Israeli Law Professor reportedly censored by YouTube twice, platform blames over reliance on AI: An interview with George Mason University Israeli law professor Eugene Kontorovich was reportedly removed from YouTube twice, according to The Washington Free Beacon's Santi Ruiz, who broke the story. After going on air with Russia Today to discuss the legal status of Israeli strikes in Gaza, the professor posted a YouTube link he received from Russia Today to his Twitter feed, according to discussions Free Speech America had with Ruiz. The video was eventually shutdown, and Kontorovich received notice from YouTube that the video had been removed for violating unspecified community guidelines, Ruiz told FSA. Ruiz then ran his first story detailing YouTube's removal of Kontorovich's interview. Shortly after publication of Ruiz's story, YouTube said it had reviewed the video manually, found no issues and reinstated the video, Ruiz recalled to FSA. Kontorovich then posted the video to his YouTube channel, where once again YouTube took it down for violating its "violent criminal organizations" policy. The video was then reposted and, when reached for comment by Ruiz, YouTube blamed the handling of the video on its over reliance on "automated systems" during the coronavirus pandemic. Here is the statement a YouTube spokesperson sent FSA in an email: "Professor Kontorovich’s video does not violate YouTube’s Community Guidelines and the video is available on YouTube again. As part of our response to COVID-19, we are temporarily relying more on technology to help with some of the work normally done by reviewers. In this case, automated systems removed content that did not violate our policies, and we worked to quickly reinstate it."