Nearly 30,000 videos disappear from Hong Kong pro-democracy YouTube channel
A YouTube channel founded by a veteran Hong Kong film producer-turned-political commentator has had some 28,000 videos removed on Monday due to an “administrative error.” The issue was fixed by Tuesday noon.
The videos on the YouTube account of Meme Hong Kong, founded by commentator Stephen Shiu Yeuk-yuen, suddenly went missing on Monday afternoon with only the phrase “This channel has no videos” left. The account has more than 647,000 subscribers and Shiu regularly uploads his commentaries on Hong Kong and China politics there.
Seventy-year-old Shiu, the producer of Sex and Zen (1991) who now lives in Taiwan, said YouTube first told him that the account was hacked, but explained later that it was due to an administrative error and was unrelated to politics. The account was undergoing emergency maintenance and it would take five days, Shiu was told. “I don’t understand why it has to take five days,” Shiu said.
Shiu said he would not speculate the reason behind the incident. “I dare not say — judge yourself,” he said, adding that he would upload his videos to Facebook for now.
YouTube has been under fire recently as YouTubers who criticized China for spreading the coronavirus, as well as YouTubers who uploaded pro-democracy content, had their channels demonetized, meaning they would receive less advertisement revenue. YouTube denied political suppression and explained it was because the topics fell under YouTube’s category of controversial issues and sensitive events.
-----------------------------
Apple Daily’s all-new English Edition is now available on mobile app. To know more : https://bit.ly/2yMMfQE