Google-owned YouTube on Tuesday temporarily suspended President Donald Trumpâs channel and removed a video for violating its policy against inciting violence, joining other social media platforms in banning his accounts after last weekâs Capitol riot.
Trumpâs access to the social media platforms he has used as a megaphone during his presidency has been largely cut off since a violent mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol in Washington DC last week.
Operators say the embittered leader could use his accounts to foment more unrest in the run-up to President-elect Joe Bidenâs inauguration.
âIn light of concerns about the ongoing potential for violence, we removed new content uploaded to Donald J. Trumpâs channel for violating our policies,â YouTube said in a statement.
The channel is now âtemporarily prevented from uploading new content for a âminimumâ of 7 days,â the statement read.
The video-sharing platform also said it will be âindefinitely disabling commentsâ on Trumpâs channel because of safety concerns.
Facebook last week suspended Trumpâs Facebook and Instagram accounts following the violent invasion of the US Capitol, which temporarily disrupted the certification of Bidenâs election victory.
In announcing the suspension last week, Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg said Trump used the platform to incite violent and was concerned he would continue to do so.
Twitter went a step further by deleting Trumpâs account, depriving him of his favorite platform. It was already marking his tweets disputing the election outcome with warnings.
The company also deleted more than 70,000 accounts linked to the bizarre QAnon conspiracy theory, which claims, without any evidence, that Trump is waging a secret war against a global cabal of satanist liberals.
Trump also was hit with suspensions by services like Snapchat and Twitch.
The presidentâs YouTube account has amassed 2.77 million subscribers.
The home page of the Trump channel featured a month-old video of Trump casting doubt on the voting process in Novemberâs presidential election, and had logged some 5.8 million views.
On Tuesday, an activist group called on YouTube to join other platforms in dumping Trumpâs accounts, threatening an advertising boycott campaign.
