Youtube Blocks Video Showing China’s Genocide of the Uyghur People

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A human rights group that is focused on exposing China’s slow-motion genocide of the Uyghur people has had several of its videos blocked by YouTube and will be moving to another platform.

YouTube claimed that one of the groups videos violated its policies on promoting violent criminal organizations, the Chinese Communist Party has often attacked dissenters in China by labeling them as part of violent criminal groups.

From PJ Media:

“There is another excuse every day. I never trusted YouTube,” Serikzhan Bilash, one of the founders of the human rights group Atajurt, told Reuters. “But we’re not afraid anymore, because we are backing ourselves up with LBRY. The most important thing is our material’s safety.”

Atajurt attracted millions of views on YouTube to testimonies from people who say their families have disappeared in Xinjiang. The nonprofit is moving its videos to the alternative video service Odysee after Google-owned YouTube took them down.

Atajurt, which international organizations like Human Rights Watch have credited with drawing attention to the human rights crisis in Xinjiang, has faced hostility from the authorities in Kazakhstan since its founding in 2017.

Bilash, the Atajurt co-founder, was himself born in Xinjiang. Kazakh authorities have arrested him multiple times, and in one instance government advisors told him to stop using the word “genocide” to describe the CCP’s efforts against the Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in the northeast Chinese province. Bilash suspected that this demand traced back to the CCP, which had likely pressured Kazakh authorities.

Whether or not YouTube has chosen to side with China on this issue is still up in the air. While YouTube is notorious for having a political slant when it comes to upholding its rules and policies the Chinese Communist Party is also very good at mass flagging content they do not like.

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