Al-Mashat demands Yemeni platforms as alternative to Western SM
3 Min Read
Yemeni Supreme Political Council Chief Mahdi al-Mashat calls for national social media platforms after YouTube shut down numerous Yemeni channels.
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Yemeni Supreme Political Council chief Mahdi al-Mashat
The President of the Yemeni Supreme Political Council, Mahdi al-Mashat, has directed the Ministry of Communications to incentivize national content creators and set up domestic digital platforms.
This comes as part of a national strategy to enhance digital national content following the closure of Yemeni media channels on platforms like YouTube and Facebook about a month ago.
Yemeni Communications and Information Technology Minister Mousfer Al-Namir presented to al-Mashat a vision for the project of national content platforms, which the ministry is adopting, Yemeni news agency SABA reported.
Al-Mashat condemned "the American platforms that collaborate with the enemy against national media channels, which highlight the crimes of the aggression against the Yemeni people."
During his meeting with Jamal Amer, the editor-in-chief of the Yemeni Al-Wasat newspaper, al-Mashat stated that the closure of Yemeni national platforms "expose the falsehood of Western American slogans, which claim to uphold freedom of expression."
Read more: Western official foreign policy megaphone, Youtube, bans Yemeni media
Al-Mashat, furthermore, emphasized that the platforms that closed the national channels "aim to cover up the crimes of aggression in Yemen, considering them a fundamental partner in these actions."
The senior official stressed the need to respect constructive criticism and diversity, which does not violate any national or religious principles, with respect to the situation in Yemen under the blockade and sanctions.
Al-Mashat highlighted that it was necessary that media work does not violate Islamic and national principles.
On August 2, YouTube shut down 13 channels belonging to the Yemeni Ansar Allah Media Center, in a measure that the center said "reveals the falsity of the slogan of freedom of expression."
"The YouTube company a few days ago closed 13 channels affiliated with the Ansar Allah Media Center without any violation of the so-called 'YouTube standards', and without any justifications," the Center confirmed in a statement.
The Center pointed out that the measure comes "within the framework of the attempts of the countries of aggression and global arrogance to hide their crimes against the Yemeni people, and their attempts to silence the voice of truth and justice."
The statement explained that the Ansar Allah Media Center exhausted all options to restore the channels by contacting YouTube, adding that the company refuses to respond to requests and continues to shut down several other national channels "in an indication of an aggressive campaign to silence every Yemeni voice against aggression."
The statement called on the YouTube administration to immediately retract the recent measures it took against Yemeni media institutions.
Weeks earlier, YouTube shut down 18 channels of the Yemeni Military Media, the Ansar Allah band, the artistic and documentary production unit, and Rawdat Al-Shuhada, in an "arbitrary step", according to the Yemeni Military Media statement.
The closed channels had more than 500 thousand subscribers with more than 7 thousand videos and more than 90 million views.
The Yemeni Military Media confirmed that the recent shutdown of its platforms, as well as other national platforms, on YouTube, in addition to Facebook and Twitter, is a clear indication of "double standards and a two-faced policy by the management of these companies in support of hostilities led by the US-Saudi-Emirati coalition of aggression."
