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RT in Moscow: The Russian state broadcaster is criticized in Germany for disinformation, among other things
Photo: Pavel Golovkin / dpa
The video platform YouTube has apparently blocked the German branch of the Russian state broadcaster RT (formerly Russia Today).
This emerges from a message from the sender on its website.
Accordingly, Youtube cited "serious and repeated" violations of the community guidelines as reasons.
RT's previous channel is no longer available on YouTube.
According to the station's announcement, "RT DE", as the channel was called, received a penalty on September 21 for "medical misinformation" in relation to the corona crisis.
As a result, no new videos could be uploaded for a week, the sentence would have ended on Tuesday.
In response, RT had uploaded more videos on the alternative channel "The Missing Part".
This channel has now also been blocked.
From the community guidelines of YouTube it emerges that a “first warning” only follows after two violations.
In this case, videos and stories can no longer be uploaded and live streams started for one week.
It also says: "Violations of this restriction are (...) as a circumvention and can lead to the termination of your account."
Accordingly, YouTube could have blocked RT's account because they tried to circumvent the penalty through the second channel.
"RT DE" recently had around 614,000 subscribers.
RT is criticized in the West as the Kremlin's propaganda tool for spreading conspiracy fantasies and disinformation on behalf of the Russian state.
Also in the course of the corona crisis, RT repeatedly spread false news.
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