YouTube has quietly deleted hundreds of
videos that belong to three prominent Palestinian human rights groups at the request of the U.S. federal government.
According to a report from The Intercept, YouTube deleted around 700 videos from Palestinian human rights organizations in early October.
The accounts of the groups posting
the videos -- Al-Haq, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights -- were also deleted from the platform, along with archives from their channels.
Content included in these videos covered documentary footage of mothers surviving the ongoing genocide inflicted by Israeli forces in Gaza, an investigation of the murder
of a Palestinian American journalist, the destruction of homes in the West Bank, and hours of footage showcasing alleged Israeli government human rights violations, per the report.
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“YouTube, which is owned by Google, confirmed to The Intercept that it deleted the [human rights] groups’ accounts as a direct result of State Department
sanctions against the group after a review,” the report reads. “The Trump administration leveled the sanctions against the organizations in September over their work with the International
Criminal Court in cases charging Israeli officials of war crimes.”
“Google is committed to compliance with applicable sanctions and trade
compliance laws,” YouTube spokesperson Boot Bullwinkle said in a statement.
A spokesperson from Al Mezan said that the group did not receive any notice
before its account was deleted, adding that YouTube has prevented it from achieving its goals by limiting the group’s “ability to reach the audience we aspire to share our message
with.”
The oldest human rights organization in Gaza -- The Palestinian Center for Human Rights -- stated that YouTube’s compliance with the U.S.
government “protects perpetrators from accountability.”
YouTube’s deletion of these accounts and all of their content follows its recent
decision to run I.C.E. recruitment ads on its platform.