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- YouTube said Tuesday that it has “removed new content” from President Donald Trump’s official channel and banned him from posting new videos for a “minimum” of one week for violating its policies.
- YouTube also gave Trump’s channel its first “strike,” and is “indefinitely disabling” comments over “safety concerns.”
- YouTube’s actions come days after Facebook and Twitter banned Trump from their platforms entirely, and amid pushback from Google’s newly formed union, which slammed the company’s response to recent violence as “lackluster.”
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YouTube has suspended President Donald Trump’s account for at least one week after removing a video that the company said incited violence.
The offending video was uploaded Tuesday and violated YouTube’s policies on inciting violence, a spokesperson said, although the company did not share details of the video’s contents.
YouTube said it had issued the account a single strike, preventing it from uploading new videos for seven days, but said that timeframe could be extended.
The company said it has also disabled comments under videos on the channel indefinitely.
“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 spokesperson told Business Insider.
“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. We are also indefinitely disabling comments under videos on the channel, we’ve taken similar actions in the past for other cases involving safety concerns.”
Although Trump’s account is suspended, the channel is still active along with previously uploaded videos, some of which falsely claim that President-elect Joe Biden did not win the election.
A spokesperson said that a second strike on the channel will lead to a two-week ban, and three strikes means permanent suspension.
YouTube is the last major internet platform to suspend Trump’s account after pro-Trump insurrectionists attempted a coup at Capitol Hill last week. Facebook suspended Trump’s account for at least two weeks, while Twitter banned him indefinitely.
While YouTube removed a video message posted by Trump last week, in which he spoke to the rioters, it stopped short of suspending his account entirely. Instead, the Google-owned service introduced a new strike policy.
The decision has drawn criticism from within and outside of Google. The recently-formed Alphabet Workers Union slammed YouTube for its “lackluster” response to the siege on the Capitol, while civil rights groups and celebrity figures including Sacha Baron Cohen publicly called for the YouTube account to be suspended.
Google was swifter to pull Parler, the social media app that’s popular with Trump supporters, from its Play Store. Google said the app did not have sufficient moderation policies in place to curb content that could also incite violence.
Are you a Google employee with more to share? You can contact the reporter Hugh Langley securely using the encrypted messaging app Signal (+1-628-228-1836) or encrypted email (hslangley@protonmail.com). Reach out using a nonwork device.
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