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YouTube Reinstates Trump's Account as Social Media Giants Retreat From Post-J6 Ban

The social media site YouTube, which is owned by Google, announced on Friday it would reinstate the account of former US President Donald Trump more than two years after banning him. It’s just the latest site to do so as the real estate mogul gears up his 2024 presidential campaign.
Sputnik
"Starting today, the Donald J. Trump channel is no longer restricted and can upload new content. 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," YouTube said on its official press account on Twitter.

"This channel will continue to be subject to our policies, just like any other channel on YouTube," it added.

Trump's account on the video hosting site was banned on January 13, 2021, six days after clashes between his supporters and police at the US Capitol Building in Washington, DC.
YouTube's move followed similar decisions by Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms, motivated by allegations Trump was using them to fan the violence.
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Hours before his followers fought their way past police, dispersed Congress and sacked the national legislature, Trump had held a rally outside the White House at which he urged attendees to "fight like hell" and "stop the steal," claiming Democratic rival Joe Biden had beaten him in the November 2020 election through fraudulent means.
Following the November 2022 midterm elections late last year, Trump formally launched his campaign to return to the White House in 2024, and with it lawsuits seeking to restore control over the social media accounts that had been so key to his rise to power in 2016.
Weeks earlier, Twitter had already restored Trump's account after billionaire industrialist Elon Musk bought the company and started lifting previous bans. At that time, Trump said he wouldn’t come back and would continue using his own purpose-built social media app, Truth Social, to communicate with his followers.
Meta*, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said in January it would restore Trump’s accounts, noting he remains subject to the same usage rules as other users.
*Meta is outlawed as an extremist organization in Russia.
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