YouTube suspends Donald Trump’s channel

Alphabet’s YouTube said on Tuesday it has suspended US President Donald Trump’s channel on grounds of “ongoing potential for violence”.

YouTube said it has removed new content uploaded to the channel for violating its policies and temporarily prevented from uploading new content for a minimum of seven days. It has also disabled comments on the channel indefinitely.

“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. It now has its 1st strike & is temporarily prevented from uploading new content for a *minimum* of 7 days,” the company said in a statement “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’s YouTube account has about 2.8 million subscribers. It is not immediately known as to which video triggered this suspension.

YouTube is the latest company to ban President Trump from posting updates on its platform, following Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snap, Twitch and others. This comes after last week’s violence in the US Capitol caused by Trump supporters led to five deaths.

On Tuesday, US civil rights groups told Reuters they will organise an advertiser boycott against YouTube if it does not remove President Donald Trump’s channel.