New Delhi-based English-language news channel WION said it had been barred from posting videos on YouTube for several days, blaming the platform for seeking to thwart objective coverage of the conflict in Ukraine.
A “total block” had been imposed on Tuesday, and no new clips had appeared on its usually busy channel – which has more than five million subscribers – for the next three days.
The broadcaster said on Friday that it had been sanctioned by YouTube over a video it had posted on March 10 that featured the speeches of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba.
“We did not attack Ukraine,” Lavrov said in that clip, insisting Moscow’s military was a response to what he called “a direct threat to the security of Russia.”
YouTube said it had acted because the clip in question had violated its community guidelines, which “prohibit content denying, minimizing, or trivializing well-documented violent events, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine.”
“Under this policy, we have removed content, for example, denying that Russia invaded Ukraine or alleging that Ukrainian victims are crisis actors,” the platform explained in an e-mailed response to WION.