A Human rights advocacy group is migrating from YouTube after the video-sharing platform censored some of the videos it uploaded to raise awareness about China’s human rights abuses against the Uyghurs.
Atajurt Kazakh Human Rights’ videos on the issue, which included testimonies from people admitting their families’ disappearance in China’s Xinjiang region, attracted millions of views on YouTube.
The channel has published nearly 11,000 videos on YouTube since 2017, totaling over 120 million views
UN experts and rights groups estimate that over a million people were detained in Xinjiang lately, the province that hosts the Uyghur Muslim minority. China has forcefully sent much of the Muslims to mass prisons where they are subjected to hard labor.
On June 15, YouTube blocked the channel for violating its guidelines under the ‘cyberbullying and harassment policy.
The channel’s administrators had appealed the blocking of all twelve videos between April and June. They reinstated some of the videos. However, YouTube did not explain blocking the videos.
Fsced with media attention to its censorship in favor of China,YouTube restored the channel in response to Reuters’ queries.
They justified the removal by citing multiple “strikes” for the videos, which contained people holding up ID cards to prove they were related to the Uyghurs who have gone missing. They reinstated the channel on June 18 but asked Atajurt to blur the IDs. YouTube prohibits personally identifiable information from appearing in its content.
The group will be posting more odeos on Odysee, a new video service that pays crypto currency to its users.
