Press TV UK’s Youtube taken down as part of anti-Iran US pressure campaign

By Robert Inlakesh

Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer and political analyst, who has lived in and reported from the occupied Palestinian West Bank. He has written for publications such as Mint Press, Mondoweiss, MEMO, and various other outlets. He specializes in analysis of the Middle East, in particular Palestine-Israel. He also works for Press TV as a European correspondent.

As the US aggresses and cracks down on the Iranian people via life-damaging sanctions, internet giants are also looking to prevent the point of view of the Iranians from being communicated online.

After the illegal assassination of Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani by the United States, Facebook began removing all social media posts and banning users for sharing information which painted a picture of Iran’s most beloved general, which went against the Western media narrative.

Included in this anti-Iran purge from social media and google is now Press TV UK’s Youtube account. Youtube issued no warnings or strikes against Press TV UK’s account, which had over 28,000 subscribers, taking the channel down instantly with no clear explanation. The only brief explanation given for the removal of Press TV UK’s account was that it had been reported and that Youtube had concluded that the account had violated its terms and conditions.

Press TV UK, is Britain’s wing of Press TV and its content has been focused on anti-imperialism, anti-racism, and covering aspects of the news which the mainstream corporate media in the United Kingdom have refused to air. This attack on the freedom of speech of Press TV’s journalists seems to be part of an anti-Iran purge as the West sets its sights on regime change in Iran.

The timing of this takedown seems to be an attack on the alternative narrative, which stands against the West's regime change objectives on Iran. Providing yet another example of how freedom of speech online is being clamped down on. In the past two years, thousands of social media pages and tens of Youtube accounts, Twitter accounts, and Facebook accounts attached to media outlets such as Russia Today, Venezuela’s Telesur, and of course Press TV, among others, have been taken down.

The recently deposed Bolivian President Evo Morales said very recently to Telesur English that the West wants to forcefully impose one narrative on world events. The way in which they seem to be doing that is through censoring and banning all the alternatives.

It seems as if we have entered into a new era of Orientalist propaganda. An era in which the opinions which emanate from the vast majority of those in the Global South are de-legitimized, ignored, and banned. The voices of immigrant communities in the West are somehow considered as underneath that of their Western European counterparts. In this arena, in which information is spread on the Internet, the Western mainstream narrative, espoused through its media outlets, pundits, writers, and politicians, has been largely defeated.

People in the West, in the information age and the age of social media, have discovered the opinions of those in the rest of the world and have begun to understand that the West is not the good guy it makes itself out to be. They have begun to see through the lies that have led us to countless regime wars across South America and the Middle East and see that those with the moral high ground are the people in these countries we invade and steal from.

With the removal of those voices, seemingly representing the voice of the voiceless in the West, it is the beginning of the end of freedom of speech in the Western world. How long will it be before voicing the opinions of Muslims and ethnic minorities in the UK, the US, and elsewhere will result in prison sentences? And more importantly, with channels espousing far-right views still allowed to operate on Youtube, how long will it be before there will be only the view of right- and left-wing white Europeans that is left for us to listen to?

Press TV is an outlet that aims to combat the Western mainstream media’s narrative, and whether you agree with the journalism done at Press TV, it is a matter of freedom of speech and freedom of the press that Press TV’s journalists be able to continue doing their jobs. For doing their jobs, however, Press TV journalists have been illegally detained by US authorities, spied on, subjected to smear campaigns, and their content has been taken down from online platforms.

In order for the UK to maintain its claim to providing the right to freedom of speech and freedom of the press, it should act to reinstate Press TV UK’s Youtube account and make it clear that Press TV’s journalists in the UK have their right to produce content and express their opinions.

(The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV.)

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.ir