Fake news about Ukraine war
Youtube blocks RT and Sputnik channels in Europe
03/01/2022 11:06 am
As early as September, YouTube removed the German-language channels of the Russian state broadcaster RT. At that time it was about misinformation about the corona pandemic. With the attack on Ukraine, the video platform is now blocking access across Europe to protect against false information.
The YouTube video platform has blocked the channels of the Russian state broadcasters RT and Sputnik across Europe. “Due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, we are immediately blocking YouTube channels connected to RT and Sputnik in Europe,” a company spokesman said. It will take a while before the measures are technically implemented. “Our teams continue to monitor the situation around the clock in order to act as quickly as possible.”
Last September, YouTube had already blocked and removed the German-language channels from RT. At that time, the Google service accused the state broadcaster of repeated violations of YouTube’s guidelines in the context of false information about the corona pandemic.
RT and Sputnik are repeatedly criticized in the west as a propaganda tool of the Kremlin. The main accusation: the broadcaster is spreading conspiracy theories and disinformation on behalf of the Russian state and justifying the war of aggression in Ukraine. Last weekend, the EU Commission also imposed a ban on RT and Sputnik. However, it is not yet clear how the ban will be implemented in detail.
Tiktok also wants to take action against RT and Sputnik
Other Internet companies want to limit the distribution of Russian state media. Facebook parent company Meta announced it would restrict access to RT and Sputnik in the European Union. Twitter wants to tag messages with links to Russian pro-state media with warning labels. The video app Tiktok also announced that it had restricted Russian state media access to its platform in the EU. Microsoft said it would remove Russian broadcaster RT from its app store and change the algorithm of its Bing search engine to move content from RT and Russian portal Sputnik down in the results.
Netflix is theoretically obliged by Russian law to include several Russian channels in its programming. However, the US streaming platform stated that “given the current situation, we have no plans to add these channels to our service.