Video-sharing giant YouTube has decided to remove the notoriously anti-Semitic Nation of Islam's channel from its platform due to hate speech.
The channel was taken down on October 2 for violating the video-sharing platform's hate speech terms, and in particular, for advancing a claim that Jews are part of an evil conspiracy theory, the Los Angeles-based Jewish Journal reported.
“We have strict policies prohibiting hate speech on YouTube, and terminate any channel that repeatedly or egregiously violates those policies,” a YouTube spokesperson told the Journal.
“After updating our guidelines last year to better address content that spreads hateful conspiracy theories, we saw a five-fold spike in video removals and have terminated over 25,000 channels for violating our hate speech policies,” the spokesperson added.
NOI did not respond to the Journal’s request for comment.
Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, has repeatedly made anti-Semitic statements.
Last year, he made a speech denying his hatred of Jewish people but caused outrage by using the term “Satanic Jews.”
Farrakhan has also been banned by Facebook. He is barred from Britain and mostly blocked from mainstream TV for his history of anti-Semitic and homophobic comments.
Since August 2019, YouTube has removed several white nationalist figures from its platform, including David Duke and Richard Spencer in June of this year.