MANILA, Philippines – YouTube on Wednesday, June 21, took down a YouTube channel associated with Apollo Quiboloy, the founder of megachurch Kingdom of Jesus Christ and media network SMNI .

Two YouTube channels with distinct URLs are unavailable as of posting: youtube.com/@PastorApolloC.Quiboloy and youtube.com/@pastorACQ. But Rappler confirmed only the latter as the YouTube channel advertised on Quiboloy’s official website, linked to a button encouraging site visitors to subscribe to the channel. 

A YouTube link shared on Quiboloy’s official Facebook account also leads to a page showing the messages “Video unavailable” and “This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated.” 

The gamer who called YouTube’s attention on Twitter

Gaming YouTuber Mutahar “Muta” Anas (twitter.com/@ordinarygamers) in the early morning of Tuesday, June 20, called out YouTube by tagging @TeamYouTube, asking for the team to “help the feds (federal agents) or shut this account down,” referring to Quiboloy’s YouTube account.  

Anas said, “Actual human trafficking priest is running a channel still reaching out to victims less than 12 hours ago. Dude has an FBI warrant out rn (right now).” 

Anas has a Youtube page with more than 3 million followers, and a Twitter account with more than 700,000 followers. 

The post included two screenshots. One shows Quiboloy on a YouTube video titled “Satan Don’t Have Power Over Me” posted on an eponymously named channel showing 47,600 subscribers. The other shows a screenshot of the text that appears on the official FBI website’s “Most Wanted” page for Quiboloy, detailing his alleged participating in labor trafficking and fraud schemes, and his forcing female “personal assistants” to have sex with him as “night duty.”

Quiboloy has been indicted in the US for sex trafficking charges and bulk cash smuggling, among others, with the federal warrant for his arrest being issued on November 10, 2021. 

The @TeamYouTube page is different from the main @YouTube page on Twitter. The @TeamYouTube page is YouTube’s “support and education team” that “delivers timely updates and answers to creators, viewers, and paid subscribers on Twitter,” according to YouTube parent Google.

@TeamYouTube’s first reply to Anas came 10 minutes after, at 5:30 am, asking the YouTuber to report the content if he hadn’t yet, and provided a link to a reporting support page. 

@TeamYouTube responded again about 30 minutes later, saying “really appreciate you reporting this w/ the official tool, we’ll also bump this up with the policy team. we take reports like this very seriously, and the team works hard to action violative content when made aware. appreciate your patience as they take a closer look.”

Finally, the following day, the morning of June 21, @TeamYouTube replied again and announced, “hey, update here: upon review, we’ve determined that the channel is in violation of Community Guidelines & has been terminated.” 

What’s unclear currently is what specific violations caused the termination of Quiboloy’s channel. Is it the fact that Quiboloy is wanted by the FBI – a fact that Anas specifically pointed out in his tweet – and has been indicted by a US court?

If so, how would that affect other YouTube assets that are owned by Quiboloy, such as the Kingdom of Jesus Christ channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/SMNIntl) and the SMNI News channel (https://www.youtube.com/@SmniNews), a YouTube page owned by the Quiboloy’s Kingdom of Jesus Christ? 

The Kingdom of Jesus Christ itself has been flagged on the FBI website, wherein the FBI said, “We are speaking to current and former members of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and members of our community who are providing information concerning potential criminal activities of this group.”

Were the bans related to the investigations into the alleged criminal activities of Quiboloy and his group? 

SMNI has a track record of fueling disinformation, and continuing red-tagging of journalists and activists critical of the government. 

YouTube’s terms of service says: “YouTube reserves the right to suspend or terminate your Google account or your access to all or part of the Service if (a) you materially or repeatedly breach this Agreement; (b) we are required to do so to comply with a legal requirement or a court order; or (c) we believe there has been conduct that creates (or could create) liability or harm to any user, other third party, YouTube or our Affiliates.”

YouTube also has policies concerning “criminal organizations”, but there have yet to be convictions resulting from the US investigations surrounding the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, including the arrest of three leaders on immigration fraud charges and the indictment of its founder and leader Apollo Quiboloy, whose US assets also have been freezed, among other sanctions.

The termination of Quiboloy’s YouTube account brings the spotlight to other social media platforms as well, wherein the wanted person of interest continues to maintain account such as in Facebook and Twitter.

Rappler has emailed Google and YouTube for information on the specific violations that prompted the termination of Quiboloy’s account. The companies have acknowledged the email but have yet to issue a response to the inquiries. – Rappler.com