Facebook will block US President Donald Trump on its platforms, including Instagram, at least until the end of his term, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a post on Thursday, The New York Times reported.

“The shocking events of the last 24 hours clearly demonstrate that President Donald Trump intends to use his remaining time in office to undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden,” Zuckerberg wrote.

“We believe the risks of allowing the president to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great,” he said. “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.”

“We did this because we believe that the public has a right to the broadest possible access to political speech, even controversial speech,” Mr. Zuckerberg said in his note on Thursday morning.
“The current context is now fundamentally different, involving use of our platform to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government,” Zuckerberg said.

Facebook had previously said it would suspend Trump's account for 24 hours after several of the president’s posts on Wednesday appeared to stoke the violence in the Capitol. Trump also faced a suspension from Twitter, which locked his account for 12 hours and required him to delete three tweets that the company said could incite violence in order to regain access.

The unprecedented decisions from Twitter and Facebook come after the social media companies have for years allowed Trump to violate their policies without repercussions.