YouTube takes down music videos supportive of farmers' protest

YouTube recently pulled down a video by famous Punjabi singer Kanwar Grewal titled 'Aliaan'. The song was aimed at supporting the ongoing farmer protests in the country. Before it was taken down, the video had around 6 million views.

YouTube has updated the video with a notification on the original video stating, "This content is not available on this country domain due to a legal complaint from the government."

In a statement, a spokesperson for YouTube said; "We comply with valid legal requests from authorities wherever possible, consistent with our longstanding policy and act quickly to remove identified content."

Despite the takedown, fans of the artist have posted the video on other channels. According to previous media reports, a video by Himmat Sandhu titled 'Asi Vaddange', which also expressed support for the farm protest, was also taken down on YouTube. Asi Vaddange reportedly had over 1.3 crore views on the Google-owned video streaming platform.

However, the crackdowns haven't stopped the surge of support for the protests that have come in from Punjabi celebrities and singers. And it isn't just YouTube, microblogging site Twitter has also received notices from the Government of India to start blocking accounts that supported the farmer protests.

The Indian Government has cited terrorist links as a reason for the blocking orders but is yet to provide substantial evidence of its claims. Last week, the farm protests made considerable headway among international circles after tweets from activists Greta Thunberg, and actors like Rihanna and Susan Sarandon in support of the protests sparked nation-wide debate.