YouTube suspends Donald Trump until he leaves the White House

Donald Trump posted a video on January 12 that YouTube said violated its policies on inciting violence

YouTube has locked Donald Trump’s account for a week, preventing the president from posting on one of the few social media networks he was still able to use during his last days in office. 

It has also indefinitely disabled comments under his videos over safety concerns, the company said in the early hours of Wednesday morning. 

The Google-owned video streaming website had been under pressure to ban Mr Trump after Facebook said it would be suspending his account “indefinitely” and Twitter “permanently” after he violated both companies’ policies against inciting violence for encouraging the mob who stormed the Capitol building last week. 

Celebrities including Sacha Baron Cohen and Amy Schumer have been boosting the campaign #BanTrumpSaveDemocracy aimed at getting YouTube to dismantle Trump’s account. 

Policy managers at Google said earlier on Tuesday that it would be monitoring his account, but planned to apply its policies consistently, removing offensive content on an ad hoc basis.

However in the early hours of Wednesday morning, it removed a video posted by Trump, giving him a “strike”, which means he will be blocked from uploading for seven days. YouTube operates a three strikes policy. 

A Google spokesman said: “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.

1/ After review, and in light of concerns about the ongoing potential for violence, we removed new content uploaded to Donald J. Trump’s channel for violating our policies. It now has its 1st strike & is temporarily prevented from uploading new content for a *minimum* of 7 days.

— YouTubeInsider (@YouTubeInsider) January 13, 2021

“As a result, in accordance with our long-standing strikes system, the channel is now prevented from uploading new videos or livestreams for a minimum of seven days – which may be extended.”

Donald Trump said that the technology companies who had suspended his accounts had made “a catastrophic mistake” that was “dividing people”.

Before his suspension, Mr Trump said claimed that he had plans to announce his own version of a social network in retaliation for Twitter labelling his tweets. The tweet, which was removed by Twitter, did not have any details as to how it would work. 

Read more: Splintering of social media could fuel extremism, experts warnn