[Opinión] Donald Trump has days left in the White House, but he continues to make headlines. YouTube is the latest Internet service that is taking action against the “incitement to violence” of the former president and his followers for violating Google’s media use policies, after the shameful event of the assault on the Capitol.
YouTube has removed the latest Donald Trump videos and has banned the upload of new content for a week. Although the channel is still active, YouTube will disable the comments of the channel understanding that they are as inflammatory or more than the content itself.
“After careful review, and in light of concerns about the continued potential for violence, we removed new content uploaded to Donald J. Trump’s channel and issued a warning for violating our incitement to violence policies.”a YouTube spokesperson said in a statement. “As a result, according to our long-term warning system, the channel is now unable to upload new videos or live broadcasts for a minimum of seven days, a period that can be extended.”.
1 / After review, and in light of concerns about the ongoing potential for violence, we removed new content uploaded to Donald J. Trump’s channel for violating our policies. It now has its 1st strike & is temporarily prevented from uploading new content for a * minimum * of 7 days.
– YouTubeInsider (@YouTubeInsider) January 13, 2021
YouTube’s move comes a few days after the Alphabet workers union’s complaint. “We know that social media has emboldened the growing fascist movement in the United States and we are particularly aware that YouTube, a product of Alphabet, has played a key role in this growing threat, that received insufficient response from YouTube executives«, they described.
Donald Trump and social media
Trump has seized and managed social networks at will and they have consented to what they surely would not have allowed other users. It is disappointing that a coup attempt had to come for technology companies to take measures that multiple analysts have long called for. Of those powders these muds.
Misinformation, the half-truths, the directly false news (fake news) or those that have a clear intention to manipulate are our daily bread and a very serious problem for an Internet that allows any type of message and to do so under the cloak of anonymity. Then come the hate speech that brings out the worst in human beings and ends in the violence we have seen in the United States. Other countries may take similar paths.
The big social networks are taking measures against this type of message. First it was Twitter (the medium that Donald Trump liked the most) and then others such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit or Twitch did.
Recently, Google, Apple and finally Amazon after another protest from their employees, they have cut off the tap to Parler for the same reason, incitement to violence. The “Twitter” of Trump supporters is a fishing ground for deniers, neo-fascists, advocates of conspiracy theories and personnel of all kinds including those of QAnon (whose account is also being banned in other media) was the network used to plan and coordinate the attack on the Capitol.
All of them invoke freedom of expression and the first amendment to the US Constitution, but there is no doubt that a public medium should not allow it to be used to spread any type of message as dangerous as these. The large social networks have a lot to do in this matter if they do not want the vast majority of ‘normal’ (non-polarized) people to flee from them.
