Joining the list of companies taking action against US President Donald Trump’s social media accounts, YouTube on Tuesday, 12 January, evening suspended the outgoing US president’s channel for a week after it received a strike under the platform’s policies, according to a report by CNN.
A recently uploaded video that reportedly incited violence has been removed, but YouTube did not share details of the same.
The suspension means that Trump’s channel cannot upload new videos or livestreams for a minimum of seven days. This could be extended, according to a statement from YouTube.
"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," the statement from YouTube reads, according to CNN.
The platform will also be disabling comments under videos on the channel.
This development comes after a group of Trump supporters, whom he refers to as ‘patriots’, barged into the US Capitol and wreaked havoc on 6 January.
At the time, YouTube had removed a video of Trump addressing a mob attack on the Capitol on 7 January, because the President repeated false information about the outcome of the 2020 elections.
Trump's YouTube channel has 2.68 million subscribers. Following the violence that erupted at the US Capitol after his supporters stormed the building, YouTube has removed most of his videos from the rally he addressed earlier in the day.
Similar Actions From Twitter & Facebook
Trump’s Twitter account was permanently suspended by the tech giant on Friday, 8 January, citing “risk of further incitement of violence”.
Twitter wrote in a blog post, “After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them, we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”
A day prior to that, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that after the US Capitol siege by supporters of Trump, the social media giant would be extending the block placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for “at least next two weeks".
Zuckerberg cited the use of the platform “to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government" as the reason for the extended ban.
(With inputs from CNN.)
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