Trump YouTube Ban: POTUS’ Channel Restricted for ‘Minimum of 7 Days’

In light of “concerns about the ongoing potential for violence,” YouTube announced Tuesday that President Donald Trump‘s account has been suspended “for a minimum of 7 days.” The site has also indefinitely disabled all comments on Trump’s YouTube posts, again citing concerns about the potential for violence.

“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. It now has its 1st strike & is temporarily prevented from uploading new content for a *minimum* of 7 days,” YouTube said in a statement posted Tuesday night on Twitter. “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 suspension came after the comments he made about the Jan. 6 rioters who breached the U.S. Capitol while attempted to prevent Congress from certifying Electoral College votes for President-elect Joe Biden, who will be sworn in as president on Jan. 20. In a news conference Tuesday streamed on the platform, Trump denied any culpability at stoking the unrest, saying, “People thought that what I said was totally appropriate,” Trump said Tuesday. He took no responsibility for inciting the unrest.”

Facebook and Twitter both removed Trump’s accounts following the unrest at the Capitol, and have taken down content supporting last week’s violence. When many Trump supporters declared they would instead flee to Parler, Amazon, Google and Apple removed the app from their store.

On Jan. 7, YouTube announced that “due to the disturbing events” at the Capitol, it would implement new standards for channels, instituting a new three-strike system for uploading new videos including false claims. “Over the last month, we’ve removed thousands of videos which spread misinformation claiming widespread voter fraud changed the result of the 2020 election, including several videos President Trump posted to his channel,” the statement said, in part.

While its initial policy to help combat misinformation had a “short grace period” that was scheduled to end on Inauguration Day, the video platform handed down the strike system effectively immediately, banning channels that received three strikes in 90 days to be permanently removed from YouTube and suspending channels that received just one strike from posting or live streaming. “We apply our policies and penalties consistently, regardless of who uploads it,” YouTube assured.