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The Russian state-backed broadcaster had two accounts terminated on Tuesday.
Russian authorities threatened to block YouTube on Wednesday, a day after RT’s German-language channels were deleted with Google’s video platform saying the Russian state-backed broadcaster had breached its COVID-19 information policy.
This morning, Roskomnadzor, the Russian government’s media watchdog, threatened to block YouTube in Russia if it didn’t restore the banned channels, RBC news reported.
“YouTube has always had clear community guidelines that outline what is allowed on the platform,” a company spokesperson told multiple outlets. Prior to the termination, RT received a strike and a subsequent week-long ban from publishing, which RT tried to circumvent by uploading through a channel for one of its shows called “Der Fehlende Part” — which translates to “The missing part”.
RT’s attempt to avoid the ban backfired. “As a result, both channels were terminated for breaking YouTube Terms of Service,” the spokesperson added. It is against YouTube’s policy for someone suspended to use another channel to circumvent the ban.
Margarita Simonyan, RT’s editor-in-chief, called the ban a “real media war declared by the state of Germany to the state of Russia” in a tweet. She also called for the Russian state to respond by banning German public-service broadcasters, like ARD and ZDF.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry described the termination of RT’s channels as an “unprecedented information aggression” in a statement.
During the pandemic, RT, whose motto is to “stay critical”, doubted the existence of a second infection wave in Germany and reported an alleged “vaccine massacre” in Norway, ARD reported.
This story has been updated.
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