Dan Bongino was permanently suspended from YouTube on Wednesday after the platform accused the right-wing commentator of attempting to evade a prior suspension.
The conservative radio host previously had his popular YouTube channel suspended on Jan. 14 for falsely claiming that face masks were useless, a violation of the platform’s COVID-19 misinformation policy.
Following the first strike against his channel, Bongino shared a screenshot to Twitter which purported to show a profanity-laced email he sent to YouTube in response.
“We knew it was just a matter of time before the tyrannical, free-speech hating, bullshit, big tech shithole you work for, would try to silence us,” Bongino wrote.
Yet Bongino would never have a chance to spread more misinformation on his main channel. In a statement to the Hill, a YouTube spokesperson said that Bongino uploaded a video to a secondary channel during his suspension.
“When a channel receives a strike, it is against our Terms of Service to post content or use another channel to circumvent the suspension,” a YouTube spokesperson said.
As a result, both of Bongino’s channels have been permanently removed from YouTube. Bongino’s main channel boasted nearly 900,000 subscribers.
The right-wing shock jock had asserted in another clip this week that he has long been planning to leave YouTube for good. Bongino will almost certainly upload future content to Rumble, a video-sharing platform he’s invested in that has been championed by right-wing internet users.
Bongino previously claimed that he would be leaving Twitter for good as well after being suspended in the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, but he ultimately returned to the site. In the case of YouTube, it appears Bongino now has little choice.
Bongino responded to the permanent suspension on Wednesday by accusing YouTube of trying “to save face.”
“Hilarious watching the @YouTube communists desperately try to save face after we told them to go f%^* themselves,” the account for Bongino’s website wrote. “They’re claiming we ‘tried to evade suspension.’ Really? By posting a final video LITERALLY titled Why I’m Leaving YouTube’?” he wrote in a tweet.