On Friday, Trump’s YouTube account was reinstated after more than two years
Former US president Donald Trump wrote his first posts on his reinstated Facebook and YouTube accounts Friday, more than two years after he was banned over the US Capitol insurrection.
“I’M BACK,” Trump said, alongside a short video clip that appeared to show him giving his victory speech after winning the 2016 Presidential polls. In the 12-second video, he said: “Sorry to keep you waiting — complicated business, complicated.”
This post on Facebook comes a few hours after YouTube announced that Trump’s channel has been reinstated on its platform.
The account had been restricted in wake of the Capitol attack in January last year. This decision follows the lead of platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
In its statement, YouTube said that the company stressed the need to balance the chance for voters to hear equally from major national candidates in the run-up to an election.
“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,” YouTubeInsider said in a statement posted on Twitter.
“This channel will continue to be subject to our policies, just like any other channel on YouTube,” it added.
Notably, YouTube’s decision comes as the former president gears up for his 2024 presidential run. The reinstated account has over four thousand videos with 2.64 million subscribers.
Earlier in November, Twitter CEO Elon Musk used a day-long poll to decide whether to reinstate Trump’s account. Subsequently, Facebook also reversed Trump’s ban.
In response to the ban on all major platforms, Trump’s media company later started its own social media app, Truth Social. He regularly posts on the platform.
