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# YouTube Walks Back Ban of Award-Winning Movement Journalist
- URL: https://movement.mymidnight.blog/youtube-bans-award-winning-zapotec-journalist/
- Published: 2026-10-08T23:19:41.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-14T22:23:14.000Z
- Description: "TikTok has [also] been deleting my videos."
- Author: Joe Wilkins

**Update:** *Soriano's channel has been reinstated as of 12:30pm Friday, October 9th. The original article has been updated to reflect this development.*

Any media worker who's spent time covering protest actions across New York City will have run into Javier Soriano, a veteran independent journalist whose signature burgundy fedora and unwavering commitment to social justice make him a standout figure in the world capital of corporate media.

Since arriving in New York City in 1996, Soriano has built a decades-long career as a journalist. Armed with a camera and his NYC press pass, he has produced an exhaustive archive of historically important footage — not only of thousands of important protests and rallies, but also parades, addresses from government officials, and vignettes of daily life across the five boroughs.

One of the most important stores of Soriano's work was hosted on his YouTube channel, JavierSorianoNY. Yet on October 8th, YouTube temporarily suspended Soriano's profile, an action that seemed to scrub untold terabytes of original news footage from the platform.

"On October 8, 2026, YouTube deleted my channel without any prior explanation," Soriano shared in a [post on Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1feffRo3Ui/). "I'm a journalist. My channel had thousands of videos from many different events I have covered over many years."

It's unknown what content triggered YouTube to suspend the journalist, if any. Soriano frequently covers topics related to social justice and anti-imperialism, such as a [recent demonstration](https://www.javiersoriano.com/2026/10/03/9-months-president-maduro-and-flores/?ref=movement.mymidnight.blog) in support of Cilia Flores and Nicolás Maduro at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, and a protest [commemorating three years](https://www.javiersoriano.com/2026/10/07/3-years-of-resistance/?ref=movement.mymidnight.blog) since the beginning of the ongoing Israeli genocide of Palestinians.

"I appealed and YouTube says: 'your channel won't be put back on YouTube,'" the journalist explained.

In a comment to *Movement Notes*, a Google spokesperson said "we reviewed the channel and determined it does not violate our Community Guidelines; it has been reinstated." Regardless, the momentary suspension came at a key time, coinciding with [Soriano's coverage](https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1FA68f3zjJ/) of a [new federal indictment](https://truthout.org/articles/fbi-adds-torture-charges-against-maduro-as-us-faces-questions-over-its-abuses/?ref=movement.mymidnight.blog) against Cilia Flores and Nicolás Maduro.

Soriano is a veteran bilingual journalist of Zapotec descent, who regularly covers events in both Spanish and English for thousands of followers. In 2007, the City of New York awarded Soriano an official proclamation for his "outstanding service to the City and the community," calling him a "credit to the Mexican community" worthy of "the esteem of all New Yorkers." He has likewise been recognized for his journalistic achievements by groups like the Comité Guadalupano of Our Lady of Refuge, as well as Premios Gruperos and Asociación Tepeyac de New York.

Despite what appeared to be a massive blow to his digital archive, Soriano was determined to continue his work with or without YouTube, explaining that viewers can still watch his "newest videos on Facebook, UpScrolled, Rumble and TikTok," though he caveats that "TikTok has \[also\] been deleting my videos."

Soriano's temporary delisting illustrates a broader pattern of opaque platform moderation among US tech monopolies, which exercise complete authority over access to their platforms. Despite their role in mediating critical digital infrastructure, these privately-owned corporations have [full power](https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-google-interferes-with-its-search-algorithms-and-changes-your-results-11573823753?ref=movement.mymidnight.blog) to censure any user or search result at any time, with no obligation to provide explanations for their actions. Though it remains to be seen what content triggered Soriano's suspension, these actions often come [at the](https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/08/25/pers-a25.html?ref=movement.mymidnight.blog) [expense](https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/12/21/metas-broken-promises/systemic-censorship-palestine-content-instagram-and?ref=movement.mymidnight.blog) of those offering anti-imperialist perspectives.

In late 2025, [the *Intercept* reported](https://theintercept.com/2025/12/07/youtube-deleted-journalist-israel-palestine-censorship/?ref=movement.mymidnight.blog) that YouTube had delisted the account of British journalist Robert Inlakesh, who documented a decade of Israeli occupation of the Palestinian West Bank. After removing his professional account, YouTube also deleted Inlakesh's private account, while the platform's parent company, Google, unilaterally banned his Google accounts, scrubbing his email as well as documents held in the company's cloud storage.

In the two years following the suspensions, Google offered three shifting explanations, including that Inlakesh had violated YouTube's vague community guidelines, that his YouTube page contained spam, and finally that the journalist was an Iranian agent. As of December 2025, Inlakesh was reportedly unable to create any new accounts on Google-owned platforms, functionally cutting him off from "sharing his video journalism on the largest English-language video platform" on Earth, as the *Intercept* explained.

In recent months, the tech giant has also taken down accounts like the Nairobi-based anti-imperialist outlet [*Sovereign Media*](https://www.presstv.co.uk/Detail/2026/05/13/768542/youtube-removes-kenyan-antiimperialist-channel-sovereign-media-without-notice?ref=movement.mymidnight.blog); the Brazilian anti-imperialist outlet [*TV Marighella*](https://causaoperaria.org.br/2026/tv-marighela-e-excluida-permanentemente-do-youtube/?ref=movement.mymidnight.blog#1); and an account belonging to award-winning Ukrainian journalist and broadcaster [Diana Panchenko](https://www.tiktok.com/@edwardmliger/video/7536299381352320286?is%5Ffrom%5Fwebapp=1&sender%5Fdevice=pc&ref=movement.mymidnight.blog).

*The headline of this article has been updated from its original to reflect the developments. The original read: "YouTube Bans Award-Winning Movement Journalist."*

**More on free expression:** [*Researchers Raided by Police After Hosting Discussion on Korean Unification*](https://movement.mymidnight.blog/researchers-raided-by-police-after-hosting-discussion-on-korean-unification/)