YouTube Deletes Scott Ritter’s Channel
The veteran US Marine Corps intelligence officer, UN weapons inspector and Sputnik contributor has spent over a year providing incisive commentaries about the NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, challenging the Western mainstream narrative and offering his own perspective on the origins of the crisis. | Google-owned video hosting giant YouTube has deleted Scott Ritter's YouTube channel. A banner reading "This account has been terminated due to multiple or severe violations of YouTube's policy prohibiting hate speech" greets anyone trying to navigate to Ritter's channel. The company did not provide any information about the nature of these alleged "multiple or severe violations," or how Ritter's mostly Ukrainian crisis-related commentaries and interviews constitute "hate speech." YouTube allows for user-based reporting of any alleged "hate speech," prompting concerns from content creators over the years that the video hosting giant may allow organized online activists to silence voices and views that they might not like, or which challenge important state and corporate narratives. ● Ritter is no stranger to censorship by major online platforms. Last year, he was suspended from Twitter after calling Joe Biden a "war criminal" and accusing him of "seeking to shift blame for the Bucha murders" on Russia. He was later reinstated, but suspended again after a "test, test, test" tweet stating that "Bucha was a war crime," and that "Ukraine did it."