YouTube temporarily blocked Kremlin English-language propaganda network RT’s wildly popular account on the video streaming service on Tuesday for unspecified terms of service violations.
Users who attempted to access the Russia Today account were told the account had been suspended “due to multiple or severe violations of YouTube’s policy against spam, gaming, misleading content, or other Terms of Service violations.”
YouTube said the blocking was a “technical mistake” in a comment provided to BuzzFeed by RT’s press service. YouTube did not immediately respond to a request for comment or specify why Russia Today’s account, the first news channel to amass over a billion views on the site, had been blocked.
The site’s terms of service warn: “Everyone hates spam. Do not create misleading descriptions, tags, titles or thumbnails in order to increase views. It’s not okay to post large amounts of untargeted, unwanted or repetitive content, including comments and private messages.”