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YouTube, the US-owned video sharing platform, has taken down Russian channels over Russia’s military actions in Ukraine, citing a policy barring content that denies, minimizes or trivializes violent events.
YouTube, which is owned by Alphabet Inc’s Google, said Russia’s military operation in Ukraine now fell under its violent events policy and violating material would be removed, Reuters reported.
YouTube declined to specify which and how many channels had been blocked globally, or whether they ever would be restored.
Earlier, the world’s most-used streaming video service had blocked leading Russia state-backed channels Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik across Europe.
“Due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, we’re blocking YouTube channels connected to RT and Sputnik across Europe, effective immediately,” Google Europe tweeted last week.
Russian state media have denounced restrictions on them as unjustified censorship.
“The blocking by YouTube is nothing but a new turn of an atrocious attack on one of the fundamental principles of a democratic society – that is freedom of the press,” Sputnik said in a statement on Friday.
YouTube is a subsidiary company of the Google/Alphabet company based in Mountain View, California.
The company’s actions follow that of Facebook, which on Monday said it will restrict access to television network RT and news agency Sputnik on its platforms across the European Union.
Twitter Inc has also said that it would label tweets containing contents from the Russian state-controlled media and reduce their visibility.
