Twitter permanently suspended an account associated with former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon after he suggested in a video posted online that Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray should be beheaded.
Bannon made the comments calling for medieval violence during a livestream of his talk show and podcast, War Room: Pandemic.
“I’d put the heads on pikes. Right. I’d put them at the two corners of the White House. As a warning to federal bureaucrats: Either get with the program or you’re gone,” he said in the now-deleted video previously posted on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.
However, it has been recirculated through other accounts.
Co-host Jack Maxey said, “You know what Steve? Just yesterday there was the anniversary of the hanging of two Tories in Philadelphia. These were Quaker businessmen who had cohabitated, if you will, with the British while they were occupying Philadelphia. These people were hung. This is what we used to do to traitors.”
Bannon replied, “That’s how you won the revolution. No one wants to talk about it. The revolution wasn’t some sort of garden party, right? It was a civil war. It was a civil war.”
The video was viewed at least 200,000 times on Facebook before it was deleted.
A Twitter spokesperson confirmed that, “The @WarRoomPandemic account has been permanently suspended for violating the Twitter Rules, specifically our policy on the glorification of violence.”
A Twitter source added, “We have policies in place that address clear threats of violence, abuse and harassment, and hateful conduct. If we identify any accounts or content that violate these rules, we’ll take enforcement action.”
Facebook and YouTube removed the video, saying it violated their policies against inciting violence and harassment, according to company spokespeople.
Bannon’s message comes as some members of President Trump’s inner circle have amped up inflammatory rhetoric as the election results remain unresolved. Donald Trump Jr. said this week the president should “go to total war” over the election.
Twitter has notably beefed up its response to tweets viewed as harassment or inciting violence in recent months.
The social media company also created a “civic integrity policy” focused on flagging tweets that are considered sharing disputed or misleading information related to the election.
At times, the president’s posts have been flagged as a result of this policy.
Permanently suspending an account on Twitter is the social media site’s strongest enforcement action, according to the company.
Permanently suspending an account will remove it from view, and the violator will not be allowed to create new accounts during that time, according to Twitter’s rules.
YouTube and Facebook channels for War Room: Pandemic are still live.
“We’ve removed this video for violating our policy against inciting violence,” Alex Joseph, a YouTube spokesperson, told NPR. “We will continue to be vigilant as we enforce our policies in the post-election period.”
YouTube has a “three-strikes” policy before an account is terminated.
Any strike temporarily disables uploading for at least a week.
Facebook said it will continue to watch for activity that violates its rules and will take action if it does.
As of Thursday afternoon, a copycat “Stop the Steal” group was growing steadily, nearing 13,000 members, and others were easily searchable on Facebook.
Inside the groups, members posted baseless claims of voter fraud and organized protests.
Calls for violence weren’t immediately apparent, although the Center for Countering Digital Hate shared a screenshot of one post in the now-banned group that read “Neither side is going to concede. Time to clean the guns, time to hit the streets.”