Back on Twitter? Check. Back on Facebook and Instagram? Check and check.
Now, former president Donald Trump is allowed back on YouTube too.
In an official statement released on Friday, YouTube announced that it was officially reinstating Trump’s access to his YouTube channel, enabling new videos to be uploaded to the account.
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“Starting today, the Donald J. Trump channel is no longer restricted and can upload new content,” reads the YouTube statement released in a tweet(Opens in a new tab). “We carefully evaluated the continued risk of real-world violence, while balancing the chance for voters to 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,” the statement continued(Opens in a new tab).
While some other social media platforms, like Twitter, completely removed Trump’s account following the events of Jan. 6, YouTube allowed Trump’s channel to remain. However, one week after that day that the pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol, YouTube restricted the Trump channel from uploading new content. The upload restriction placed on Trump’s account was always meant to be temporary, yet the company continuously extended its ban on Trump uploading new content.
YouTube’s approach was similar to Facebook’s, which also allowed Trump’s page to remain online while blocking the ability for the former president or his team to access the account.
And Trump is wasting no time in taking advantage of these changes either. The 45th president uploaded a video to his YouTube channel and to Facebook – his first post(Opens in a new tab) on that platform as well – within hours of his YouTube reinstatement.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, complicated business,” Trump says in the video(Opens in a new tab) he posted, which was a clip from his 2016 election night speech. The title of the video is “I’M BACK!”
With YouTube’s decision, Trump has been allowed back on nearly every platform he was suspended from following the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6. Elon Musk reactivated Trump’s Twitter account in November of last year, shortly following his acquisition of the company. Meta allowed Trump back on Facebook and Instagram in January. And now YouTube has once again reinstated Trump’s ability to upload videos to its platform.
“The very same day Trump released a video calling the 2020 election ‘stolen’ and [demanded] January 6th insurrectionists be released from prison, YouTube decided to let him back on their platform,” Nicole Gill, executive director of the advocacy group Accountable Tech said in a statement provided to Mashable.
The video(Opens in a new tab) that Gill is referring to was posted by Trump on his Truth Social account on Friday morning. Over the past year, organizations like Accountable Tech and Media Matters for America have criticized moves from all these social media companies to bring Trump back to its platforms. By following his Truth Social activity, they’ve demonstrated that contrary to claims from the platforms to the effect that his behavior has changed, he still shares extremist content and disinformation about U.S. elections.
