On Tuesday (June 27), Google’s video-sharing platform ‘Youtube’ courted controversy after it hinted at the possibility of censoring popular podcaster Ranveer Allahbadia and Raj Shamani for merely interviewing Ministers of the ruling BJP government.
A day earlier, a Twitter troll account (@Cryptic_Mind), which goes by the name of ‘Nimo Tai’, claimed that the Indian government was collaborating with popular Youtubers to ‘promote its propaganda’.
“Beer Biceps Guy is (a) popular YouTube Channel in India. He has 5.6 M subscribers. He is now collaborating with Govt of India, interviewing Cabinet Ministers. But collaboration is not just limited to promoting Government’s schemes but cleverly promoting BJP’s propaganda as well,” the troll alleged.
The Twitter handle pointed out that ‘Beer Biceps’, run by Ranveer Allahabadia, had conducted back-to-back interviews with Cabinet Ministers, namely, Piyush Goyal, S Jaishankar and Rajeev Chandrasekhar.
It also alleged that one video (interview featuring noted strategic analyst Nitin Anant Gokhale) somehow portrayed the ‘Gandhi family’ from the perspective of the ‘right-wing ecosystem.’
This is not limited to @BeerBicepsGuy.
— Nimo Tai (@Cryptic_Miind) June 26, 2023
This is Raj Shamani, another popular YouTuber with 1M subscribers.
Interview with Nitin Gadkari, Shivraj Singh Chouhan and one video on Savarkar's's greatness. pic.twitter.com/jj14GAdXjq
The troll account also lamented how another popular Youtuber by the name of Raj Shamani conducted interviews with heavyweight BJP leaders such as Nitin Gadkari and Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
Youtube takes ‘voluntary’ cognisance of the matter
Although ‘Nimo Tai’ (Cryptic_Mind) did not seek the intervention of ‘Youtube’ in this matter, the official handle of ‘Team Youtube’ voluntarily took cognisance of the matter.
“We are looking into this,” it announced in a tweet (archive). ‘Team Youtube’ further added, “We also rely on our viewers to help us keep Youtube a safe space.” It urged the troll account to flag the content (shared by the likes of Ranveer Allahbadia and Raj Shamani).
‘Team Youtube’ also shared the link to a page which highlights ways to report “inappropriate videos, channels, and other content on YouTube.” It also pointed out steps to report Youtube videos through computers, android, iPhone & iPad.
“When content is reported, it’s not automatically taken down. Reported content is reviewed along these guidelines: content that violates our Community Guidelines is removed from YouTube, content that may not be appropriate for younger audiences may be age-restricted,” it read.
The unsolicited intervention by ‘Team Youtube’ and its subsequent suggestion to a Twitter troll to report content, supposedly deemed as pro-BJP propaganda, has now raised fears of increasing censorship by the video streaming platform.
Censorship in India by Youtube
In April 2019, Opindia became the victim of one such nefarious attempt by Youtube to curb freedom of speech. Political analyst Nitin Rivaldo made a three-part video series for our channel, exposing how the left-liberal media has been supportive of Islamic terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir.
The first video was made age-restricted, which implied that one had to first confirm that he/she is an adult before watching the video. After a few days, the third video was deleted from the video streaming site, citing a violation of community guidelines.
OpIndia had appealed against the decision to delete the video. After reviewing the matter, YouTube decided to restore the video but with age restrictions (as in the case of the first video). Later, YouTube moderators shrewdly found another way to prevent people from watching our third video.
So, @YouTube has deleted our video with #Baba_Narsinghanand. That’s how voice of Hindus is being suppressed by Left Wing & Islamofascist Nexus in India. You’re free to download it from FB page of @DOpolitics_in & upload it on your YT channel. We will be live tonight at 9PM. pic.twitter.com/LAnGk4jaFq
— Vaibhav Singh (@vaibhavUP65) March 18, 2021
In March 2021, YouTube removed a video interview of Yati Narsinghanand with DO Politics Editor Ajeet Bharti, wherein the former spoke about the controversy over the Dasna temple in Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh. The video was removed for supposedly violating YouTube’s hate speech policies.
