Sidhu Moosewala’s ‘SYL’ music video removed: Why does YouTube remove content?

What is Sidhu Moosewala’s song about?

The song’s title, SYL, stands for the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal which is at the heart of a 40-year-old water dispute between Punjab and Haryana. The music video, which has now been taken down, mentions the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, and shows the Sikh flag being hoisted at the Red Fort during the farmers’ agitation. The song also mentions Babbar Khalsa militant Balwinder Jattana, who had shot dead two government officials in Chandigarh in 1990, bringing the SYL work to a halt. He was later killed in a police encounter in 1991.

Apart from this, the video carries visuals of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, two convicts in former CM Beant Singh assassination case — Balwant Singh Rajoana and Jagtar Singh Hawara. Pictures of Sikh militants Davinder Pal Bhullar, Gurdeep Singh Khaira, Lakhwinder Singh, Jagtar Singh Tara and several others are also there.

The YouTube video got 27 million views in less than three days. It also received 3.3 million likes on the video streaming platform. On Tuesday, the song was at spot number 81 on the Billboard Canadian Hot 100 list.

What makes YouTube remove videos from its platform?

YouTube uses various mechanisms for removing videos from its platform including community reporting as well as requests from government bodies, law enforcement agencies, court orders, etc. The government requests are made either through the formal channels such as webforms, etc. or through informal channels such as Google’s public policy team. Some requests may allege infringement of intellectual property rights, while others may claim violation of local laws prohibiting types of content on grounds such as defamation.

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How many times has YouTube received government requests in India to remove content?

As per the Google Transparency Report, during 2021, there were 1,670 government requests to remove content from YouTube. This ranged across categories such as defamation, government criticism, violence, religious offence, national security, hate speech, copyright, privacy and security, etc. In 2020, 1,538 such requests were made.