YouTube has announced that it has removed nearly 70,000 videos and 9,000 channels related to the war in Ukraine since the start of the Russian offensive. The streaming platform is one of the only major players in American tech still accessible in the country of Vladimir Putin.
The deleted content presented the conflict from the perspective of the Kremlin
It was Neal Mohan, product manager at YouTube, who announced the company’s approach along the lines of Guardian. ” We have a major violent event policy and that applies to things like denial of major violent events: everything from the Holocaust to Sandy Hook. 28 dead). And of course, what is happening in Ukraine is a major violent event. And so we used this policy to take unprecedented action “, he explained.
Twitter announces new policy to fight misinformation
Thus, one of the removed channels was that of pro-Kremlin journalist Vladimir Solovyov, and the majority of the removed videos presented the war according to the narrative put forward by Russia, i.e. as “ liberation effort “. Mohan also said that 70 million people had viewed content relating to the war in Ukraine on YouTube.
” The first, and probably most paramount responsibility, is to ensure that people seeking information about this event can get accurate, high-quality, and credible information on YouTube. The consumption of authoritative channels on our platform has increased significantly, of course in Ukraine, but also in countries surrounding Ukraine, in Poland, and also in Russia itself “, he continued.
YouTube is the most popular video platform in Russia
With 90 million users, YouTube is by far the most popular streaming platform in Russia, so much so that it is still integrated into the ” red web the largely state-controlled and regulated Russian Internet. If advertising is no longer available on the site in Russia, Russians can still go there. Russian Digital Development Minister Maksut Shadaev has said that the country will not block YouTube, despite legal disputes that have resulted in the platform being fined for not removing banned videos, and despite the fact that it removed Kremlin-linked channels like Sputnik and RT. Yet giants like Twitter and Facebook have been suspended by the Russian government.
” YouTube remains the largest video-sharing site operating in Russia itself. So this is a place where Russian citizens can get uncensored information about the war, including from the same authoritative channels we all have access to outside the country. We remain an important platform for Russian citizens themselves as this crisis continues to evolve continued Neal Mohan.
Often criticized for the proliferation of false information on its platform, YouTube has been trying for some years to fight against misinformation, especially during major events such as presidential elections or the Covid-19 pandemic.