Youtube has followed in the footsteps of both Facebook and Instagram by suspending the accounts belonging to Russian state media of RT and Sputnik.
According to the report by France’s TV station BFMTV, both Russian state media are no longer accessible on the Google-owned streaming service. They had many subscribers there.
Faced with requests from the EU and the arrival of a soon-to-be-binding text, the American digital giants are taking a few hours in advance to ban access to press organs financed by Russia.
After Facebook, YouTube announces to BFMTV that it has made the public media channels RT France and Sputnik France inaccessible on the morning of March 1. Both media are accused of propaganda in favour of the Russians, in a full invasion of Ukraine.
According to the report by BFMTV, RT France alone has 560 million views.
“Given the ongoing war in Ukraine , we are blocking RT and Sputnik’s YouTube channels across Europe, effective immediately. Our systems require some time before they are fully operational. Our teams continue to monitor the situation 24 hours a day to act as quickly as possible” specifies a spokesperson for the Google subsidiary, to BFMTV.
On YouTube, the accounts of the two channels have not been deleted. For example, they remain available from countries outside the European Union, starting with the United States.
On the morning of March 1, RT France had 1.15 million subscribers, for a total of more than 560 million views since its debut on the platform. For its part, Sputnik France had 220,000 subscribers for more than 40 million views.
As the Secretary of State for Digital Cédric O confirmed to BFMTV on February 28, the sanctions decided by the EU should force all social networks to prevent access to the accounts of the European editorial staff of RT and Sputnik from EU. Internet service providers should also block access to their websites.