YouTube bans Trump’s account and blocks uploads and feedback

Google has blocked President Donald Trump’s YouTube account and officially warned the White House against using the world’s largest video platform.

The company announced Tuesday evening that Trump uploaded content that violated its guidelines, resulting in an automatic one-strike, resulting in at least a seven-day pause in uploading new content. It says it also disable the comments section.

The company did not disclose which videos violated its guidelines, but said it was “content” that included comments Trump made Tuesday morning. YouTube has violated guidelines prohibiting content intended to incite violence.

Donald J. Trump’s YouTube account has 2.77 million subscribers and usually publishes several videos of him and right-wing media outlets every day.

As part of YouTube’s three strike system, a channel is closed for one week after the first strike, two after the second and after a third strike within 90 days. The temporary suspension means that Trump’s account and existing videos will still be accessible, but he will not be able to upload any new content.

“Following a review and given concerns about the ongoing potential for violence, we have removed new content uploaded to Donald J. Trump’s channel for violating our policies,” the company said in a statement on social media on Tuesday evening. “Given the ongoing concerns about violence, we will also indefinitely turn off comments on President Trump’s channel, as we have on other channels where security concerns can be found in the comments section.”

A company spokesman said it also removed videos from the White House’s YouTube account, but instead of an initial strike, the company issued a warning because “there wasn’t the same story of violent content on this channel, but there was more violent content should receive. ” Uploaded to the channel, it would be on strike as per our guidelines. “

Google’s YouTube announced Thursday that “all channels” that post new videos with false claims in violation of its guidelines will be suspended – a first strike – instead of warning them first. Later on Thursday, Alphabet employees urged YouTube executives to take further action against the president. They criticized them for not blocking his account, arguing that it would incite further misinformation and violence.

The suspension of Trump’s account by YouTube comes after the violence in the US Capitol by some Trump supporters on Wednesday, in which five people died. Politicians and the public have urged social media and tech companies to more closely moderate their platforms threatened by further violence.

Twitter and Facebook announced that they would permanently suspend Trump’s account on their respective platforms – Twitter. However, Trump found a workaround and began tweeting the state @POTUS account late Friday before that account was suspended.

Google also removed Parler, a social media app popular with Trump supporters, from the Google Play Store on Friday, making it significantly more difficult for Android users to download and access the app.

YouTube is unique in other social networks as videos can be shared on other platforms and thus have a large reach.

Clarification: YouTube’s announcement on Twitter was Tuesday night. An earlier version had the wrong tag in a reference.