Spox: German govt not involved in closing RT’s YouTube channel

BERLIN, Sep 29 (PRIME) -- The decision to close channel RT Deutsch has been made by YouTube, and the German authorities are not involved, German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said on Wednesday at a briefing.

“It is the decision of YouTube against RT and, it seems, one more channel on the base of YouTube’s rules. We take it into consideration. Opportunities, evidently, exist for the effected channels to resist the move,” Seibert said.

“But we consider it, these are not state measures, not the measures taken by the government of Germany. Since it is claimed, it’s the reason I decided to denounce it clearly,” he said.

Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of media group Rossiya Segodnya and TV channel RT, said that YouTube had deleted two German channels of RT beyond recovery.

The Russian communications service said earlier that it can fine YouTube’s owner, Google up to 1 million rubles if the U.S. company ignores the country’s request to unblock RT’s channels on YouTube, and a repeated refusal can be punished with an up to 3 million ruble fine.

(72.5083 rubles – U.S. $1)

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