YouTube Suspends President Trump's Account
13 January 2021 - 5:45PM
Dow Jones News
By Georgia Wells
YouTube suspended President Trump's channel on Tuesday night,
joining a growing list of tech companies that are ejecting him from
their platforms.
The Alphabet Inc. video-sharing service said it was locking Mr.
Trump's channel for at least seven days after the company removed
videos that it said violated its policies against content it
believes could incite violence.
YouTube's move follows similar decisions from Facebook Inc. and
Twitter Inc. On Thursday, Facebook suspended Mr. Trump's account
indefinitely and on Friday, Twitter locked Mr. Trump's personal
account.
While the companies took action based on different pieces of
content, the posts and videos appeared to reiterate unsubstantiated
claims that the election was stolen and expressed support for the
pro-Trump mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol last week.
Some users have praised the companies' decisions as necessary to
stop future violence. Others characterized the actions as
infringing on free speech. Either way, the moderation decisions
demonstrate the power a few Silicon Valley tech companies wield
over online discourse.
"A minimum of seven days is an important and necessary first
step by YouTube and we hope they will make it permanent," Jim
Steyer, CEO of Common Sense Media said in a statement. Common Sense
Media is a nonprofit that gives parents advice for navigating the
digital world.
YouTube said Mr. Trump's account will remain locked from
uploading new videos or posting live streams for a minimum of seven
days, in accordance with its "three-strikes" policy. YouTube
suspends channels that it gives one strike for about a week;
channels that YouTube assigns two strikes within 90 days are
suspended for about two weeks; YouTube terminates channels that it
assigns three strikes within 90 days.
YouTube said it was indefinitely disabling comments on the
videos in Mr. Trump's channel. It also said it had previously
removed videos from Mr. Trump's channel for violating its
policies.
Write to Georgia Wells at Georgia.Wells@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 13, 2021 01:30 ET (06:30 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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