YouTube has suspended President Trump’s account for a minimum of 7 days, removed videos for “violating policies” and has disabled comments indefinitely.
YouTube was the last Big Tech hold out against the recent deplatforming of President Trump for supposedly inciting violence at the protests on Capitol Hill. Whereas practically every other platform had followed Twitter’s lead and removed the President from their sites, YouTube had held out.
On Tuesday, the “Stop Hate for Profit” campaign announced that they would organise an advertising boycott if YouTube did not take down President Trump’s channel, which has 2.76 million subscribers. Jim Steyer, one of the organisers of the campaign, told Reuters that the channel “gices him the opportunity to continue spreading false information that the US election was stolen.”
A few hours after the story broke, YouTube announced on their official press Twitter that “after review, and in light of concerns about the ongoing potential for violence,” they had taken action against President Trump’s channel:
We removed new content uploaded to Donald J. Trump’s channel for violating our policies. It now has its 1st strike & is temporarily prevented from uploading new content for a *minimum* of 7 days. 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.
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
National File can reveal that the videos that were taken down included two of the six videos uploaded on Tuesday, with one featuring the President blasting Big Tech for their censorship, and arguing that his speech regarding the Capitol Hill protests was “totally appropriate” and did not incite violence, and the other noting that the 25th Amendment “is no threat” to him, but the Biden administration should be “careful what they wish for.”
Trump blasts big tech. Tells reporter "If you read my speech…people thought that what I said was totally appropriate." pic.twitter.com/MV5DnAGRxO
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) January 12, 2021
President Trump: “Free speech is under assault like never before.”
“The 25th Amendment is of zero risk to me but will come back to haunt Joe Biden and the Biden administration. As the expression goes, be careful what you wish for." pic.twitter.com/h2KaChVIub
— Kyle Morris (@RealKyleMorris) January 12, 2021
Two videos from his rally on January 6th also appear to be missing – two speeches by Donald Trump Jr and Kimberly Guilfoyle are also no longer available on his channel. It is unclear at one point they were removed from the channel, and by whom, as a web cache from January 9th includes them, but a cache from Tuesday does not.
This is a breaking story, and may be updated if further information becomes available.