🚫 YouTube Just Did the Dirtiest Thing I’ve Ever Seen It Do to Three Palestinian Human Rights Organizations

700+ videos erased, three channels wiped—because they worked with the ICC. Sanctions can stop money; they can’t legally stop information.

Before you watch anything tonight, hear me: this is why our work must stay free to the world and why we need to hire two people—an editor and a producer—to put documents on screen every day. When platforms erase evidence, our little newsroom has to mirror, verify, and publish it so the truth doesn’t disappear. The New York Times has 12 millionsubscribers and still can’t tell Gaza’s truth. We have 3,100 members—and we side with the oppressed in every single story. If that matters to you, please become a member. If you can, join monthly, annually, or as a founding member. This isn’t a tip; it’s how truth survives deletion.

Here’s what happened. In early October, YouTube quietly deleted the official channels of three of Palestine’s most respected human rights organizations—Al-Haq, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR)—wiping more than 700 videos that documented Israeli war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank: a documentary with mothers surviving genocide; a video investigation into Israel’s role in the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh; evidence of home demolitions and torture. Gone.

YouTube admitted to my former colleagues at The Intercept that it did this to comply with U.S. sanctions, not because those videos broke any community rules. The only “offense” was that these organizations cooperated with the International Criminal Court on cases that resulted in arrest warrants and war-crimes charges against Israeli leaders. In September, after those ICC moves, the Trump administration sanctioned the groups—and YouTube chose to erase their entire archives “after review.” (Reporting by Nikita Mazurov and Jonah Valdez for The Intercept—I’ll link their excellent piece here in full.)

Let me say this as plainly as I can: sanctions can stop money; they cannot lawfully stop information. That’s not my opinion; it’s the law. Under the Berman Amendment (part of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act), “informational materials”—books, films, news, videos, whether printed, digital, or streamed—are exempt from embargoes. Congress wrote that protection on purpose. As Katherine Gallagher at the Center for Constitutional Rights told The Intercept, “YouTube is furthering the Trump administration’s agenda to remove evidence of human rights violations and war crimes from public view”—even though Congress explicitly exempted information from the statute the White House is waving around.

Federal courts are already skeptical. Judges have issued preliminary injunctions against parts of these ICC-related sanctions on First Amendment grounds in separate cases. Translation: even the judiciary sees this overreach.

So why did YouTube do it? Because it was easier to over-comply than to stand up for the principle that platforms should not erase evidence. And here’s what makes it worse: they didn’t just geoblock in the United States (still wrong). They deleted globally—erasing years of documentation from the world’s largest video platform. PCHR said the decision “protects perpetrators from accountability.” Al-Haq called it a “serious failure of principle and an alarming setbackfor human rights and free expression.” They’re right.

The ICC is not a fringe outfit. It’s the highest criminal court in the world. About 150 nations cooperate with it. These three organizations were doing exactly what the civilized world says victims are supposed to do: take your evidence to court. For that, they were sanctioned—and now punished by a tech company that claims to support human rights. Mind you, this was them advocating for THEIR OWN PEOPLE. And this is what YouTube did to them.

I’ve seen YouTube make bad calls. This one belongs in the Hall of Shame. No one is even alleging these videos promoted terrorism or “dangerous individuals.” No one is alleging a terms-of-service breach. YouTube’s own spokesperson said the removals flowed from sanctions compliance. That’s how you know this is not content moderation. It’s censorship by sanction.

And it’s dangerous. Evidence is how we build cases, educate the public, and resist gaslighting. Erasing it weakens accountability and re-traumatizes survivors who told their stories believing the world might listen.

I want three answers from YouTube, on the record:

1. Show the law. What specific provision required global deletion of informational materials that are exempt from sanctions?

2. Show the audit. Did a single video violate Community Guidelines? If yes, which ones and why? If not, why erase entire archives?

3. Show the plan. If sanctions are narrowed or struck down, will YouTube restore the channels and a public indexof what it deleted—so researchers, prosecutors, and families can find the evidence again?

Until then, I’m going to say the quiet part out loud: by choosing deletion over law, YouTube aligned with power against victims—and showed the world how fragile its principles really are.

Here’s the truth you’re not supposed to say: this will backfire. Groups like Al-Haq, Al Mezan, and PCHR will migrate off U.S. platforms. People who still care about evidence will back up the record elsewhere. And every time a platform does this to Palestine, more people learn how politicized these companies are. You don’t build trust by erasing the record. You destroy it.

Facts No One Can Spin

• YouTube deleted the official channels of Al-Haq, Al Mezan, and PCHR, erasing 700+ videos in October.

• YouTube confirms it acted to comply with sanctions, not because of Community Guidelines violations.

• U.S. law exempts informational materials (including videos) from sanctions—hosting evidence is not “material support.”

• Federal judges have already enjoined parts of the ICC-sanctions regime on First Amendment grounds.

• Outcome: critical evidence of alleged Israeli war crimes was removed from the world’s largest video platform.

Here’s what we’ll do next. We’ll start assembling a public index of the disappeared videos (org, title, date, any Wayback/Vimeo mirrors we can find) and embed as many as we can recover. We’ll also mirror key items outside U.S. jurisdiction where necessary. This is slow work. It’s also holy work.

If you want a newsroom that won’t blink when the record is erased—and keeps the replacement free to the world—help me hire the editor and producer who can make this daily. Please become a member. If you’re able, join as a monthly, annual, or founding member. Our allegiance is clean: we tell the truth, and we side with the oppressed.

Love and appreciate each of you.
Your friend and brother,
Shaun

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