Earlier this month, rightwing radio and Fox News star Dan Bongino — who is not to be confused with former Trump staffer Dan Scavino — was suspended on YouTube after he kept recklessly spreading misinformation about the pandemic. At the time, Bongino was vague about whether he would ever return, claiming he would retreat to far right safe spaces like Rumble. But now it appears someone else made a decision for him.
As per The New York Times, YouTube has decided to permanently ban Bongino. It wasn’t because they knew he’d probably go back to doing what got him banned in the first place. It was because he used one of his other accounts to post a video calling into question the efficacy of masks — indeed, the same tall claims that got him suspended in the first place.
The suspension was put into place on Jan. 14. It was only supposed to last a week. But Bongino couldn’t wait that long: The video that got him booted permanently was posted last Thursday, a mere day before the suspension was to end.
In a statement, a YouTube spokesperson said they’d terminated his multiple channels on the video sharing service for “circumventing our terms of service by posting a video while there was an active strike and suspension associated with the account.” Going forward, he is no longer allowed to use, own or create any other YouTube channels.
In the video that got him suspended — and, now, banned forever — on YouTube, Bongino said he “anxiously waited” getting the boot, telling them, “I dare you to do something about it.”
And so they did. While Bongino always has Rumble, in which he is an investor and on which he has twice the followers as he did on YouTube, he’s still losing 882,000 subscribers on a service that is far more known than his new home. Perhaps he can join a support group with his good pal Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene for people who’ve been booted from online platforms for endangering their supporters’ lives.
(Via NYT)