‘Totalitarian society’: Iconic Serbian filmaker hits out after YouTube ban

Emir Kusturica says the Google-owned platform is seeking to suppress any dissent contradicting the mainstream narrative Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica has accused YouTube of waging a “war” against people who think independently and “tell the truth,” after the Google-owned platform deleted his channel without any warning.YouTube removed Kusturica’s ‘My Life’ channel on Wednesday, without publicly elaborating on the decision, according to several media reports. The project, produced with Sputnik’s Serbian service, contained more than 200 videos and had roughly 30,000 subscribers. Some of the videos are dedicated to the fate of Yugoslavia, the clash of civilizations, and the collision between Christian and Western values.After the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, YouTube banned both Sputnik and RT as the West imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia. Moscow condemned the Western crackdown on the outlets as proof of an anti-Russian agenda and Western censorship. Commenting on the ban, Kusturica told TASS that “a totalitarian society” was behind the move, adding that “for them it is normal that they closed the channel on YouTube. They are at war with us, with people who think, ...