Snapchat Permanently Bans Trump, YouTube Suspends Account

Social media has been a great enabler but has also been criticized and scrutinized for poorly handling the spread of misinformation and inappropriate, not to mention illegal, behavior. It is almost ironic, then, that these networks have been rather quick to take action in the past days following the siege of the US Capitol building at Donald Trump's behest. The ban hammer continues to fall with Snapchat and YouTube following the example of others.Axios reports that Snapchat was actually the first to take action last week by indefinitely suspending Trump's account. That said, Trump had already fallen afoul of the social network, which is known for its stricter privacy system, because of repeated policy violations. Now Snapchat has decided to permanently ban Trump's account altogether.

This will definitely hit Trump's camp hard as the disgraced US leader continues to lose venues on the Internet. With Snapchat in particular, Trump will no longer have access to an audience mostly composed of people under 30, which some would consider to be easily impressionable and more likely to make anything go viral by spreading news, whether fake or true.

In contrast, YouTube hasn't yet taken as harsh and as definitive a stance. It was only now that YouTube has suspended Trump's account after he allegedly posted something that incited violence. Even then, the suspension is only for a week, although they will revisit the case after that.

Although some might consider it to be weaker compared to the actions taken by Facebook and Twitter, YouTube is following its own "three strikes" policy where only the third strike will earn a permanent ban. That said, YouTube has also disabled comments on Trump's videos and have also removed some videos from the White House's YouTube channel.