JD Vance's social media account suspended within minutes of him joining and people are divided
Topics: Politics, Donald Trump, US News, Social Media, News
Rhianna Benson
Featured Image Credit: Allison Joyce/Getty Images
Topics: Politics, Donald Trump, US News, Social Media, News
The United States' VP was brutally humbled last night after being banned from a new social media channel, just minutes after joining.
J.D. Vance attempted to become the latest member of the microblogging service Bluesky last night (19 Jun), sending a passionate political tweet to introduce himself.
For those out of the loop with the app, Bluesky is a US-founded, supposedly left-leaning social media firm founded in 2019 and resurged in November of last year, which allows users to share short posts containing text, images, and videos.
For his first message on the app, the 40-year-old Vice President wrote: "Hello Bluesky, I've been told this app has become the place to go for common sense political discussion and analysis."
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Could this perhaps have been a pointed dig at X (formerly Twitter) boss Elon Musk, following his headline hitting online row with Trump and Vance earlier this month?
Anyway, Vance added to his Bluesky debut: "So, I'm thrilled to be here to engage with you all."
Within minutes, however, it looked as though the right-wing politician had been suspended from the app, after both his profile and his first 'tweet equivalent' vanished.
It didn't take long for a number of social media users to noticed Vance's new ban, with some finding the whole predicament rather amusing.
"That was fast," one critic quipped on X. Another added: "Thank god."
"Of course he was," a third hit out. He lies as much as Trump and spews misinformation. Unlike Twitter and Elon, Bluesky sticks to its rules and guidelines."
Another jibed: "They really went 'trash belongs outside.'"
Others, however, slammed bosses of the app for allowing the Republican to receive the chop so shortly after joining.
"It seems like BlueSky suspended JD Vance account just minutes after joining," one pointed out. "I hate this dude politics and political prostitution but free speech is a free speech, right?"
"Imagine banning the sitting Vice President of the United States," another noted.
A third added: "Beyond petty."
A spokesperson for the app later confirmed that Vance had been suspended from the app, but that his account had later been rebooted.
"We welcome the Vice President to the conversation on Bluesky," the company told press, adding that they were forced to shut the account down as the result of trolls having impersonated him several times in the past.
"There have been many past attempts to impersonate Vice President JD Vance on Bluesky as he is a public figure, and the jd-vance-1.bsky.social account was flagged as part of that pattern by our automated systems, and temporarily suspended," they explained.
"The account was quickly reinstated within 20 minutes of the suspension, and we've also added a verified badge to help users confirm the authenticity of the profile."