YouTube Briefly Deletes RT's Interview With Chief Doctor At Moscow Main COVID-19 Hospital

YouTube Briefly Deletes RT's Interview With Chief Doctor at Moscow Main COVID-19 Hospital

YouTube has removed a video published by RT of an interview with the chief physician of the designated Moscow hospital for COVID-19 patients, the Russian media network said on Saturday, adding shortly later that the video was brought back

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 11th April, 2020) YouTube has removed a video published by RT of an interview with the chief physician of the designated Moscow hospital for COVID-19 patients, the Russian media network said on Saturday, adding shortly later that the video was brought back.

Doctor Denis Protsenko of the Kommunarka hospital in southern Moscow gained limelight when he tested positive for COVID-19 several days after meeting personally with Russian President Vladimir Putin in late March. In the interview with RT correspondent Anton Krasovsky, the doctor spoke about how the pandemic was being handled in Russia and other countries. The video had over 3 million views as of Saturday.

"Do you know what this is? It was the interview with Denis Protsenko, which had been watched by more than 3 million people. This is all you need to know about Google Russia, YouTube and [opposition figure Alexey] Navalny's bot system," Krasovsky said on his Telegram channel, attaching a screen shot where YouTube said it had blocked one of RT's videos.

In particular, the video sharing platform said that it found the video to be "unacceptable" and "violating our rules." YouTube also said that some of its content review processes had been modified in light of COVID-19.

Shortly later, RT posted an update on its Telegram channel saying "YouTube has restored�Anton Krasovsky's interview with Kommunarka chief physician with no explanations provided."

Over the past several weeks, YouTube has come up with a number of regulations to fight misinformation about COVID-19. In particular, the platform attempted to control the number and content of videos about the coronavirus by temporarily demonetizing such videos. On April 2, monetization was reinstated for videos that reference and/or feature COVID-19 as long as they adhere to YouTube Advertiser-Friendly and Community Guidelines.