YouTube has temporarily blocked Donald Trump from uploading new content to his channel, becoming the latest in a long line of social media companies stopping the president from using their platforms.
YouTube took the action on Tuesday night after Trump posted a video to their site which violated their policies.
It was not clear what the video showed, and YouTube refused to say.
Several videos were uploaded to President Trump’s YouTube account earlier on Tuesday – all of them from his visit to Texas, addressing issues ranging from the border wall to law enforcement to the events of last week.
Donald Trump on Tuesday night had his YouTube channel blocked for seven days
Trump, pictured returning to the White House on Tuesday night, cannot access the page
They said the temporary block, lasting seven days, was as a result of the ‘first strike’.
If a channel receives a second strike within 90 days it will be suspended for two weeks; a third strike results in a permanent ban.
‘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.
‘It now has its 1st strike & is temporarily prevented from uploading new content for a *minimum* of 7 days.’
In addition, comments were permanently disabled under his videos.
‘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,’ they said.
YouTube’s action came after the president’s accounts were shut down by Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitch and others citing the risk of inciting violence from his posts.
The moves were made following his incendiary rhetoric encouraging and supporting the insurrectionist mob that occupied the U.S. Capitol on January 6 in a deadly clash with police.
Last Wednesday, YouTube removed Trump’s video post to rioters in which the president told them to ‘go home’ and said that ‘We love you, you’re very special.’
Eric Trump, the president’s son, on Tuesday said that his father was a victim of ‘cancel culture’, but the social media giants insist their actions are necessary to prevent further bloodshed.
On Monday Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer, said they had no plans to lift Trump’s ban from their platform. He will remain cut off until at least the inauguration, and likely beyond.
YouTube has been taking down content since Wednesday’s violent unrest, which cost the lives of four rioters and a member of the Capitol Police.
Donald Trump’s video on Wednesday, telling the mob he ‘loved’ them, was the final straw
The mob overran the Capitol Police shortly after Trump urged them to ‘fight’ on his behalf
Trump addressed his thousands of his supporters near the White House Wednesday at his ‘Save America’ rally and declared war on his own party, calling Republicans who opposed him ‘weak’
Capitol police officers point their guns at a door that was vandalized in the House Chamber during a joint session of Congress
The YouTube account for Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast was taken down Friday for violating the platform’s Terms of Service.
A Friday evening search for the podcast brought up an error message reading: ‘This page isn’t available. Sorry about that. Try searching for something else.’
YouTube had warned earlier in the week that it would ban accounts that continued to spread misinformation about voter fraud.
Giuliani, Donald Trump’s personal attorney and the man who spearheaded his failed legal battle to overturn the presidential election, appeared on the show earlier Friday where he defended Wednesday’s rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol.
He pointed the blame for the attack, which sent lawmakers fleeing for their lives, on ‘the fascists now running the Democrat Party’.
He also continued to push unfounded claims of voter fraud despite Trump’s own administration saying the election was legally conducted and done fairly and Congress certifying the Electoral College votes in the early hours of Thursday.
Steve Bannon’s podcast has been removed from YouTube just hours after Rudy Giuliani appeared on the show blaming the MAGA mob riot that left five dead on the Democrats for ‘censoring and suppressing’ Trump supporters
A Friday evening search for the podcast brought up an error message reading: ‘This page isn’t available. Sorry about that. Try searching for something else’
‘Most of them hadn’t come there with implements to do it and also led on by people from, you know, groups that are experts at it. Believe me, Trump people were not scaling the wall. So there’s nothing to it that he incited anything,’ said Giuliani of the rioters, who senior Democrats have labeled ‘domestic terrorists’.
Instead, Giuliani pointed the blame to the Democrats who he said ‘imposed censorship’ on Trump’s supporters. He did not back up this claim with any reasoning.
‘And also there’s equal if not more responsibility on the fascists who now running the Democrat Party, who have imposed censorship on these people, who have been singling them out for unfair treatment since the IRS started going after conservative groups,’ he said.
‘The media may deny it, but those people know it. They know their freedom of religion is being taken away. They know their freedom of speech is virtually decimated.’
Giuliani, Donald Trump ‘s personal attorney and the man who spearheaded his failed legal battle to overturn the presidential election, had appeared on the show earlier Friday where he defended Wednesday’s rioters who stormed the US Capitol
‘And then they have phonies get up and say there’s no fraud.
‘It’s like hearing someone saying they didn’t rob your home and they did rob your home and they took all your belongings. So are they angry? Of course they’re angry.’
Giuliani said that it was a ‘credit’ to anyone who was not violent and, despite the mob being supporters of the president, pushed the blame for their actions onto the opposition party.
‘They’re very, very angry. And I think in light of that, the mere fact that 99.9 percent of them did nothing but act appropriately is a credit to them,’ he said.
‘The responsibility here has to be put also on the left, who has conducted a reign of terror all this year.
‘So a lot of responsibility comes from the people that are imposing the suppression. It’s like the kind of thing that happens in a government where people are suppressed; they rise up.’
Giuliani even went as far as to suggest he was aware that Wednesday would turn violent saying he found it ‘surprising’ that there were ‘so few people’ storming the Capitol building.
‘And given that, it was quite surprising to me that it was so few people, that the consequences were terrible,’ he told Bannon.
‘And there were no doubt that there were professionals and activists that were helping to make it worse.’
Bannon, a former Trump adviser, was arrested in the summer of 2020 for an alleged massive border wall scam
Giuliani’s defense of the mob that desecrated the US Capitol and his denial of Trump’s role in egging it on comes as the Washington DC Attorney General suggested the former New York City mayor could also be investigated for inciting Wednesday’s violence.
Less than two hours before hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the capitol Wednesday, Giuliani took to the stage at Trump’s rally and urged demonstrators to pursue a ‘trial by combat’.
DC AG Karl Racine told Good Morning America his office was investigating who was behind Wednesday’s attack – both the perpetrators on the ground and those who encouraged them.
‘The real question is how far up does it go? Clearly the Capitol was ground central in all of this mob’s behavior,’ he said.
‘Donald Trump Jr, Giuliani, even the president of the United States were calling on their supporters and hate groups to go to the Capitol and in the words of Rudy Giuliani ‘exercise combat justice’.
‘We’re going to investigate not only the mobsters but also those who invited the violence,’ he said.
Less than two hours before hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the capitol, Giuliani took to the stage at Trump’s rally and told demonstrators to pursue a ‘trial by combat’
On Friday night, Twitter announced it had permanently banned Trump’s account due to the risk of ‘further incitement to violence’.
‘After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,’ the company wrote.
Earlier on Friday, former national security adviser Michael Flynn and attorney Sidney Powell – two Trump loyalists – were also permanently banned by Twitter.
Discord also announced Friday that it had banned the server The Donald which was connected the TheDonald dot Win and the Donald subreddit.
Facebook and Instagram had already banned the president’s account ‘at least’ until his term is over on January 20, if not indefinitely.