by Ailan Evans
YouTube deleted one of former Texas Rep. Ron Paul’s channels Thursday and denied his appeal to reinstate it, only restoring the account after Paul voiced his frustrations on Twitter.
Paul posted two screenshots on Twitter Thursday of emails sent to him by YouTube informing him his account “RonPaulInstitute” had been removed for “severe or repeated violations of our community guidelines.” A screenshot of another email appeared to show an automatic reply from YouTube informing Paul that his appeal to reinstate the account had been denied.
“Very shocked that @YouTube has completely removed the Channel of my Ron Paul Institute: no warning, no strikes, no evidence,” Paul wrote. “Only explanation was ‘severe or repeated violations of our community guidelines.’ Channel is rarely used. The appeal was automatically rejected. Help?”
Within three hours of Paul’s original tweet, YouTube replied with confirmation that it had deleted Paul’s account, characterizing it as a mistake and informing him it had been restored.
“Heard back from our team that this was a mistake and your channel has been reinstated,” YouTube tweeted in response to Paul. “Thanks for being patient while we sorted this out – we’ll be reaching out via email shortly in case you have any questions.”
Paul acknowledged the tech company had reinstated the account. Google did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
YouTube announced Wednesday that it was expanding its health misinformation policies and removing anti-vaccine content from its platforms. Paul’s son Republican Sen. Rand Paul was temporarily suspended from the platform in August after posting content critical of the efficacy of cloth face masks.
Young Americans for Liberty, a libertarian organization affiliated with Rand Paul, condemned the removal of the content as “a new low” in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“The company will gladly platform government mass murderers who lie us into war, but a country doctor and former members of Congress who preaches peace and liberty is apparently too much,” spokesman Eric Brakey said.
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