YouTube is suspending President Donald Trump’s channel
YouTube is suspending President Donald Trump’s channel for at least one week, and potentially longer, after his channel earned a strike under the platform’s policies, the company said Tuesday evening.
A recent video on Trump’s channel had incited violence, YouTube told CNN Business. That video has now been removed.
YouTube initially declined to share details of the video that earned Trump the strike but said that after the one-week timeout, it will revisit the decision. YouTube also removed content from the White House’s channel for violating policy, the company told CNN Business, but the channel itself has not been suspended or been given a strike — just a warning.
Until now, YouTube had been the only remaining major social media platform not to have suspended Trump in some fashion. Facebook has suspended Trump’s account “indefinitely,” while Twitter has banned Trump completely.
“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 YouTube spokesperson said in a statement. “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.”
YouTube also said it will be taking the extra step of disabling comments underneath videos on Trump’s channel.
Under YouTube’s policies, earning a second strike will result in a two-week suspension and three strikes will result in a permanent ban.
On Wednesday morning, YouTube told CNN Business its temporary suspension of Trump’s channel stemmed from remarks that he made to the press the previous day.
YouTube did not respond to a request to identify the specific remarks that may have triggered the enforcement. But a look at YouTube and what is currently live on the platform suggests the final straw may have been a video of comments Trump made just before he departed for an event at the southern border.
Trump delivered remarks to the press twice on Tuesday morning — once on the south lawn of the White House, and once at Joint Base Andrews.
YouTube said it had removed some content from the White House account similar to what it had removed from Trump’s own channel. As of Wednesday morning, Trump’s south lawn remarks were still available on the official White House YouTube channel — but a YouTube link that purported to show Trump’s comments at Joint Base Andrews, when clicked on Wednesday morning, led to a warning message from YouTube indicating that the video had been removed “for violating YouTube’s Community Guidelines.”
Speaking to reporters at the base, Trump said Tuesday that “Big Tech is doing a horrible thing for our country and to our country, and I believe it’s going to be a catastrophic mistake for them.”
Trump continued: “It causes a lot of problems and a lot of danger … there’s always a counter-move when they do that, I’ve never seen such anger.”
The remarks could be interpreted as a signal of coming retaliation for Trump’s suspension from Twitter and Facebook.
