Shopify deactivates Trump-affiliated stores

By

Jennifer Braun

Published
Jan 8, 2021

Following moves from tech companies like Facebook and Twitter, Canadian commerce company Shopify announced on Thursday that it had removed stores affiliated with President Donald Trump from its platform.

Shopify pulled the plug on sites offering merchandise in support of Trump just a day after his supporters descended on the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., in an attempt to block lawmakers from certifying Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 election.

Stores removed from the platform include shop.donaldjtrump.com and trumpstore.com, as well as other websites associated with Trump or selling supportive merchandise.

Shopify said that these stores violated its policies prohibiting users from promoting or supporting organizations that incite violence.

"Shopify does not tolerate actions that incite violence," a Shopify spokesperson said in a statement. 

"Based on recent events, we have determined that the actions by President Donald J. Trump violate our Acceptable Use Policy, which prohibits promotion or support of organizations, platforms or people that threaten or condone violence to further a cause. As a result, we have terminated stores affiliated with President Trump.”

Twitter was the first tech company to censor Trump, flagging on Wednesday several Trump tweets and removing two of them, before temporarily suspending the president’s account. 

Next, Facebook announced that it was suspending Trump’s account on Facebook and Instagram for at least the next two weeks. 

Most recently, payment processor PayPal equally shut down an account raising funds for Trump supporters who traveled to Washington, DC.