Top 5 YouTube Censorship Cases in February 2021
YouTube is the largest video hosting service on the planet. YouTube shares the profit with the authors of popular videos that have the most views. After all, they bring the audience to YouTube to whom the platform can later show ads. But is it possible to publish any videos on YouTube and earn on them? YouTube often blocks accounts and videos for no good reason. Is it copyright or censorship?
This article compiles 5 cases of YouTube censorship this month.
Blocking a chess player's channel for racism:
YouTube blocked a Croatian chess player's channel for racism. The reason for blocking was the conversation about black figures. In the video, the chess players discussed different strategies of the game. Artificial intelligence considered the video content to be malicious. Experts have modeled the reaction of the program to a video about chess. In 80% of cases, the words about black figures were marked as racism. The channel was unblocked a day later.
Disabling the ability to comment on the White House channel:
YouTube has disabled the ability to comment on the videos of the official White House account. Users noticed this on February 21. The reason was a large number of negative comments and dislikes.
Almost 1,9 million users have subscribed to the US administration page. According to experts, the comments were turned off because of the dislikes under the videos with US President Joe Biden's participation. Supporters of the former head of the White House accuse the democrat of unpopular decisions.
Restrictions on posting videos with the national anthem of Russia:
The American company Google LLC recognized the imposition of restrictions on posting videos with the Russian national anthem on YouTube as unjustified.
Earlier, Roskomnadzor demanded that the American company Google remove restrictions on posting videos with the Russian anthem on YouTube. The blocking of the Russian anthem was called overt and unacceptable rudeness towards all Russians.
Before that, YouTube users began to massively complain about monetization from bloggers on videos with the Russian anthem. The video hosting itself claims that the anthem allegedly has a copyright holder - the American company Broadcast Music Inc. But according to Russian legislation, the text and melody of the Russian anthem are not subject to copyright since these are the country's state symbols.
Trump's account ban extension:
YouTube has extended the ban on posting videos from former US President Donald Trump's account for an indefinite period. The restrictions also affected the account of Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani. The official reason was that the materials posted by Trump incited violence.
Ukrainian YouTube censorship:
Journalists of three closed Ukrainian TV channels have created their own channel, "Stop Censorship of 112 Ukraine, NewsOne and ZIK," on YouTube.
The journalists noted that neither threats nor intimidation would stop them. They will continue to convey the truth to the audience and suppress the attempts to make Ukraine like North Korea, where only the information beneficial to the authorities is heard.
Since February 3, many Ukrainian TV channels have stopped broadcasting under the order of the Ukrainian President. The Ukrainian leader explained his decision by the fact that Kyiv is fighting with "propaganda."
On the same day, the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine sent a request to the administration of YouTube to block Ukrainian TV channels' accounts.
