Youtube ban
On April 30, we reported that Facebook permanently banned SouthFront's public page with about 100,000 followers.

Now, the situation appears to be even worse.

On May 1 (in the evening by CET), YouTube terminated SouthFront's channels with a combined sum of approximately 170,000 subscribers. The main YouTube channel in English had over 152,000 subscribers, 1,900 uploaded videos and about 60,000,000 views.

Youtube videos removed
This happened despite the fact that our YouTube channels had zero active strikes. As you know we cover conflicts in the Middle East. This is a sensitive topic. Therefore, we strictly follow YouTube's Community Guidelines and comply with the Terms of Service.

SouthFront's YouTube channels were terminated without any warning. All that we got was a single automated email regarding the termination of our inactive channel in Farsi "SouthFront Farsi" that included several translations of our war reports. However, even this email provides no details regarding the decision and just claims that "SouthFront Farsi" violated YouTube's Terms of Service without any elaboration.
Youtube SouthFront removal
For over 5 years of our work, SouthFront repeatedly faced attempts to censor our coverage, analysis and videos. However, the current blatant and illegal ban of our activity is an unprecedented case.

The only reasonable explanation, we may imagine, is that US authorities ordered YouTube and Facebook to cleanse the media sphere of sources of objective coverage and analysis on the Middle East region as a part of the ongoing preparations for a war with Iran.

We think that the current situation deserves attention of the international public, including the journalistic community beyond individual ambitions of separate media organizations and journalists.