YouTube has closed down two channels on their platform belonging to R. Kelly following the singer’s sex trafficking conviction last week.
The termination was done in accordance with YouTube’s creator responsibility guidelines. The guidelines state that if channel owners are accused of very egregious crimes, the platform can terminate their channels if the content is closely related to the crimes and the channel owners were convicted or pleaded guilty. The platform will also not allow him to create any new channels in future.
However, the platform did not remove all of R. Kelly’s music as his songs and albums continue to be available on the YouTube Music service.
The Grammy award winning singer will no longer be able to use, own or create any other YouTube channels. Furthermore, should a new channel be used to re-upload content from the terminated channels, the new channel will be deleted as well.
On Tuesday, YouTube removed the two channels, RKellyTV (with 3.5 million subscribers) and RKellyVevo (1.6 million subscribers). Attempts to watch videos from the channels display this message, “This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated.”
In a memo, YouTube VP of legal, Nicole Alston wrote, “Egregious actions committed by R. Kelly warrant penalties beyond standard enforcement measures due to a potential to cause widespread harm”. “Ultimately we are taking this action to protect our users similar to other platforms”, She added.
R. Kelly’s official accounts on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook also have recently been disabled.
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This move comes eight days after a federal jury found him guilty of sexual assault charges and racketeering. The 54-year-old is facing between 10 years to life in prison with sentencing to be held on May 4, 2022.
