YouTube blocks channel of US news group after Turkmen state media complaints

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YouTube blocked a channel belonging to an American news organization known for its coverage of Central Asia, the Caucasus and Russia, after state media in authoritarian Turkmenistan complained of copyright violations.

The site, Eurasianet, said it was told by Google-owned YouTube that its channel was blocked after receiving multiple “takedown notices” over several days this week.

The notices, YouTube said, were filed by Watan Habarlary, the official television channel owned by the Turkmenistan State Committee for Television, Broadcasting and Cinematography.

David Trilling, editor-in-chief of Eurasianet, said the site had struggled to find someone on YouTube to appeal the decision. He said the Eurasianet website, which publishes primarily in English and Russian, is itself blocked in Turkmenistan, as is YouTube.

“It’s ironic given that [YouTube] is blocked in Turkmenistan … like all other social media companies, “he told RFE / RL

Trilling said the organization’s YouTube channel has a few thousand subscribers and is mainly used to record videos from the Turkmen state television nightly newscast and embed them in web articles about Turkmenistan. The organization reposted the clips under fair use laws and contextualized them for added news value.

An email sent to the Turkmenistan Embassy in Washington, DC, was not immediately responded to. YouTube did not respond to a message sent by RFE / RL to its primary complaint email address.

Eurasianet is not the first news organization or foreign organization covering Turkmenistan to be struck by YouTube copyright infringement. In May, the Chronicles of Turkmenistan, led by an opposition group based in Austria, also reportedly had his YouTube channel blocked after complaints from the Turkmen state media.

One of the most closed countries in the world, Turkmenistan is ruled by an authoritarian government that controls all media and strictly limits access to the Internet and outside media. State media devotes wide coverage to the country’s president, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov. The country has some of the largest natural gas reserves in the world.

Trilling said Eurasianet is looking to move its small online video presence to a smaller network, Vimeo.

YouTube’s move comes amid growing questions about the reach and influence of U.S. tech and social media companies, which critics say wield inordinate power to censor or amplify individuals or organizations.

Critics say some of the biggest tech companies – Facebook, Twitter, Google, Apple, for example – have also shown willingness to bow to the demands of authoritarian governments, to censor information that, for example, could embarrass the government.

In the run-up to last month’s elections to the lower house of the Russian parliament, Russia demanded that Google and Apple remove from their stores an app used by opposition activist Alexei Navalny to promote candidates who did not belong to the ruling party allied to the Kremlin.

Another popular tech platform, the Telegram messaging app, also removed some information related to Navalny ahead of the election.

Google and Apple both have local employees in Russia, and authorities have threatened to sue them if the U.S. tech giants don’t remove the Navalny-backed app.

Other countries like Turkey and India have also increasingly pressured tech companies to suppress or outright censor certain political rhetoric.

Based at the Harriman Institute at Columbia University, Eurasianet is a private, not-for-profit corporation funded by grants from the Open Society Foundation, the National Endowment for Democracy, and the British Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office.

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