The Big Tech campaign to censor speech online has claimed another victim. This time, major U.K. broadcaster talkRADIO has been banned by YouTube.
According to Reuters, “British national radio station talkRADIO on Tuesday said that YouTube had removed its channel from the video-sharing platform and had given no detailed reason for doing so.”
Though not widely known in the United States, talkRADIO has a significant audience in the U.K. The broadcaster “has more than 400,000 listeners and is regulated by Britain’s main broadcast watchdog, Ofcom,” Reuters noted.
According to Variety, the U.K. broadcaster is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.
A full statement about the situation was posted to Twitter by the broadcaster:
YouTube has removed talkRADIO’s channel from its platform. talkRADIO broadcasts specific programmes and a live stream from its studio on its YouTube channel. talkRADIO also broadcasts on DAB and is Ofcom regulated.
A spokesperson for talkRADIO said:
“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.
“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 a careful selection of voices and opinions.
That last bit probably gets to the point of why YouTube banned the broadcaster. If, as talkRADIO claims, it “regularly” interrogates government data, then the broadcaster is likely to attract the ire of Big Tech censors who accept no skepticism, interrogation, or independent analysis of government data. The party line must not be contradicted.
This was admitted by YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki. In April 2020, she announced, “Anything that would go against World Health Organisation recommendations would be a violation of our policy.”
The action taken against the broadcaster earned a rebuke from digital-rights group Big Brother Watch.
“YouTube’s termination of a national broadcaster is further evidence that privatised, big tech censorship is spiralling out of control and must be challenged,” Big Brother Watch director Silkie Carlo said, according to the BBC.
Joining in with what could be perceived as light criticism of the ban, U.K. regulator Ofcom responded:
This was a decision for YouTube. Like other UK stations, TalkRadio’s radio channel comes under our Broadcasting Code. When we assess programmes under our rules, we take account of a broadcaster’s right to freedom of expression, and the right of listeners to receive information and ideas.”
Also critical of the move was Senior Minister Michael Gove who, as the incumbent minister for the Cabinet Office, is a senior official in the U.K. government and an advisor to the prime minister.
Speaking to talkRADIO about the ban of its content, Gove said, “I don’t believe in censorship. I think it’s absolutely right that people should ask questions.”
Most recently, in addition to censoring topics including coverage of the coronavirus pandemic, the online video platform owned by Google also began censoring political commentary about fraud in the presidential election.
Writing on December 9, Kristinn Taylor noted at Gateway Pundit that “YouTube says it already has been rigging search results and algorithms to hide ‘misleading’ election videos, describing the censorship effort as, ‘Limiting the reach of borderline content and prominently surfacing authoritative information.’”
