Popular video streaming platform YouTube on Wednesday suspended United States President Donald Trump’s channel for at least a week, and removed new content uploaded to it, saying it violated the company’s policies and ran the risk of inciting violence.
Trump’s channel is now prevented from uploading new videos or live streams for a minimum of seven days, YouTube said in a statement. The company declined to share details of the video due to which restrictions were imposed. It said the decision to suspend his account will be revisited after one week.
“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,” YouTube added.
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Until now, YouTube had been the only major social media platform to not have suspended Trump’s account in some way for making inflammatory statements. Facebook has suspended Trump’s account indefinitely, while Twitter has banned Trump completely, citing the “risk of further incitement of violence”.
Trump’s Twitter account was first blocked for 12 hours on January 7, the day when thousands of his supporters stormed the US Capitol in Washington DC, and clashed with the police.
Soon after permanently banning Trump’s account, Twitter also suspended the account belonging to his campaign. This happened after the account tweeted a statement by Trump, accusing the microblogging site of restricting free speech.
Apart from this, Facebook’s sister company Instagram had also blocked Trump’s accounts for policy violations. Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg had on January 8 said that both the platforms would extend the ban on Trump’s account for an indefinite period.
YouTube’s ban on Trump’s activities come ahead of an impeachment vote against the president in the US House of Representatives on Wednesday. The Democrats had on Monday formally introduced an article of impeachment against Trump, charging him with “incitement to insurrection” for his speech that set the violence at the Capitol in motion.
US Capitol violence
On January 7, hundreds of supporters of Trump stormed the Capitol complex in Washington DC, and clashed with the police as members of the Congress met to certify the results of the 2020 presidential elections, which Biden won. Five people died in the violence. At least 68 were arrested.
The incident triggered shock and outrage across the world. Several White House officials tendered resignations following the incident, while the demands for Trump’s removal from the top office grew.
After the violence, however, Trump conceded defeat to Biden. For months, he peddled election conspiracy theories and claimed that the presidential poll had been rigged.
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