Capitol.

The account had previously been used to stream rallies and other events via Twitch, and was previously banned for breaking the platform's rules around hateful conduct when it broadcast Trump calling Mexican immigrants "rapists".

Now, Twitch has followed other social media platforms in disabling Trump's account - for a limited time, at least, and with just two week's left of his presidential term.

"In light of yesterday's shocking attack on the Capitol, we have disabled President Trump's Twitch channel," a Twitch spokesperson confirmed to Kotaku.

"Given the current extraordinary circumstances and the President's incendiary rhetoric, we believe this is a necessary step to protect our community and prevent Twitch from being used to incite further violence.

"We are focused on minimising harm leading up to the transition of government and will reassess his account after he leaves office."

The move follows a similar restriction by Facebook, which yesterday said it had suspended Trump's account "indefinitely", but at least until the end of his presidential term in two weeks. YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter have also imposed bans, though the latter's 24 suspension has already lifted.

This week's storming of the US Capitol was an unprecedented event which many commentators have said was also entirely predictable. A murderous capstone after four years of racist dogwhistling rhetoric, the attack was incited by Trump's specific call to arms for crowds of his supporters, many of whom are white supremacists and alt-right conspiracy theorists, to descend on Washington DC on the day Congress ratified his November election loss.