YouTube bans Fox News host Dan Bongino over attempt to circumvent that one-week suspension

Fox News host Dan Bongino has been premanently banned from YouTube after he tried to evade a one-week ban for spreading COVID-19 misinformation, the Google-owned video streaming platform said on Wednesday. 

The American conservative political commentator’s ‘His Dan Bongino Show ‘ channel on YouTube had 882,000 subscribers and nearly 1,100 uploads since it was created in 2013, according to tracker Social Blade.

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“We terminated Dan Bongino’s channels for circumventing our Terms of Service by posting a video while there was an active strike and suspension associated with the account,” YouTube said in a statement.

“When a channel receives a strike, it is against our Terms of Service to post content or use another channel to circumvent the suspension,” it added. 

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Dan Bogino’s first channel was banned for a week on January 20 after the platform found that it was a source of COVID-19 misinformation. He questioned the effectiveness of using masks against the coronavirus, a violation of the company’s pandemic-related misinformation policy. The Fox News host later attempted to circumvent that one-week suspension by posting from another channel triggered a permanent ban. 

Bongino would not be allowed to create any new channels or use any other channels in the future, YouTube said. 

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The Google-owned platform added several rules around COVID-19 content in the past year. Bogino’s channel is not the first conservative one to see a ban. Last September YouTube banned commentators like Joseph Mercola and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for spreading misinformation about vaccines.

Bongino is yet to comment on the ban. Tweeting on the one-week suspension he said on Twitter that it did not surprise him and that he planned to continue posting videos on Rumble, a video streaming service popular among conservatives.