Kazakhstan's Tagourt for Human Rights said she was documenting abuses in Xinjiang
YouTube has removed several videos from a channel of a human rights organization, which was trying to document human rights violations in China's Xinjiang province, for violating its anti-harassment policy, Reuters reported.
On June 15, Kazakhstan's human rights agency, Atagourt, said the Google-owned video platform had completely disabled its channel, telling the group that it had received numerous attacks against its channel due to videos in which people showed identification cards showing they were connected to the missing residents of Xinjiang. This appears to have broken YouTube's rule that prevents personal information from being displayed, resulting in the videos being removed. Reuters said the channel was restored three days later.
YouTube has reportedly asked Atagort to cut or hide the IDs in the videos, but the channel manager said he didn't want to do so for fear that this action would damage its credibility. Organizations including Human Rights Watch praised Tagourt for helping expose human rights abuses. According to the MIT Technology Review, Atageort publishes testimonies from family members of people held in Chinese detention camps in Xinjiang.
Most of the videos that were removed after the pleas have been restored, but some have remained unviewable, and according to Reuters, Atajurt is backing up its videos on the blockchain-based video platform Odysee.
A YouTube spokesperson said its harassment policy "clearly prohibits content that discloses someone's personally identifiable information, including government identification or phone numbers," adding that it enforces its policies "equally for all." However, the spokesperson added that he realized that the intent of posting the videos was not to "maliciously disclose personal information". “After careful review of their appeal, we have reinstated the channel and are working with Atajurt Kazakhstan to explain our policies so they can make the best decisions for their channel.”
A June 10 report by Amnesty International concluded that the Chinese government practiced state-organized persecution, including torture, against people in China's western Xinjiang province, including Uyghurs and Kazakhs. The United Nations has estimated that at least one million Uyghurs are held in concentration camps in China, a claim that China contested.
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