YouTube has suspended Prophet T.B Joshua’s account in connection with violation of its content policy. Facebook also removed some of the ministry’s content on the platform.
The cleric confirmed this on his Twitter handle.
He tweeted:
“EMMANUEL TV YOUTUBE SUSPENSION: Our mission is to share the love of God with everyone – irrespective of race or religion – and we strongly oppose all forms of hate speech! We have had a long and fruitful relationship with YouTube and believe this decision was made in haste.”
It was learnt that YouTube’s action was predicated on some clips showing TB Joshua engaging in violent exorcism to ‘cure’ gay and lesbian congregants of their sexual orientation by casting out “the demon of homosexuality”.
It was learnt that a rights group, openDemocracy drew YouTube’s attention to the clips, asking whether some of the content violated the platform’s community guidelines.
YouTube upon review of the clips suspended the channel which had more than 1.8 million subscribers on April 12.
A YouTube spokesperson told openDemocracy:
“YouTube’s Community Guidelines prohibit hate speech and we remove flagged videos and comments that violate these policies. In this case we have terminated the channel.
“YouTube prohibits content which alleges that someone is mentally ill, diseased, or inferior because of their membership in a protected group including sexual orientation.”
Daina Rudusa, spokesperson for OutRight Action International, the global LGBTIQ human rights organisation also said:
“It is great to see social media platforms take a greater role in tackling these harmful practices by banning accounts spouting hate speech and promoting conversion practices.
“So-called conversion therapy is neither therapy, nor does it result in conversion” and it has been recognised as being “tantamount to torture.”
It was also learnt that Facebook took action against some of T.B Joshua’s content. Unlike YouTube which suspended the ministries’ entire channel, Facebook said it “removed a number of pieces of content from this page for violating these policies”.
Facebook company spokesperson said;
“We don’t allow attacks against people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity, including content promoting conversion therapy services.
“We take attacks on the LGBT+ community incredibly seriously and encourage people to report this kind of content when they see it so we can investigate.”
