The Trump ban from YouTube continues. The company temporarily suspended Trump’s account following the attack at the Capitol, which left five Americans dead and resulted in one suicide after Trump allegedly encouraged his supporters to “fight,” as he put it, during a rally that morning. Unlike Twitter’s permanent ban, YouTube’s ban was temporary.
The suspension will last another week now, though. The Google-owned company confirmed the ban will continue due to the “potential for ongoing violence.” The former president’s YouTube account had over 2.79 million viewers. Trump’s team posted videos of the former president and his preferred media pundits.
The company stated Trump uploaded content that went against its policies. One strike against its policies leads to a seven-day suspension. Two strikes lead to a two week suspension, but a third strike leads to a permanent ban. The company didn’t cite which specific video broke its policy. “After review, and in light of concerns about the ongoing potential for violence, we removed new content uploaded to Donald J. Trump’s channel for violating our policies,” the company said in a statement. “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.”
Trump’s first strike against YouTube policies happened on January 6th, the day of the insurrection. Trump’s team uploaded a video promoting voter fraud during the violent events that shook the nation as well as the rest of the world. YouTube stated the video violated their policy for inciting violence.
Comments on Trump’s videos will remain banned as well. As of this moment, the former Apprentice host’s past content is still available on his YouTube page, but for another week, the former TV personality and his team can’t upload new content. As Trump said during his last aired speech, though, “We will be back in some form.”
The extension of the ban followed federal and local law enforcement’s concerns about more violence on Inauguration Day. Social media banned major accounts from spreading misinformation and potentially inciting violence to prepare for Inauguration Day. “In light of concerns about the ongoing potential for violence, the Donald J. Trump channel will be prevented from uploading new videos or live streams for an additional minimum of seven days,” a YouTube representative stated on the renewed suspension.
Since Trump remains suspended on YouTube and Twitter, he couldn’t share his final address to the nation on his popular social media channels. The less popular White House YouTube page published the farewell address. “I will tell you the future of this country has never been better,” President Trump said. “I wish the new administration great luck and great success, and I think they’ll have great success. They have the foundation to do something really spectacular.”
The video was titled, “Farewell Address of President Donald J. Trump.” Former Vice President Mike Pence, who attended President Joe Biden’s inauguration, wasn’t present for the farewell address. Trump is now living in Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, where Trump won the state’s electoral votes in both 2016 and 2020. The businessman, who was once one of the most famous New York City residents, will now make Palm Beach his permanent residence.
