The primary YouTube channel for Russian English-language news channel RT experienced a temporary outage on Monday night into Tuesday morning.
RT claimed its account was down for about eight hours due to a glitch that YouTube acknowledged. YouTube did not immediately return a request for comment. Its page has more than 1.2 million subscribers.
See also: Russia's English-Language TV Channel: We're Biased and So Are You
The channel reported that the outage caused all of its content to be unavailable. Users who visited the YouTube page were presented with a note that read: "This channel has been suspended due to multiple or severe violations of YouTube’s policy against spam, scans, and commercially deceptive content.”
The legitimacy of RT news reports has been recently called into question, as its coverage of the standoff between Ukraine and Russia over the Crimean peninsula has spurred fresh accusations that the channel is a propaganda outlet for the Kremlin.
Two of RT's American anchors have also spoken out on air against the channel's coverage. Liz Wahl resigned on air earlier this month, stating that she could not be part of a network that "whitewashes the actions of Putin." Around teh same time, Abby Martin also spoke up, saying Russia was wrong for its military actions against Ukraine.
Nothing in YouTube's community guidelines, however, particularly targets propaganda or biased media. While YouTube does highlight "misleading content" in the account suspension banner atop the RT page, its more detailed description has more to do with spam.
The community guidelines read:
Everyone hates spam. Don’t create misleading descriptions, tags, titles or thumbnails in order to increase views. It's not okay to post large amounts of untargeted, unwanted or repetitive content, including comments and private messages.
The RT YouTube page experienced a similar glitch several years ago, according to an RT spokesperson.
Access to some of the older materials still remains limited on RT's YouTube channel remain limited but are expected to be restored, the spokesperson added.
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