The NewsGuard organization says in a report published on Wednesday that it has identified more than 250 cases in which RT documentaries about the war in Ukraine were broadcast on YouTube, despite a blocking of RT channels on the video platform.
They spread a whole range of misinformation that is at the heart of Russian propaganda. The idea that “National Socialism” is present in both politics and society in Ukraine, the accusation of “genocide” against the Russian-speaking population in Donbass, the Maidan revolution of 2014, which was “a sustained coup d’état by the West”. .. These films, documentaries from the Russian channel RT, should in principle not appear on YouTube.In March 2022, the hosting site announced that it was blocking media funded by the Russian authorities and thus RT channels.But despite this ban, the organization admits NewsGuard, in a report published Wednesday, February 22, said it had identified more than 250 instances of RT documentaries airing about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. on the platform.
According to the organization, which assesses the level of reliability and transparency of news sites and media, these documentaries have been broadcast on more than 100 YouTube channels and have been viewed more than half a million times in total. A majority of those videos — about 200 out of 250 — still featured the logo of RT’s documentary arm, RTD, but about 50 of them didn’t show their connection to RT, “probably to avoid being spotted by YouTube,” according to NewsGuard.
“NewsGuard’s analysis shows that despite YouTube’s ban on Russian state media, this propaganda has found a way to succeed.”
NewsGuard
in its report of February 22, 2023
In its report, NewsGuard reminds that since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, RTD has produced 50 videos spreading false information about the war. According to the organization, these films can be seen on YouTube in Russian and English, but sometimes also in French and Spanish.
Dozens of monetized videos
The NewsGuard report focuses in particular on the example of the YouTube channel iEarlGrey, run by a Brit living in Russia, Mike Jones, in Saint Petersburg. It broadcasts RT documentaries in English. Shortly after the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine, this channel switched from broadcasting topics related to online video games to content with Russian propaganda. For example, with his channel, Mike Jones picks up elements of the Moscow language about the strike that hit the Mariupol maternity hospital in March 2022. A well-documented bombing, but which the iEarlGrey channel, like the Kremlin, portrays as “staging”.
This video “not only violates YouTube’s policy banning content that denies, minimizes, or trivializes well-documented violent events,” but also allows Mike Jones to earn ad revenue, NewsGuard reveals. Dozens of propaganda content aired by the channel showed “Google-enabled programmatic advertising from well-known brands” or non-profit organizations during the organization’s investigation.
With this channel, “Russian propaganda films have garnered tens of thousands of views on YouTube,” NewsGuard warns. An RT documentary aired by Mike Jones in November has no fewer than 50,000 views.
Many small channels with a “strong collective effect”
Alongside these well-received reports, NewsGuard warns of the “collective impact (…) powerful” of smaller YouTube channels that contain false pro-Russian information. The organization has identified more than 80 “anonymous” channels broadcasting pro-Russia war propaganda. “With small subscriber bases and low video view counts, these channels appear to be able to bypass YouTube moderation despite uploading many RT clips each day,” the report analyzes. NewsGuard takes the example of an RT film, Donbass: I’m Alive!, which is broadcast by about 40 anonymous channels on YouTube and “reaches tens of thousands of viewers in total”. “If individually they seem insignificant, their collective impact is powerful,” NewsGuard continues.
The organization also discovered RT content on “at least five channels” visibly operated by Russian authorities.
YouTube removes dozens of content
Contacted by NewsGuard to comment on the report’s findings, YouTube “did not question these observations.” “We have removed more than 9,000 channels and more than 85,000 war-related videos for violating our community guidelines,” defended the American giant. In addition, we blocked YouTube channels associated with state-sponsored Russian news channels worldwide, leading to the blocking of over 800 channels and over 4 million videos.” The platform had removed 81 videos among the 250 pieces of propaganda content identified by NewsGuard.
However, the platform did not respond to NewsGuard about the monetized videos on the iEarlGrey channel, nor about the monitoring of small anonymous channels broadcasting these propaganda videos. As for “Russian state-sponsored channels,” NewsGuard noted “that YouTube had indeed removed uploads of RT documentaries from those channels. But the platform itself had not blocked the channels.”