YOUTUBE DELETES TWO R. KELLY CHANNELS BUT NO BAN
A week after R. Kelly’s conviction on federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges, YouTube has deleted two of the R&B star’s official video channels but is not banning his music entirely.
The two channels — RKellyTV and the singer’s Vevo account, which hosted his music videos — were removed as of Tuesday in what YouTube, owned by Google, stated was an enforcement of its terms of service.
“We can confirm that we have terminated two channels linked to R. Kelly in accordance with our creator responsibility guidelines,” Ivy Choi, a YouTube spokesperson, said in a statement. According to YouTube’s guidelines, it may shut down the channels of people accused of very serious offences if they have been convicted of or pleaded guilty to crimes, and if their content is closely related to those crimes.
On Tuesday, a news report in Bloomberg quoted an internal memo by Nicole Alston, YouTube’s head of legal, which said: “Egregious actions committed by R. Kelly warrant penalties beyond standard enforcement measures due to a potential to cause widespread harm.”
In the past, YouTube has removed the channels of creators like Austin Jones, who made popular cappella videos and in 2019 pleaded guilty to having underage girls send him sexually explicit videos.
YouTube’s stance may be the first significant action taken by a major tech platform to remove Kelly’s content. But it is not a total ban. Kelly’s music is still allowed on YouTube through user-generated content, like cover versions of his songs, and on Kelly’s “topic” page, which allows streaming of his recordings while a static image of his album artwork is displayed.
And Kelly’s music remains fully available on YouTube Music, a separate streaming platform that competes more directly with audio outlets like Spotify and Apple Music.