YouTube temporarily suspends Trump's channel

Trump's access to social media platforms has been largely cut off since a violent riot comprised of his supporters stormed the Capitol in Washington DC last week.

FILE PHOTO: YouTube logo at the YouTube Space LA in Playa Del Rey, Los Angeles, California, United States October 21, 2015.
Reuters

FILE PHOTO: YouTube logo at the YouTube Space LA in Playa Del Rey, Los Angeles, California, United States October 21, 2015.

Google-owned YouTube has temporarily suspended President Donald Trump's channel and removed a video for violating its policy against inciting violence, joining other social media platforms in banning his accounts after last week's Capitol riot.

Operators say the embittered leader could use his accounts to foment more unrest in the run-up to President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration.

"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," YouTube said in a statement.

The channel is now "temporarily prevented from uploading new content for a 'minimum' of 7 days," the statement read.

The video-sharing platform also said it will be "indefinitely disabling comments" on Trump's channel because of safety concerns.

READ MORE: US House urges Pence to oust Trump as impeachment looms

Incitement of violence

Facebook last week suspended Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts following the violent invasion of the US Capitol, which temporarily disrupted the certification of Biden's election victory.

Trump, who has challenged the validity of Biden's victory without producing evidence, initially praised his supporters but later condemned the violence.

Lawmakers were forced to flee as the building was surrounded by protesters who overwhelmed security forces. Five people died in the violence, including one Capitol Police officer.

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 Trump's 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 president's 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 November's presidential election, and had logged some 5.8 million views.

On Tuesday, an activist group called on YouTube to join other platforms in dumping Trump's accounts, threatening an advertising boycott campaign while Amazon.com Inc suspended Parler, a social media platform favored by many supporters of Trump, from its web hosting service.

READ MORE: The bizarre cast of radical and conspiracy groups that stormed the Capitol

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