President slams YouTube for taking down his video that shared a journalist’s phone number
MEXICO’S PRESIDENT again lashed out at social media platform YouTube on Monday for taking down part of his daily news briefing where he revealed a reporter’s phone number.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the platform in Mexico “has been taken over by conservatives”, accused it of censorship, and claimed YouTube “is in full decline”.
It marked the latest chapter in the Mexican president’s love-hate relationship with social media. López Obrador’s YouTube channel has 4.2 million subscribers, and the president gives preference to social media blogs and news sites at his briefings, often answering questions only from them.
Press freedom groups said the president’s decision to make public the phone number of a New York Times reporter on Thursday was an attempt to punish critical reporting, and exposed the reporter to potential danger.
The row started when López Obrador took offence at a New York Times story about a US inquiry into claims that people close to him took money from drug traffickers shortly before his 2018 election, and again after he was president.
As is common practice, the Times reporter had sent a letter to López Obrador’s spokesman asking for the president’s comment on the story before it was published, and included her telephone number as a means of contacting her.
At his daily press briefing that day, the president displayed the letter on a large screen and read it aloud, including her phone number.
While Mexican law prohibits officials from revealing personal information about people, López Obrador said “the political and moral authority of the president of Mexico is above that law”.