President Donald Trump has enjoyed extra protections on Twitter that others have not due to his status as a world leader. That includes posting false claims or launching attacks on his perceived adversaries.
Those protections end at 12:00 p.m. EST on Jan. 20, 2021, when President-elect Joe Biden takes the oath of office, a Twitter spokesperson told Forbes Thursday. And that means, like other users of Twitter, Trump could ultimately be banned if he breaks the social media platforms rules.
Trump is currently shielded by Twitter's World Leaders Policy. It states that while people who hold such global titles aren't totally immune from the platform's rules, they are given a little more latitude due to their position.
In recent months, and more frequently since the Nov. 3 election, Twitter has placed notifications on many of Trump's tweets that the platform has deemed as false or in dispute. But they have allowed the tweets to stay because Trump is the president.
That ends in just under seven weeks.
The comments echo those reportedly made by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to Congress last month.
“If an account suddenly is not a world leader anymore, that particular policy goes away,” Dorsey said, according to TechCruch.
Forbes reports that Twitter does not have a specific limit on how many times someone can break its rules, but that punishment can range from requiring a user to delete a tweet to permanently banning them from the platform.
The president has threatened to veto the defense spending bill -- something that has passed with bipartisan support for the last 59 years -- unless Congress repeals the so-called Section 230. It's a part of the communications code that shields Twitter, Facebook and others from content liability. His complaint is a battle cry of conservatives — and some Democrats — who say the social media giants treat them unfairly.
Members of both parties pushed back against the threat Wednesday, saying putting the defense bill at risk is not the place for that fight.
“I agree with his sentiments — we ought to do away with 230,” Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., told reporters Wednesday on Capitol Hill after having spoken with Trump. “But you can’t do it in this bill."
Trump has not conceded the election to Biden as he continues legal challenges, and there is a belief by some that he never will. Regardless, Twitter has said the official presidential account @POTUS -- which is separate from Trump's personal @realdonaldtrump account -- will be transferred to Biden's team on Inauguration Day. Politico reports all the tweets sent from @POTUS and other official White House accounts during the Trump administration will be archived and the accounts will be reset to zero tweets.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.