YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki declared that Former President Donald Trump would only be allowed back on the platform when YouTube says it’s safe. Don’t hold your breath.
“I do wanna confirm that we will lift the suspension of the channel, we will lift the suspension of the Donald Trump channel when we determine that the risk of violence has decreased,” Wojcicki explained at an event hosted by the Atlantic Council. She laid out a very precise set of conditions that would have to be met for Trump to be allowed back on the platform: “We will turn the account back on, but it will be when we see the reduced law enforcement in capitals in the U.S., [when] we don’t see different warnings coming out of the government agencies, those would be all signals to us that it’s, that it would be safe to turn the channel back on.”
Wojcicki made it clear that Trump, if and when he is restored, would still be on thin ice:
“When the channel is reinstated, it will be subject to the same policies that every other channel is, uh, that follows. So, if we see content that is uploaded that in any way violates any of our policies, incitement to violence or, um, any kind of election integrity policy violations, then a second strike would be issued, and when there are three strikes within a 90 day period, then the channel is removed.”
YouTube initially suspended then-President Donald Trump’s official YouTube channel on January 12. Since then, YouTube has declared Trump’s channel would continue to be silenced. "‘In light of concerns about the ongoing potential for violence, the Donald J. Trump channel will remain suspended,’" YouTube explained to USA TODAY in an article published Jan. 26.
YouTube even censored mere interviews of Trump by other news outlets such as Newsmax.
“YouTube took down a newly recorded interview with former President Donald Trump in Google’s latest action against conservatives,” The Epoch Times reported Feb. 20. “A Newsmax spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email that the company was told the Feb. 17 interview was removed because it violated YouTube’s community guidelines.”
A Google spokesperson in turn explained to The Epoch Times via email that the YouTube platform has “clear Community Guidelines that govern what videos may stay on YouTube, and we enforce our Community Guidelines consistently, regardless of speaker and without regard to political viewpoints.” Even so, for reasons not yet known, “In accordance with our presidential election integrity policy, we removed this video from the Newsmax TV channel,” the Google spokesperson elaborated.
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