Former US President Donald Trump speaks about education during a campaign rally with supporters in Davenport, Iowa, US on March 13, 2023.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
Google-owned Youtube will allow former President Donald Trump’s account to post new videos starting Friday, lifting restrictions was introduced after the January 6 uprising at the US Capitol.
The decision means that Trump’s accounts on three major platforms from which he was suspended or restricted will now be reinstated, in time for his expected campaign for the 2024 election. Facebook owner Meta and Twitter had both before Certainly to reintroduce Trump’s accounts, after suspending them for fear he would incite further violence.
In 2021, then YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said Trump’s restrictions were to be lifted when it believed the risk of actual violence had diminished. The account was not terminated from the site, but it was unable to upload new videos under the restrictions.
“We carefully evaluated the continued risk of real-world violence, balancing that with the importance of preserving the opportunity for voters to hear equally from major national candidates before an election,” YouTube vice president of public policy Leslie Miller said in a statement. “This channel will continue to be subject to our policies, just like any other channel on YouTube.”
YouTube said its trust and safety team analyzed factors such as government safety warnings and violent rhetoric on various platforms to determine when the risk of actual violence had decreased. The company also noted that Trump’s posts on YouTube tend to differ from those on other platforms, often including re-uploads from news networks.
As of Friday, Trump’s YouTube account has more than 2.6 million subscribers.
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