After 12 hours of campaign and over 25,000 posts in support, YouTube unblocks WION

New Delhi: After 12 hours of campaign and over 25,000 posts in support, YouTube on Saturday (March 26, 2022) backed down and unblocked WION, India’s first global news network. 

WION, which has condemned the Russian invasion and has made sure that its reportage remains balanced and both sides of the story are reported, was blocked by the tech giant on March 22. 

YouTube had a problem with one of WION's videos that was uploaded on March 10 and showed two live speeches — one by Ukraine's foreign minister Dmitry Kuleba and another by Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov.

On March 22, WION got a message from YouTube saying that it is blocking the channel from posting any videos and said that the videos violated YouTube's community guidelines.

WION then made an appeal to YouTube which was rejected, following which the news channel then wrote to video-sharing platform and demanded an explanation.

"Our community guidelines prohibit content denying, minimizing, or trivialising well-documented violent events, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine," YouTube responded. 

"Under this policy, we have removed content, for example, denying that Russia invaded Ukraine or alleging that Ukrainian victims are crisis actors," YouTube added.

In the video, Sergei Lavrov had said, "As for your question about whether we are planning to attack other countries. We are not planning to attack other countries. We did not attack Ukraine either. We explained on numerous occasions that there was a situation that posed a direct threat to the security of the Russian Federation."

These, however, were spoken by the Russian foreign minister and not WION. 

Following this, Palki Sharma, Executive Editor, WION, took the issue on her show 'Gravitas' on Friday (March 25) and the campaign #YouTubeUnblockWION went viral on Twitter. The channel received nearly 25,000 tweets in support overnight which eventually led to YouTube unblocking WION.

Good morning folks! Very happy to share with you that 12 hours after we put out this story #YouTubeUnblockWION, @WIONews has been unblocked. Thank you for your support & for joining our campaign. We shall continue bringing you all sides of the story  https://t.co/OiGnmm36cb — Palki Sharma (@palkisu) March 26, 2022

"WION simply broadcast the Russian foreign minister's statement just like the Ukrainian minister's statement was played. WION makes sure that the reportage reaches every corner of the world and that it should be easily accessible to all and that it should inform your opinion," the news channel said.

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