YouTube is suspending Donald Trump’s account for the next week for policy violations. This comes less than a week after Trump was permanently banned from Twitter and temporarily banned from Facebook.
YouTube bans Trump… for now
Unlike some other platforms, the suspension of Trump’s account is temporary. At least for the time being.
“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,” a YouTube representative said on Twitter.
YouTube has also disabled comments on Trump’s channel indefinitely.
“Given the ongoing concerns about violence, we will also be indefinitely disabling comments on President Trump’s channel, as we’ve done to other channels where there are safety concerns found in the comments section.”
2/ Given the ongoing concerns about violence, we will also be indefinitely disabling comments on President Trump’s channel, as we’ve done to other channels where there are safety concerns found in the comments section. https://t.co/1aBENHGU5z
— YouTubeInsider (@YouTubeInsider) January 13, 2021
During the attack on the Capitol last week YouTube removed Trump’s video message to his supporters due to the including claims of 202 election fraud.
“As the situation at the United States Capitol Building unfolds, our teams are working to quickly remove livestreams and other content that violates our policies…We will remain vigilant in the coming hours,” YouTube said at the time.
It ain’t the first
Last week Twitter permanently banned Donald Trump from its platform. Prior to this the social media giant had temporarily banned the account after the insurrection of the Capitol building in Washington D.C.
The permanent ban occurred after Trump regained his account and sent out to tweets:
“The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”
“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”
Twitter deemed these to be inciting further violence.
[related_content first=”1663031″]
“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” Twitter wrote in a blog post on over the weekend.
“In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter Rules would potentially result in this very course of action,” the company added. “Our public interest framework exists to enable the public to hear from elected officials and world leaders directly. It is built on a principle that the people have a right to hold power to account in the open.”
Facebook and Instagram have also temporarily banned Trump from their platforms until at least after the inauguration of President-Elect, Joe Biden.
“We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great.” Zuckerberg wrote in a post. “Therefore, we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete.”
Other platforms that have banned or suspended Trump’s accounts include Twitch, Snapchat and Reddit.
[related_content first=”1664136″]
Parler goes offline
While trump and his followers may have found a home on the ‘freedom of speech’ social media site, Parler, that has proven difficult. Both Google and Apple removed the Parler app from their respective stores last week. Amazon Web Services quickly followed suit by pulling its hosting of the website.
Parler CEO John Matze announced on his site early Monday that service would likely be interrupted for a while and he called Parler his “last stand on the internet.”
“I wanted to send everyone on Parler an update. We will likely be down longer than expected,” Parler CEO Matze wrote earlier this week.
“This is not due to software restrictions — we have our software and everyone’s data ready to go. Rather it’s that Amazon’s, Google’s and Apple’s statements to the press about dropping our access has caused most of our other vendors to drop their support for us as well.”
Matze, a self-described libertarian, said on Sunday that absolutely nobody wants to do business with him and that large tech companies like Apple and Amazon are colluding to “stifle free speech” by booting Parler from their platforms.
Matze also said in an interview with Fox News that “Every vendor, from text message services to email providers to our lawyers, all ditched us on the same day.
Since then it appears that far-right Trump supporters and Neo-Nazis have been trying to recruit former Parler users to encrypter messaging service, Telegram.