Media meeting discusses escalation of “YouTube and Facebook” companies against Yemeni media
A media meeting discusses the escalation of the “YouTube and Facebook” companies against the Yemeni media.
The meeting discussed the escalation of the social networking sites “YouTube and Facebook” against the Yemeni media, including the ban, blockade and deletion of Yemeni channels, and ways to respond to them.
In the meeting, which was attended by the Deputy Minister of Culture, Muhammad Haidar, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Yemeni News Agency, Saba, Nasr al-Din Amer, confirmed that the deletion of Yemeni channels from the social networking site YouTube was not a precedent, but rather an extension of steps that took place years ago.
Amer explained that the deletion of Yemeni channels on YouTube was a planned and deliberate act by the aggression with the aim of distorting the grievances of the Yemenis and presenting the Saudi side as a mediator and not committing any massacres against Yemen and its people.
He pointed out that the deletion of the national Yemeni channels is detailed according to Saudi measures and its profane money, as it included, after deleting the channels, sending an email that the channels support a violent organization, and there are no standards that talk about obscene or unviewable scenes.
The head of the Board of Directors of the Saba Agency stressed the importance of taking a strong stance towards deleting the Yemeni channels from “YouTube”, and restoring the archives included in the channels to the public through the Internet in private sites, and not allowing this historical stage to be erased, whether from the heroics ,sacrifices of the Yemeni people and the rubbing of Saudi Arabia’s nose in the dirt.
In the meeting, which was attended by the Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Yemeni News Agency, Saba – Deputy Editor-in-Chief, Muhammad Abdul Qudous Al-Shari’i, the head of the Yemeni Media Union, Abdul Rahman Al-Ahnoumi, reviewed a report on what the Yemeni media is exposed to on social media platforms.
He stated that the Yemeni media is being subjected to dangerous and escalating unprecedented targeting by social media companies, “YouTube – Facebook”, which calls for solidarity in the face of this targeting, condemnation ,rejection, and mobilization to confront the response to it.
Al-Ahnoumi explained that YouTube recently deleted 70 Yemeni channels, including 50 affiliated with Yemeni media institutions, war media ,Yemeni media centers, and 20 Yemeni channels affiliated with Yemeni media professionals, vocalists and media offices in the provinces.
He stated that the subscribers of these channels are more than 8 million subscribers, while their views reach hundreds of millions. He indicated that the YouTube company had deleted cultural channels that provide cultural content, and removed contents from other channels while removing most of the content documenting the crimes of the Aggression coalication from the platform, and restricting its access and limit its spread.
He pointed out that the correspondence with the management of the YouTube company confirmed that the matter was not subject to the standards and policies followed by the company regarding the content, but rather considering all Yemeni cultural content or related to crimes of aggression or scenes of victories, even political content, as promotion for a criminal organization.
The report said: “YouTube clearly shares with the aggression coalition its crimes by seeking to remove any content documenting their actions of aggression against Yemenis.”
He added, “The Facebook administration has deleted 80 percent of the accounts of Yemeni media professionals, and most of them are forced to create other accounts frequently.”
While the media activist Muhammad Mansour, the cultural activist Muhammad al-Abed and the political activist Hamid Rizk talked about the escalation of the companies “YouTube and Facebook”, and the importance of confronting this escalation and responding to the deletion of channels with strong measures and beyond expectations.
The statement confirmed that YouTube’s targeting Yemeni national media is systematic ,media and intellectual terrorism aims to silence the Yemeni voice, and that the removal of content documenting the crimes of the aggression coalition against Yemen is an open collusion with the aggressioncoalition.
The statement called on the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology to quickly take the necessary measures to close and block the “YouTube and Facebook” sites and ban them within the geographical scope of the Republic of Yemen.
Source: Yemen News Agency