YouTube removes over 9,000 channels and 70,000 videos of Russian propaganda about the war in Ukraine

YouTube has removed more than 70,000 videos and 9,000 channels related to the war in Ukraine.

Why?

As Neal Mohan, director of product at YouTube, explained in an interview with The Guardian, these channels and videos violated the rules for using the service, including calling the war unleashed by Russia in Ukraine a "liberation mission."

“We have a policy on major violent events, and that goes for things like denial of major violent events, from the Holocaust to Sandy Hook. And, of course, what is happening in Ukraine is a major violent event. And so we used this policy to take unprecedented action,” Mohan said.

YouTube did not provide a breakdown of the removed content and channels, but most of them are Kremlin stories about the invasion. “I don’t have specific numbers, but you can imagine that many of them are narratives coming from the Russian government or Russian actors on behalf of the Russian government,” said YouTube’s chief product officer.

Now the main goal of the video service is to enable users to receive accurate, high-quality and reliable information. Thus, YouTube news content about the war in Ukraine alone has gained more than 40 million views. Consumption of reputable channels has also grown in neighboring countries - in Poland and in the same Russia.

Recall that in February, YouTube disabled the channel of pro-Kremlin journalist Vladimir Solovyov, channels associated with the Russian defense and foreign ministries, as well as channels associated with Russian state media, including Russia Today and Sputnik. In addition, Google has disabled (including on YouTube) the monetization of content that spreads fakes about Russia's war against Ukraine, denies or justifies it.

Source: The Guardian

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