YouTube had taken additional steps to make it difficult to search for the name, removing an autocomplete feature that filled in the name once a person began typing it. If, however, the whistle-blower’s full name was already known, users could easily find it.

On Tuesday morning, the top three videos claiming to share the whistle-blower’s name each had over 100,000 views. The videos often avoided using the name in the title over the video. Instead, they shared it in the comments and discussions below the video, where people also linked to blogs discussing the identity. Many videos with the name were taken down after The New York Times asked YouTube about them.

Facebook was unwilling to comment on whether it was seeing a coordinated effort to spread the whistle-blower’s name, but said it would continue to take down content that violated its policies. YouTube did not respond to a request for comment on the videos being shared on its site.

On Instagram, photographs purporting to show the whistle-blower with a number of public figures from the Democratic Party were also widely shared. Earlier in the week, Instagram had blocked searches for the last name being circulated, or for the hashtag #whistle-blower. But on Thursday, it was possible to search on that hashtag, as well as the purported full name or variations of the name. Instagram said it temporarily blocked searches for #whistle-blower while it calibrated its systems to ensure that legitimate searches for the term, or the purported name, were not being affected.

A Twitter spokeswoman said posting names and images did not violate Twitter rules. She said Twitter bans only specific types of private information, such as sharing a person’s home address, private phone number or government identification without their consent.

President Trump, and his supporters, have called for the name of the whistle-blower to be made public. On Wednesday, during the House’s first public hearing in its impeachment inquiry, Republican members of Congress repeated calls for the whistle-blower to be identified.