The German newspaper BILD accuses YouTube of “dangerous interference with freedom of expression” because the platform deleted the videos that criticise the government’s COVID measures.
What Lead To BILD-YouTube Dispute
The preliminary injunction was issued by the Cologne Regional Court as a response to a legal challenge filed by the people behind the #allesaufdentisch (#EverythingOnTheTable). #allesaufdentisch is an online campaign with a collection of interviews with experts and public figures about the recent global pandemic, Covid 19, RT reported.
The initiators said that the interviews were “wide-ranging, fact-based, open and factual discourse,” as they challenged the government’s stance against the Covid 19 pandemic. Additionally, they also addressed a lot of controversial vaccine-related questions.
However, in light of its policies, YouTube found two of the videos unfit for hosting and removed them. The court ruled the actions of YouTube as unjustified as they could not explain which part of the video was a violation of its community rules for health-related content, as reported by the German Media.
The political director of the popular German tabloid newspaper Bild, Jan Schafer, hailed the court’s decision. He called YouTube’s use of censorship a “dangerous encroachment” on public discourse in Germany.
YouTube’s Explanation
The statement provided by YouTube has been pretty vague as to why they took off the posts. They claimed that some of the statements made in the videos went against the scientific consensus. However, the court stated that the video contained “a large number of clearly permissible statements”. Leading to credibility to the plaintiff’s claims towards Youtube’s restriction of their Freedom of Expression.
