Since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, YouTube has removed more than 70,000 videos to date related to the conflict between the two countries.
Launching from Engadget, Monday (23/5/2022) YouTube told The Guardian that it had removed many videos for violating its main policy on violent events which prohibits creators from denying or belittling these war events.
YouTube did not go into detail about the enforcement action but noted that it had suspended some 9,000 channels under its sweep, including one linked to pro-Kremlin journalist Vladimir Solovyov.
Some of the videos that YouTube took down violate company guidelines by calling the invasion a 'liberation mission'.
"We have a major violent event policy and that applies to things like major violent events denial: from the Holocaust to Sandy Hook. And of course, what happened in Ukraine was a major violent event," said Neal Mohan, YouTube's Chief Product Officer. .
"So we used that policy to take unprecedented action." he continued.
Partly as a result of its actions, YouTube has seen a significant increase in the number of people in Ukraine, Poland and Russia consuming 'authoritative' content in the conflict.
In Ukraine, for example, news content about the invasion has been viewed more than 40 million times.
"The first and perhaps most important responsibility is to ensure that people seeking information about this event can find accurate, high-quality and credible information on YouTube," Mohan told The Guardian.
The move underscores the important role services like YouTube can play in preventing the spread of misinformation online. In Russia alone, YouTube has more than 90 million users, making it the largest single video sharing platform in the country.
The company's actions against state-sponsored networks such as RT and Sputnik had a dramatic impact on the organization's ability to spread the Kremlin message.
