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Over 80% of Germans Support Twitter in Banning Trump's Account

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - An overwhelming majority of Germans support Twitter's move to permanently ban outgoing US President Donald Trump from the platform over allegations of his incitement to violence, a fresh Civey poll by the Augsburger Allgemeine daily paper showed on Monday.
Sputnik

Twitter banned Trump on January 6 after his calls for supporters to come to Washington and protest the electoral outcome resulted in 5 people dead as an angry mob violently stormed the Congress building while lawmakers were certifying Joe Biden's victory.

The poll revealed that 80.7 percent of Germans supported the ban, including 75.1 percent who said the move was "definitely right" and 5.6 percent saying it was "rather right."

The share of respondents who do not support the move count 15.4 percent, including 11.1 percent who consider the ban "definitely wrong" and 4.3 percent considering it "rather wrong."

The German parliament factions turned predominantly supportive of the ban as well. The move was supported by 95.2 percent of the Greens, 95.1 percent of the Social Democratic Party, and 92.9 percent of the ruling CDU/CSU bloc, but only 24.8 percent of the far-right Alternative for Germany party.

The poll was conducted from January 9-11 among over 5,000 people. The margin of error does not exceed 2.5 percentage points, according to pollsters.

Following Twitter's lead, Facebook, Instagram and a few other social networks suspended Trump accounts for varying periods of time. Trump later called on supporters to refrain from violence, but the protest night in Washington nevertheless resulted in massive unrest that left five people dead. Many in the US, including officials, dubbed the violent protests "domestic terrorism."

Earlier in the day, German Chancellor Angela Merkel described the Twitter ban as "problematic" as it partially pertains to freedom of expression.

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