YouTube has now temporarily suspended President Donald Trump’s channel, but it won’t permanently remove the President’s channel unless it violates the company’s content guidelines enough times. YouTube has specific strikes rule in place and it is applying that policy to the President’s channel in the same way it does with other content creators using the video-sharing platform.
Since the events that unfolded last week in the U.S. Capitol, a number of social media platforms have opted to limit President Trump’s access over posts deemed to be inciting violence. In Twitter’s case, the micro-blogging platform outright banned the President. Since then, other platforms including Facebook have issued similar suspensions. In some cases, also permanent bans. However, YouTube has not visibly been seen to have taken as much of a hard line with the President’s account which currently has millions of subscribers. This has led to many on YouTube, as well as on Twitter and elsewhere, actively looking to pressure the video-sharing service to ban Trump’s account.
YouTube has now suspended President Trump’s channel for one week, due to a video uploaded on Tuesday deemed to have violated the company’s guidelines. In addition to the temporary suspension, the video has also been removed from YouTube. Alphabet & Google CEO, Sundar Pichai confirmed to Reuters that this was only one of the many political videos that have been removed recently. Adding that further action against the account will only be taken if and when the channel violates the guidelines again. In a separate confirmation on Twitter, YouTube explained that in addition to the seven-day suspension, comments on President Trump’s channel have now been indefinitely disabled.
How YouTube Channel Bans Are Decided
YouTube has a specific three-strike rule in place that determines if a channel is punished and/or eventually removed. Prior to even the first strike being issued, the company provides content creators with a one-time warning. If the same channel then violates YouTube’s guidelines again, it is then issued with the first strike. Among the various effects of a first strike, channels are unable to upload videos, live streams, or stories for one week. This is the current state that President Trump’s channel is in, and why it has now been issued the temporary suspension.
Unless the same channel violates YouTube’s guidelines another two times it won’t be removed from the platform. Furthermore, the three-strike policy is time-dependent. For example, all three channel strikes need to occur within the same ninety-day period for them to be counted together. Each strike expires after ninety days from being issued, effectively restating the three-strike period again. This makes it possible for channels to continue operating and accumulating strikes, but also remain live on YouTube.
Source: YouTube/Twitter, Reuters