YouTube suspends Rudy Giuliani again, citing election misinformation
It's strike 2 for the former mayor of New York City on the Google-owned platform.
Rudy Giuliani was issued his second strike on YouTube.
YouTube on Monday said it suspended former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani from its platform again, after breaking the company's rules banning claims of election fraud regarding the 2020 US presidential contest.
The suspension is the second strike for Giuliani, who had spread conspiracy theories about the election as former President Donald Trump's personal attorney, in the last 90 days. According to YouTube's three-strikes policy, if Giuliani is issued a third infraction in that time period, he'll be permanently banned from the Google-owned platform.
Monday's decision comes with a two-week ban from posting videos or livestreams. YouTube also penalized Giuliani for promoting nicotine on the platform. Bloomberg earlier reported the news.
"We have clear Community Guidelines that govern what videos may stay on YouTube, which we enforce consistently, regardless of speaker," a YouTube spokeswoman said in a statement. "We removed content from the Rudy W. Giuliani channel for violating our sale of regulated goods policy, which prohibits content facilitating the use of nicotine, and our presidential election integrity policy."
Giuliani's first strike came in January, when he was cited for violating multiple YouTube policies including election misinformation. At the time, he was punished by being barred from YouTube's program for sharing advertising revenue, which lets users make money off their videos.
In January, Dominion Voting Systems filed a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit against Giuliani, who has repeatedly and baselessly claimed the company's voting machines were used to steal the election from Trump.