Sky News Australia is a 24 hour cable and satellite channel available on Foxtel and Optus Television subscription platforms, as well as on free-to-air television in regional and non-metropolitan areas throughout Australia.
This News Corp entity also has a Youtube channel displaying at last count 52,838 videos and has 1.86 million subscribers.
YouTube is owned by the global Internet search engine, Google LLC, which in turn is owned by Alphabet Inc.
According to The Sydney Morning Herald on 1 August 2021:
Sky News Australia has been suspended from uploading content to YouTube for a week after the video and livestreaming platform claimed the media organisation breached its COVID-19 misinformation standards.
In a statement issued to Nine newspapers on Sunday afternoon, a YouTube spokesperson said the website had taken steps against Sky, including removing videos from the media outlet’s online channel and issuing a “strike” against it, causing it to be temporarily suspended from uploading content.
“We have clear and established COVID-19 medical misinformation policies based on local and global health authority guidance, to prevent the spread of COVID-19 misinformation that could cause real-world harm,” a YouTube spokesperson said in a statement.
“We apply our policies equally for everyone regardless of uploader, and in accordance with these policies and our long-standing strikes system, removed videos from and issued a strike to Sky News Australia’s channel.”
YouTube has not said what videos published by Sky it removed, but the platform doesn’t allow content medical misinformation about COVID-19 “that poses a serious risk of egregious harm in contradiction with local and global health authorities’ guidance about COVID-19 treatment, prevention, transmission, and social distancing.”
The one-week suspension by YouTube follows a review of content for compliance with YouTube’s policies on COVID-19 which are subject to change in response to global or local health authority guidance on the virus…..
As SkyNews Australia’s YouTube home page features video clusters by hard right commentators Alan Jones, Andrew Bolt, Peta Credlin, Chris Kenny and the “Outsiders” program hosted by Rita Panahi, I suspect it wasn’t hard to find material which might be in danger of breaching YouTube’s standards.
SkyNews Australia’s digital editor fired back at the claims made by YouTube in an online article titled “YouTube’s Sky News Australia suspension ‘disturbing’ assault on freedom of thought” containing a power point presentation of Donald J. Trump’s thoughts on freedom of speech.
This article states in part that:
Among the videos deemed unpalatable for societal consumption were debates around whether masks were effective and whether lockdowns were justified when considering their adverse health outcomes.
The stance taken by some commentators at this network was that masks are not effective in containing outbreaks, particularly when mandated outside in the fresh air. Some also took issue with the frequency and mechanisms of locking down Australians.
It has been noted elsewhere that SkyNews Australia's temporary suspension came close on the heels of a Nine Entertainment newspaper dropping Alan Jones' regular column amid a pandemic misinformation controversy.
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