A YouTube video all about gay men kissing has been blocked in Russia, but are we really surprised?
Gay Star News broke the story surrounding the social justice channel Bashinsky Time or BT. Roman Bashinsky, the owner and creator of the YouTube channel, says that he was sad when he found out that a video of his had been banned in the European country.
The video shows several blindfolded people having to kiss six strangers of varying ages and genders. The different blindfolded people then had to describe the kisses.
“(I made the video) to cultivate tolerance in our country,” Bashinsky told Gay Star News.
“For Russia, kissing a man a man is not normal. We want to fix it. Russia must be a civilized and tolerant country.”
Unfortunately, the video, which was uploaded on Russian social media site VK along with YouTube, was later taken down from all Russian affiliated social media platforms.
Despite the video remaining, with an age restriction, in other country versions of YouTube, the video was completely removed in Russia’s. Bashinsky believes the homophobic employees at YouTube were involved.
As for how Bashinsky found out that his video was deleted in one section of YouTube and not the others, he says that “YouTube sends video restrictions alerts”
“The video does not violate the rules of YouTube. Kissing in the video does not carry sexual connotations, which means video is allowed to be shown to a wide audience.”
Keep in mind that Russia currently has a “gay propaganda law” that was signed in by President Vladimir Putin in 2013. The law is supposedly meant to protect youth from seeing LGBTQ content, despite later targeting a Russian youth, online, in television, social media, or even in-person. Anyone who violates the law will face a fine of 5,000 rubles (approximately $72).
Unfortunately, Bashinsky’s video is the latest victim in the homophobic mentality behind such as law.
h/t: Gay Star News
