Novara Media has YouTube channel briefly removed ‘without warning or explanation’

Novara Media has had its YouTube channel restored after it was temporarily suspended on Tuesday morning “without warning or explanation.”

The online outlet, founded in 2011, is an independent, left-wing alternative media organisation founded in 2011.

"We play an important public service role and regularly feature interviews with politicians, human rights campaigners, scientists and campaigners from around the world", Novara said in a statement.

"We are also regulated by IMPRESS in the UK. We call on YouTube to immediately reinstate our account," it added.

It is not clear what time Novara's channel went offline but its statement was published at 11.40am.

The channel, which has 167,000 subscribers, was back online in the afternoon.

The temporary removal of the account sparked outrage from Labour MP Richard Burgon.

"What on earth is going on @YouTube? I ask this as an elected Member of the UK Parliament," he tweeted.

"@novaramediais an important platform for left journalism and discussion. It shouldn’t be shut down."

Ash Sarkar, Novara's contributing editor, suggested the account was removed because of an alleged breach of YouTube’s community guidelines.

Speaking to Owen Jones on his YouTube channel later, Ms Sarkar said: "Well what happened was our head of video saw an email from YouTube saying there had been a breach of community guidelines.

"There was no thorough explanation of what those guidelines were. We're fairly confident about our content.”

A YouTube spokesperson said: “Novara Media’s channel was briefly removed after it was flagged, but upon review, it was then immediately reinstated.

“We work quickly to review all flagged content, but with millions of hours of video uploaded on YouTube every day, on occasion we make the wrong call.”