Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead
Attempts at silence continue: After the social network Twitter caused a stir when it decided to permanently block President Trump’s account, YouTube also announced the blocking of the president’s channel for a week.
According to a YouTube chief announcement, the president will not be able to upload new videos or speak live to subscribers on his channel “after previous content violated anti-incitement policies” and following fears of incitement to violence, the company said.
A YouTube spokesman said: “After careful scrutiny and concerns about the ongoing potential for violence, we have removed new content uploaded to the Donald Trump channel on YouTube and blocked our policy of incitement to violence. Or a live broadcast for seven days that may be extended thereafter. “
This is a move similar to the one taken by Twitter, which initially blocked Trump’s accounts for seven days but later announced his account was permanently shut down.
In addition, YouTube announced that it has disabled the ability to comment under the content that Trump uploads to his channel, for fear of reactions that will incite violence ahead of Joe Biden’s inauguration as US president in about a week.
A company spokesman declined to say which videos YouTube had removed from Trump’s channel in recent days following fears they would encourage violence, they said. Donald Trump’s YouTube channel has 2.8 million followers worldwide.