In the video, Millat Times reports about three incidents of hate crime which happened on Monday in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, and also about the brutality unleashed by mobs on the victims and failure of the police in acting against the culprits
Waquar Hasan | Clarion India
NEW DLEHI – A news video featuring three incidents of hate crimes including two reports of lynching in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana was removed from YouTube on Monday. It was restored after a few hours on Tuesday following complaints lodged by Millat Times which had run the video programme.
Millat Times is a popular news portal which focuses specially on marginalised sections including Muslim community. Its director Shams Tabrez Qasmi told Clarion India that the YouTube removed his news programme titled “3 Cases of Mob Lynching in one day only”, claiming that the video violated its community guidelines. The programme was part of Qasmi’s daily show called “Khabar Dar Khabar”.
“Hi Millat Times, as you may know, our Community Guidelines describe which content we allow – and don’t allow – on YouTube. Your video “3 case of mob lynching……” was flagged to us for review. Upon review, we have determined that it violates our guidelines and we have removed it from YouTube,” the video platform informed Millat Times late Monday.
ख़बर दर ख़बर के जिस प्रोग्राम को You Tube ने अपने यहां से रात को डिलीट कर दिया था उसे अब अपील और Review के बाद दोबारा Release कर दिया है।
Audience and Views को You Tube ने बहुत कम कर दिया है।
यह रहा Linkhttps://t.co/qlpseyr0uG pic.twitter.com/OEf8MCKvML— Millat Times (@Millat_Times) September 8, 2020
In the video, Qasmi talks about recent cases, including lynching in UP’s Noida of cab driver Aftab Alam. He also talks about the brutality unleashed by mobs on the victims and failure of the police in preventing the crimes and acting against the culprits.
In its response, Qasmi wrote to YouTube, saying that there was nothing in the video which violated the guidelines, adding that he just talked about the incidents of hate crimes that happened at three different places. He challenged YouTube by saying that the reports were not against the community guidelines of YouTube and sought review of the decision.
On Tuesday morning, YouTube restored the video but restricted its viewers. “After further review, we’ve determined that while your video does not violate our Community Guidelines. It may not be appropriate for a general audience. We have therefore age-restricted your video,” said YouTube.
Now, upon clicking to watch the video, a warning message pops up in place of the video: “The following content has been identified by the YouTube community as inappropriate or offensive to some audiences. Viewer discretion is restricted,” reads the warning message on the video clip.
Clarion India has sought response from Google regarding the censorship of the news video. We will update the story once we get their response.
Qasmi said that YouTube did not seem to be an independent platform anymore. The video platform was restricting even the content which did not violate its guidelines, he complained.
According to Qasmi, there may be some employees at YouTube who could be creating such obstructions. “This could also be political censoring as we have seen in the case of Facebook where Facebook officials supported the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the opposition were targeted.”
Qasmi informed that this was not the first time when the YouTube was acting against Millat Times video about lynching. Earlier in 2018, it had removed its video about a lynching incident in Bihar’s Sithamarhi without even informing him.
