IN FEBRUARY 2024, without warning, YouTube deleted the account of independent British journalist Robert Inlakesh.
His YouTube page featured dozens of videos, including numerous livestreams documenting Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank. In a decade covering Palestine and Israel, he had captured video of Israeli authorities demolishing Palestinian homes, police harassing Palestinian drivers, and Israeli soldiers shooting at Palestinian civilians and journalists during protests in front of illegal Israeli settlements. In an instant, all of that footage was gone.
In July, YouTube deleted Inlakesh’s private backup account. And in August, Google, YouTube’s parent company, deleted his Google account, including his Gmail and his archive of documents and writings.
The tech giant initially claimed Inlakesh’s account violated YouTube’s community guidelines. Months later, the company justified his account termination by alleging his page contained spam or scam content.
However, when The Intercept inquired further about Inlakesh’s case, nearly two years after his account was deleted, YouTube provided a separate and wholly different explanation for the termination: a connection to an Iranian influence campaign.
Can I ask a dumb question? Even if this was true and for the sake of argument we assume that the dude is an Iranian propagandist of some kind, so what? Why does that justify removing the account?
Probably because of US sanctions on Iran, which prohibits the delivery of services for individuals or companies in Iran.
“independent British journalist Robert Inlakesh”
I guess they can just decide that anyone they don’t like is Iranian and remove them.
But he’s in Palestine. No?
If he’s an Iranian agent, it might apply anywhere.
I doubt any proof was used or provided though
That’s what’s so fun about relying on private companies for this kind of infrastructure.
Because of good old propaganda. I know, its fucking bullshit.
Damn, we need to get out of youtube
There is no youtube alternative. I’ve been begging Lemmy to find me one and nothing. Also, anyone constantly getting the Turning Point ads despite blocking them and reporting them?
PeerTube? Is that what it’s called? I’ve never used it.
A service like youtube is simply hard to pull of with bailing twine and string (like lemmy).
A core part of the service that youtube offers is re-encoding uploads. That requires some beefy hardware to serve even a moderate number of people.
Vimeo was supposed to be that alternative but instead it’s just art house stuff now.
If you’re seeing ads on YouTube, you’re doing it wrong.
I have an iPhone. I use ad guard. These are ads when I’m searching for videos.
deleted by creator
Probably because of US sanctions on Iran, which prohibits the delivery of services for individuals or companies in Iran.
Stop using youtube.
Start using PeerTube.
I don’t think PeerTube will ever replace YouTube. I love the idea behind PeerTube, but all the content creators are on YouTube because that’s where they can monetize their content. That’s not really going to happen on PeerTube.
While I wouldn’t trust Google on anything, the “journalist” cited in this article worked for Iranian foreign propaganda outlet Press TV. Even though what Google did was wrong, that’s a massive red flag. Working for Press TV is no different than Google working for the American far right oligarch regime.
On the one hand, yeah maybe he was operating as a propaganda agent for Iran. But they deleted his whole account, his email, his drive contents, and every video he uploaded. His life’s work nuked from orbit.
You can’t swing a dead cat on YouTube without hitting 1200 different propaganda agents working for various political wings. When was the last time Google obliterated a joirnalist from Newsmax or Xinhua?
I agree on all counts.
I am just pointing out that working for Press TV is just as bad what Google does.
