YouTube blocks channels associated with Russian state-owned media houses globally

YouTube announced Friday that it is blocking all channels associated with Russian state-owned media on an immediate basis across the world. Owned by Alphabet Inc's Google, the video streaming giant cited a policy barring content that denies, minimizes, or trivializes well-documented violent events. This comes after YouTube had blocked channels of Russia Today and Sputnik across Europe. "Our Community Guidelines prohibit content denying, minimizing or trivializing well-documented violent events. We are now removing content about Russia’s invasion in Ukraine that violates this policy', YouTube said in a tweet.

Stating that the change was effective immediately, YouTube added "we expect our systems to take time to ramp up". It revealed that over 1,000 channels and over 15,000 videos have been removed from the platform for violating YouTube's hate speech policy and the policies around misinformation, graphic content and more. In addition to this, YouTube has also paused ads in Russia and said that this has been extended to "all of the ways to monetize on our platform in Russia". "Our teams continue to closely monitor the situation, and are ready to take further action. We will continue to share updates as they become available", the statement further read. 

Russian media reacts to the blockade

Reacting to the channel blockade on YouTube, Sputnik said as per The Guardian, "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". The blockade reportedly follows the request of Google workers who were urging for further actions against Russia as they are allegedly spreading misinformation about their offense toward Ukraine. 

Prior to YouTube's action, Mark Zuckerberg's Meta also announced to block Russian media and demonetised ads that run on Russian state media accounts. These developments came in response to Moscow launching an offensive on 24 February with a series of airstrikes on Ukraine's cities and its military bases.