YouTube has reinstated former President Trump’s channel, allowing him to upload videos ahead of the 2024 presidential election, the video platform announced Friday.
A slew of social media sites banned Trump from their platforms after the January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol. YouTube had cited “concerns about the continued potential for violence” and violation of its “policies to incite violence.”
In its decision to reverse course, YouTube, which is owned by Google, acknowledged that it had considered such a threat of violence, but wanted to give voters a fair chance to hear from the leading presidential candidates. The move echoed a similar decision by Meta Platforms, which in January allowed Trump to return to Facebook and Instagram. Trump announced his candidacy for 2024 in November.
“As of today, the channel of Donald J. Trump is no longer restricted and can upload new content”, YouTube said in a statement on Twitter. “We carefully assess the continued risk of violence in the real world, while balancing the chance that voters will hear equally from major national candidates in the run-up to an election.”
“This channel will continue to be subject to our policies, just like any other channel on YouTube,” YouTube added.
Shortly after it was reinstated, Trump’s channel uploaded a campaign commercial titled “I’M BACK!” The ad features news footage of Trump speaking to a crowd on election night in 2016. Trump also posted the video on his Facebook page, its first activity in more than two years.
“I’m sorry I kept you waiting, which complicates business,” Trump said in the archived footage before an ad for the campaign’s text-messaging service appeared.
In December, the House panel investigating the events of January 6 recommended that Trump be criminally prosecuted for his role in the insurrection, in which a mob attempted to violently overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Still, Trump he is considered a favorite in the Republican primary race. He has not yet been charged.
Twitter, which also banned Trump after the January 6 insurrection, reinstated him in November after new owner and CEO Elon Musk polled users on whether the former US president should be brought back. Twitter had been Trump’s preferred platform during his presidency. However, the Truth Social founder hasn’t used his Twitter account since it was reactivated; his last tweet was days after the attack on the Capitol.
After Trump was reinstated on Twitter, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (DN.Y.) responded to Musk’s poll by tweeting a video of the attack on the Capitol.
She tweeted that the last time Trump was on Twitter, the site “was used to incite an insurrection, several people were killed, the Vice President of the United States was nearly killed, and hundreds were injured, but I guess that’s not enough for you.” answer the question. ask. Twitter poll is”.
