YouTube Admits Mistakenly Suspending Right Wing Watch, Reinstates RWW Channel

YouTube on Monday admitted that it mistakenly suspended the Right Wing Watch for allegedly violating the platform’s community guidelines. The Google-owned video platform added that the channel has been reinstated.

The announcement came with the company admitting that the suspension was issued by mistake. RWW is a channel managed by the Right Wing Watch with more than 48 thousand subscribers.

In a statement published on the same day, YouTube clarified that the company reviewed the matter and found out that there has been a mistake with the issuance of the permanent ban order, NBC News reported.

The Google-owned video platform said that YouTube automates the moderation for huge amounts of content uploaded in the platform every minute. Yet, the company assured that it is quick to respond should there be any mistake with the suspension that the automation does

Right Wing Watch said on Monday they were notified that the channel will be permanently banned.

The notice further explained that the ban was because the alleged conspiracy theories of hate speech on the video clips RWW uploaded violate the video platform’s rules.

Right Wing Watch went to Twitter with screenshots of the notice to express its disappointment over YouTube’s act. The Twitter post said the video platform rejected RWW Blog’s attempt to appeal the decision.

For more than a decade, Right Wing Watch had been uploading video content from politicians, church leaders and other public figures. RWW Blog uploads video clips containing some of the most extreme statements from prominent conservatives.

Right Wing Watch was founded by the People for the American Way in 1981. The liberal advocacy group is based in Washington D.C.

Kyle Mantyla, Right Wing Watch senior fellow, said YouTube gave RWW Blog two strikes and prevented them from uploading for 90 days for the alleged violation of community guidelines in April.

“And then they found some video from eight years ago that they flagged, took that down, and that was our third strike,” Mantyla explaining how YouTube ended up taking their account down, The Daily Beast reported.

Right Wing Watch confirmed that YouTube notified them that the channel was reinstated.

“We hope this is the end of a years-long struggle with YouTube to understand the nature of our work,” said Adele Stan, Right Wing Watch director in a statement after the reinstatement.