On Tuesday, YouTube, which is owned by Google, announced that its ban on former President Trump, which it had extended on January 19 for one week, would be extended, but this time there was no date announced as an end date. “Comments on Trump’s videos will also remain disabled indefinitely,” CNET reported.
YouTube spokesperson Ivy Choi stated, “In light of concerns about the ongoing potential for violence, the Donald J. Trump channel will remain suspended. Our teams are staying vigilant and closely monitoring for any new developments,” the New York Post noted.
As The Daily Wire reported on January 13, YouTube announced on the evening of January 12 that it was temporarily suspending Trump’s account for allegedly violating the platform’s policies.
“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,” YouTube said in a statement. “It now has its 1st strike & is temporarily prevented from uploading new content for a *minimum* of 7 days.”
The statement concluded, “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 has a reported 2.79 million subscribers on his YouTube channel.
On January 12, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg told Reuters that Facebook had “no plans” to lift its indefinite ban on Trump. remarking, “the president is not above the policies we have.” She added, “We have clearly established principles that say you cannot call for violence. In this moment, the risk to our democracy was too big that we felt we had to take the unprecedented step of what is an indefinite ban. And I’m glad we did.”
“Our ban is indefinite,” she continued. “We’ve said at least through the transition, but we have no plans to lift it. We’ve been very clear. There’s obviously so much happening and this is such a big step. We will definitely let people know and be very transparent about any changes to that.”
Twitter has permanently banned Trump, offering this statement on January 8, two days after the breach at the U.S. Capitol:
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. In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter Rules would potentially result in this very course of action.
In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter Rules would potentially result in this very course of action. Our public interest framework exists to enable the public to hear from elected officials and world leaders directly. It is built on a principle that the people have a right to hold power to account in the open.