YouTube bans another Australian news organisation

While the Twitterati might have cheered YouTube’s banning of Sky News, will they still be cheering after another outlet is banned?

One of Australia’s newest independent news outlets was temporarily banned by YouTube for showing footage from the floor of the Federal House Of Representatives.

On Tuesday, 6 News Australia, run by 13-year-old Leonardo Puglisi, published a video which showed MP George Christensen delivering a speed on the floor of Parliament House which contained misinformation about COVID-19.

YouTube has a policy of banning any content containing misinformation about COVID-19.

But the video also showed Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese condemning the remarks in the strongest possible terms.

What was most concerning about the ban was that it showed footage of our political representatives in parliament. To be clear, the video was not in violation of copyright, YouTube deleted the video and banned 6 News Australia over the content.

6 News Australia has become a trusted source of information over the past year with the young reporter breaking stories and fact-checking many claims.

Within 10 minutes of TV Blackbox reaching out to YouTube for a comment on the ban, the video was quickly reinstated and the suspension was lifted from the 6 News account, with a spokesperson telling us:

“We remain committed to protecting the YouTube community from harmful COVID-19 medical misinformation. We have well established COVID-19 medical misinformation policies based on local and global health authority guidance. However, with the massive volume of videos on our site, sometimes the action is not accurate, and we act to reinstate accordingly. In this case, there was sufficient context, and so we’ve reinstated the video and removed the strike.”

While that is a good outcome, it’s concerning videos from Australia’s very own parliament are being banned by the video platform.

Sky News Australia was recently banned over what YouTube described as ‘misinformation’ posted on their page. The company deleted 31 videos from the Sky News page and banned the organisation for 1 week.

While many cheered that ruling, the action against 6 News shows that any attempt to show legitimate news can be stripped from the platform. YouTube is the biggest video platform there is and to be removed is harmful to the growth of a brand.

When a strike is placed against you it is possible to dispute the action, but that can also lead to longer penalties. In fact, even though YouTube has reinstated the video, Puglisi has made the decision to remove it himself for fear of other automatic punishments.

And you can see why. From personal experience with the Anj, Rob & Robbo streaming show, I can’t attest you are guilty until proven innocent on the platform. Copyright strikes are automatically applied and videos were taken down immediately, even if there is a fair dealing/issue case to the material being used. The process for appealing these decisions is lengthy and by the time the matter is resolved the video is no longer topical.

The processes by YouTube make it very difficult to produce a news-based streaming show and that is partly why we decided to stop making the show.

While it’s usually small players like 6 News who feel the full force of YouTube’s policies, the banning of Sky News Australia was significant in that YouTube is now deciding what qualifies as news. And the banning of footage from the floor of parliament house is very concerning indeed.

Be careful how loud you cheer when someone you don’t like is censored, because it’s just a matter of time before you could be on the receiving end yourself.