YouTube pulled down the channel of U.K. radio station TalkRadio, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, for unspecified violations of its rules.
“This account has been terminated for violating YouTube’s Community Guidelines,” a notice reads on the page where TalkRadio’s channel had been. Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for more info.
YouTube’s suspension of TalkRadio could be related to the London-based station’s claims regarding COVID-19, the BBC reported, noting that claims made by TalkRadio guests — including the allegation that “much of the population” of the U.K. was “already immune” to the coronavirus before it arrived in the country — have been disputed by British fact-checking group Full Fact.
In a statement Tuesday on Twitter, TalkRadio wrote, “We urgently await a detailed response from Google/YouTube about the nature of the breach that has led to our channel being removed from its platform.”
The broadcaster added, “TalkRadio is an Ofcom-licensed and regulated broadcaster, and has robust editorial controls in place, taking care to balance debate. We regularly interrogate government data and we have controls in place, use verifiable sources and give space to careful selection of voices and opinions.”
TalkRadio had about 250,000 subscribers on its YouTube channel. In the tweet, TalkRadio also posted links where listeners can tune in on its website as well as live on Facebook and Twitter.
After the COVID-19 outbreak in early 2020, YouTube adopted a policy banning “harmful misinformation” related to the disease (including videos that deny the efficacy of recommendations from health authorities to stop the spread of COVID). In October, the video platform expanded that to also cover misinformation related to coronavirus vaccines.
Last fall, YouTube suspended far-right One America News Network for one week, citing repeated violations of its COVID-19 misinformation policy.