It’s been a bad week for President Donald Trump’s socials. First he was unceremoniously dumped by his longtime paramour Twitter. Then Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitch blocked him. Now YouTube has jumped into the fray, banning the president’s channel after it breached the website’s moderation policies.
“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,” YouTube announced via its official press Twitter on Tuesday. “It now has its 1st strike & is temporarily prevented from uploading new content for a *minimum* of 7 days.”
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
Though it’s only a temporary suspension for now, this doesn’t mean it won’t be made permanent. Twitter’s Trump lockout was also temporary at the beginning, until Trump got back on and continued to Trump.
Under YouTube’s moderation policy, channels that violate its community guidelines for the first time are typically given a warning. A second violation will result in a first strike, which bars the channel from uploading new videos for a week. If they get a second strike within 90 days they’ll be banned for two weeks, while a third strike within 90 days will result in the channel’s permanent removal from YouTube.
Considering the president’s track record, it’s highly unlikely he will repent and mend his ways.
YouTube further announced it will be preventing people from commenting on all of Trump’s videos for the foreseeable future. The clips are still up and able to be viewed, but Trump’s supporters won’t be able to swarm beneath them anymore.
“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,” said YouTube.
It’s good that YouTube is doing something. But it’s disappointing that it took a literal armed insurrection for these tech giants to finally take action against Trump’s inciting rhetoric.
When approached for comment regarding details of which policies Trump violated, YouTube provided a statement similar in wording to the tweets above, adding “we’ve taken similar actions in the past for other cases involving safety concerns” and noting it’s not the first time it’s removed content from Trump’s channel for policy violations.
However, the Google-owned company did not respond to a question about whether Trump’s account had been warned about its content prior to the strike.