YouTube to suspend Trump's channel
Jan 13, 2021
New York [US], January 13 : YouTube is suspending US President Donald Trump's channel for at least one week, and potentially longer, after his channel earned a strike under the platform's policies, the company said Tuesday evening.
A recent video on Trump's channel had incited violence, YouTube told CNN and the video has now been removed. However, YouTube declined to share details of the video that earned Trump "the strike", but said that after the one-week timeout, it will revisit the decision.
It was reported that YouTube had been the only remaining major social media platform not to have suspended Trump in some fashion. Facebook has suspended Trump's account "indefinitely," while Twitter has banned Trump completely.
"After careful review, and in light of concerns about the ongoing potential for violence, we removed new content uploaded to the Donald J Trump channel and issued a strike for violating our policies for inciting violence," a YouTube spokesperson said in a statement.
"As a result, in accordance with our long-standing strikes system, the channel is now prevented from uploading new videos or live streams for a minimum of seven days--which may be extended," it added.
The video-sharing platform added that it will be taking the extra step of disabling comments underneath videos on Trump's channel. The company's policy state that earning a second strike will result in a two-week suspension and three strikes will result in a permanent ban.
