Shopify pulls Trump's stores off its platform

E-commerce platform Shopify has shut down President Donald Trump's online stores. The Canada-based tech company cited the chaos at the U.S. Capitol building as the reason for the ban.

Shopify permanently removed President Trump's official campaign store and the Trump Organization's online store on Thursday, as first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

"Shopify does not tolerate actions that incite violence," a Shopify spokesperson said in a statement. "Based on recent events, we have determined that the actions by President Donald J. Trump violate our Acceptable Use Policy, which prohibits promotion or support of organizations, platforms or people that threaten or condone violence to further a cause. As a result, we have terminated stores affiliated with President Trump."

Before the stores were shuttered, the online retailers sold the campaign's signature "Make America Great Again" hats, buttons, flags, pennants, T-shirts, bobbleheads, and other "MAGA" merchandise.

In less than 24 hours, Big Tech has swiftly levied suspensions and bans on the president. Facebook has "indefinitely" blocked President Trump from posting on the social network. On Thursday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts would be locked until at least Inauguration Day on Jan. 20.

"We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great," Zuckerberg wrote. "Therefore, we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete."

Snapchat locked the president's account on Wednesday. Snapchat co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel said the social media platform "simply cannot promote accounts in America that are linked to people who incite racial violence, whether they do so on or off our platform."

Twitter suspended Trump's account for 12 hours and deleted three tweets.

"We have required the removal of three @realDonaldTrump Tweets that were posted earlier today for repeated and severe violations of our Civic Integrity Policy," Twitter said. "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."

Twitter threatened that future violations would "result in permanent suspension of the @realDonaldTrump account."

A video from Trump's YouTube channel addressing the Capitol chaos was removed for misleading information about the 2020 election results. YouTube warned that any channel that receives three strikes for spreading election misinformation in 90 days will be terminated, including Trump's account, according to The Verge.

Twitch, the livestreaming platform owned by Amazon, indefinitely disabled President Trump's account.

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

Trump's Twitch account will be disabled until at least Inauguration Day and will be reassessed at that time.