WION campaign against YouTube censorship succeeded as YouTube was forced to unblock WION after global outrage. Twitter registered +6.2 million reach on #YouTubeUnblockWION.
After a massive viewer-led 12-hour campaign that saw over 25,000 tweets in WION’s support, YouTube on Saturday backed down and unblocked the global channel it had banned for reporting Russia’s statement on the Ukraine war without bias.
YouTube apparently had a problem with one of WION’s videos dating back to March 10 which showed two live speeches — one by Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmitry Kuleba and another by Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov.
On March 22, WION got a message from YouTube saying that it is blocking the channel from posting any videos. It said the videos violated YouTube’s community guidelines.
WION made an appeal to YouTube but it was rejected. WION then wrote to YouTube demanding an explanation.
YouTube said: “Our community guidelines prohibit content denying, minimizing, or trivialising well-documented violent events, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, adding,”Under this policy, we have removed content, for example, denying that Russia invaded Ukraine or alleging that Ukrainian victims are crisis actors.”
