**YouTube Account of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro Taken Offline Amid Rising US-Venezuela Tensions**
BOGOTÁ, Colombia (AP) — The YouTube account of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was offline Saturday. Venezuelan state-run channel Telesur reported on X that the account was eliminated late Friday night without any justification.
YouTube’s parent company, Google, did not immediately respond to inquiries regarding the apparent termination of the Venezuelan president’s account.
Maduro’s YouTube channel, which had more than 200,000 followers before becoming unavailable, was used to publish his speeches and clips from his weekly show on Venezuelan state television.
On its website, YouTube states that it removes accounts that commit repeated violations of its community guidelines. These include publishing misinformation, hate speech, and content interfering with democratic processes.
Maduro has faced widespread accusations of election fraud. Many opposition activists gathered tally sheets indicating that he lost last year’s presidential election by a landslide. However, Venezuela’s elections agency—controlled by the ruling socialist party—has never published official tally sheets to support the claim that Maduro won.
In addition to domestic controversies, Maduro was indicted in 2020 by a federal court in New York, charged with conspiring to traffic cocaine into the United States. Recently, the U.S. doubled its bounty for Maduro’s capture to $50 million. White House officials have frequently referred to him as a drug cartel leader who must be brought to justice.
While Venezuela continues to sell oil to the United States and coordinate deportation flights, relations between the two nations have deteriorated. Last month, the U.S. deployed eight warships equipped with long-range missiles and a landing force of 2,000 Marines to the southern Caribbean near Venezuela’s coast.
The Trump administration says this flotilla is on an anti-drug trafficking mission. So far, U.S. forces have destroyed three speedboats allegedly carrying drugs, killing more than a dozen people on board.
In contrast, Venezuela’s government has condemned the deployment as an attack on national sovereignty and part of an effort to overthrow Maduro’s government.
The removal of Maduro’s YouTube account occurs against this backdrop of escalating tensions and ongoing conflicts between Venezuela and the United States.
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