The message should be very clear: YouTube would like to be determined in the face of the risks of violence in the US when Joe Biden was inaugurated on January 20th. Donald Trump’s channel was therefore blocked for at least seven days yesterday and the Republican can no longer post new videos.
Old videos are still available
The platform also claims to have deleted one of its publications for violating its rules:
Following reviews and given concerns about the current potential for violence, we have removed any new content posted on Donald J. Trump’s channel for violating our guidelines.
The outgoing president’s account has not been deleted, however, and his many videos previously published remain available to visitors, including the recently added ones. However, it is no longer possible to post comments under these posts.
In the past few weeks, YouTube has stepped up moderation of disinformation and violent content. Last December, the platform first announced that it would remove all videos claiming the election was fraudulent. This is a change from the post-presidential policy.
Recently, YouTube decided to go further. Channels that were guilty of making false statements about the election are now banned for a week. If they repeat the offense within 90 days, the sentence increases to two weeks. If this rule is violated again, the account will be permanently deleted.
Note that Google’s new union, the Alphabet Workers Union, took the floor this week to denounce YouTube’s response to the January 6th events in Washington. The organization judges them ” insufficient “.
