YouTube channel of government’s media unit back online five days after being blocked
A YouTube India official said videos on some sites were blocked as the company was updating its partner agreements.
The official YouTube channel of the government’s media unit, Press Information Bureau, was back up on Thursday, five days after it was blocked.
Until Thursday morning, when a PIB video was played on the site, the page said the video was unavailable in India. It said, “This video contains content from Press Information Bureau. It is not available in your country.” By 11.45 am on Thursday, the channel had been unblocked.
However, the channel was back only after the International Yoga Day event featuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Dehradun got over. The event could not be live-streamed, but the channel later uploaded a video.
The Press Information Bureau’s channel was blocked on June 16, The Indian Express reported. “Videos on a limited number of sites have been blocked as we updated our partner agreements,” an unidentified YouTube India official told the daily. “We are working with them to get their videos back online.”
The problem came to light when a press conference by Union Minister Suresh Prabhu could not be streamed on YouTube on Tuesday, The Times of India reported.
Apart from the Press Information Bureau channel, the channels of Massachusetts Institute of Technology Open Courseware, Jamendo Music, and Blender Foundation had also been blocked, but have now been revived.