MOSCOW, Oct 22 (Asia Free Press): Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned YouTube for its action against Russian Television\u2019s German language service (RT DE) and termed it as an attack on \u2018freedom of speech,\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking at gathering of journalists at the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi on Thursday, the President termed the removal of two YouTube channels of RT DE as a media war against Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs far as a response is concerned, we have to be careful,\u201d RT quoted Putin as saying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Russian president noted that RT DE has been prevented from working in Germany in numerous ways, but warned against any retaliation that could cause more issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Calling the restrictions against RT DE a \u201cmistake,\u201d but appearing to suggest that it could be worked out and rejecting the idea of an immediate response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cReciprocal measures should not be counterproductive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In September, RT DE\u2019s main YouTube channel, as well as another channel of the service called Der Fehlende Part (DFP), were deleted after the social media giant accused them of trying to circumvent community guidelines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The platform initially gave RT DE a strike for what it perceived as \u201cmedical misinformation\u201d in four videos related to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. YouTube, however, did not explain what exactly violated the community rules. The strike meant RT DE could not post any videos or live streams for seven days. During that time RT DE\u2019s videos were still shared on DFP (though not the clips that received the strike). The social media giant still accused both channels of working together to circumvent the rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Russia\u2019s Foreign Ministry has recently alleged that YouTube acted not out of adherence to its community policies but with the \u201cobvious connivance, if not the insistence,\u201d of German authorities. Germany, for its part, denied having anything to do with the removal of the channels, saying YouTube was a private company and it was their decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Earlier this month, RT filed a formal appeal with YouTube over the deletion of its German-language channels, arguing the action was not only undeserved but ran contrary to the US-based platform\u2019s own rules.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MOSCOW, Oct 22 (Asia Free Press): Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned YouTube for its action against Russian Television\u2019s German language service (RT DE) and termed it as an attack on \u2018freedom of speech,\u2019. Speaking at gathering of journalists at the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi on Thursday, the President termed the removal of two YouTube […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":1826,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[396,6],"tags":[376,108,868,199,133,867],"class_list":["post-1825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest","category-world","tag-condemns","tag-germany","tag-rt-de","tag-russia","tag-vladimir-putin","tag-youtube"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1825"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}