TalkRADIO is seeking urgent answers from Google the company owning YouTube terminated the Radio networks YouTube channel for allegedly ‘violating’ the website’s ‘community guidelines’ after airing criticism of coronavirus lockdowns.
The broadcaster, which used YouTube to stream its live video content and archive old shows, accrued tens of millions of views and 250,000 subscribers as its popularity soared last year.
YouTube has implemented a ‘COVID-19 medical misinformation policy’ which allows it to ban ‘content that spreads medical misinformation that contradicts local health authority information or World Health Organization (WHO) medical information about COVID-19’.
Examples of content which is banned from YouTube include ‘denial that COVID-19 exists’, ‘claims that people have not died from COVID-19’, and ‘videos alleging that social distancing and self-isolation are not effective in reducing the spread of the virus’.
News UK, which owns TalkRADIO say they are investigating Google’s justification for removing the YouTube channel.
A spokesperson for TalkRADIO told MailOnline: “We urgently await a detailed response from Google/YouTube about the nature of the breach that has led to our channel being removed from its platform.
“TalkRADIO is an Ofcom-licensed and regulated broadcaster and has robust editorial controls in place, taking care to balance debate.
“We regularly interrogate government data and we have controls in place, use verifiable sources and give space to a careful selection of voices and opinions.”
Civil liberties group Big Brother Watch said the removal of the channel was ‘a bold censorship move that would make China proud”.
Director Silkie Carlo said: “YouTube’s termination of TalkRADIO is evidence, if needed, that big tech censorship is out of control.
“This chilling attack on a broadcaster is the type of thing you see in China. It is no coincidence that TalkRADIO is one of the loudest critics of the Government’s mismanagement of the pandemic, nor that the Government is pressuring big tech companies to increase censorship under ‘online harms’ policies.
“This assault on free expression must be resisted and overturned.”
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Editor-in-Chief | Carl D. Pearson has been involved in British politics and media from an early age, with the key knowledge of what it takes to run a news organisation for the 21st century. Mr Pearson, as Editor-in-chief, is responsible for supervising the daily tasks of publishing media and content to UNN’s website and various platforms.
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