Youtube eyeing to ‘censor’ Beer Biceps, Raj Shamani for interviewing BJP leaders

On Tuesday (June 27), Google’s video-sharing platform ‘Youtube’ courted controversy after it hinted at the potential of censoring in style podcaster Ranveer Allahbadia and Raj Shamani for merely interviewing Ministers of the ruling BJP authorities.

A day earlier, a Twitter troll account (@Cryptic_Mind), which matches by the identify of ‘Nimo Tai’, claimed that the Indian authorities was collaborating with in style 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.

Screengrab of the tweet by @Cryptic_Mind

The Twitter deal with identified that ‘Beer Biceps’, run by Ranveer Allahabadia, had performed back-to-back interviews with Cabinet Ministers, specifically, Piyush Goyal, S Jaishankar and Rajeev Chandrasekhar.

It additionally alleged that one video (interview that includes famous strategic analyst Nitin Anant Gokhale) one way or the other portrayed the ‘Gandhi family’ from the angle of the ‘right-wing ecosystem.’

This will not be restricted to @BeerBicepsGuy.

This is Raj Shamani, one other in style YouTuber with 1M subscribers.

Interview with Nitin Gadkari, Shivraj Singh Chouhan and one video on Savarkar’s’s greatness. pic.twitter.com/jj14GAdXjq

— Nimo Tai (@Cryptic_Miind) June 26, 2023

The troll account additionally lamented how one other in style Youtuber by the identify of Raj Shamani performed interviews with heavyweight BJP leaders similar to Nitin Gadkari and Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

Youtube takes ‘voluntary’ cognisance of the matter

Although ‘Nimo Tai’ (Cryptic_Mind) didn’t search the intervention of ‘Youtube’ on this matter, the official deal with of ‘Team Youtube’ voluntarily took cognisance of the matter.

“We are looking into this,” it introduced in a tweet (archive). ‘Team Youtube’ additional added, “We also rely on our viewers to help us keep Youtube a safe space.” It urged the troll account to flag the content material (shared by the likes of Ranveer Allahbadia and Raj Shamani).

Screengrab of the tweet by Team Youtube

‘Team Youtube’ additionally shared the hyperlink to a web page which highlights methods to report “inappropriate videos, channels, and other content on YouTube.” It additionally identified steps to report Youtube movies by computer systems, 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 learn.

The unsolicited intervention by ‘Team Youtube’ and its subsequent suggestion to a Twitter troll to report content material, supposedly deemed as pro-BJP propaganda, has now raised fears of accelerating censorship by the video streaming platform.

Censorship in India by Youtube

In April 2019, Opindia grew to become the sufferer of 1 such nefarious try by Youtube to curb freedom of speech. Political analyst Nitin Rivaldo made a three-part video sequence 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 needed to first verify that he/she is an grownup earlier than watching the video. After just a few days, the third video was deleted from the video streaming website, citing a violation of group pointers.

OpIndia had appealed in opposition to the choice to delete the video. After reviewing the matter, YouTube determined to revive the video however with age restrictions (as within the case of the primary video). Later, YouTube moderators shrewdly discovered one other approach to forestall individuals 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 obtain it from FB web page of @DOpolitics_in & add it in your YT channel. We shall be reside tonight at 9PM. pic.twitter.com/LAnGk4jaFq

— Vaibhav Singh (@vaibhavUP65) March 18, 2021

In March 2021, YouTube eliminated a video interview of Yati Narsinghanand with DO Politics Editor Ajeet Bharti, whereby the previous spoke concerning the controversy over the Dasna temple in Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh. The video was eliminated for supposedly violating YouTube’s hate speech insurance policies.