October 25, 2026
OPEN LETTER TO: @YouTube @TeamYouTube @YouTubeCreators
SUBJECT: Urgent Appeal: Coordinated Mass-Reporting and Unjust Censorship of Amhara Civil Advocacy and Independent News Channels Amid Ongoing Massacres
To the YouTube Trust & Safety and Content Moderation Team:
We are writing on behalf of the Federation of Amharas in North America (FANA), an umbrella organization representing Amharas in North America, to formally appeal a severe and mounting series of unjust channel terminations, suspensions, shadowbans, and bulk video removals affecting content creators, independent media networks, human rights advocates, and civil organization representatives who publish content related to the Amhara community.
Amharas are a severely targeted community in Ethiopia, facing documented human rights atrocities, extrajudicial killings, drone strikes on civilians, mass displacement, and ongoing violence. These incidents have been recorded through victim testimonies, independent reports, and verifiable audiovisual evidence.
1. Unfolding Atrocities Behind an Information Vacuum
The urgency of this appeal cannot be overstated. State-backed forces and armed groups continue to carry out horrific atrocities that cannot be freely reported by local media.
Recent Massacres in Wollega and Arsi, Oromia: State-aligned forces and armed groups have reportedly slaughtered Amhara civilians, targeted families, burned homes, and displaced thousands.
Violence Against Women and Children in Moyale: Heavy border fighting and attacks on civilians in Moyale have reportedly targeted Somali women and children, driving thousands of terrified refugees across the border into Kenya in search of safety.
Atrocities Documented Through Distress Calls: Due to government-enforced media blackouts and telecommunications shutdowns, these atrocities cannot be adequately covered by local news outlets. The international community and diaspora often learn about these massacres through desperate phone calls from traumatized victims and survivors fleeing active crime scenes.
Denied a safe and open press environment domestically, community members, diaspora advocates, and civil society networks rely heavily on digital platforms like YouTube to receive eyewitness reports, expose ongoing human rights crises, and coordinate vital humanitarian assistance.
2. Weaponization of YouTube’s Moderation Systems
Groups that benefit from this violence have extended their campaign into the digital realm through organized, bad-faith mass-reporting campaigns. Regime-backed media operatives and state-sponsored digital actors are allegedly exploiting YouTube’s automated moderation, copyright, and policy enforcement systems to systematically mischaracterize Amhara civil organization activities, independent news coverage, and human rights advocacy as policy violations.
Regrettably, YouTube’s platform risks becoming an unwitting tool in this ongoing targeting by allowing automated moderation systems to suppress human rights reporting and independent journalism.
Reported concerns include:
Mass Channel Purges: Community tracking indicates that more than 400 YouTube channels and creator accounts belonging to Amhara journalists, human rights reporters, independent media outlets, and community organizers have reportedly been suspended, demonetized, or permanently terminated amid suspected coordinated mass-reporting campaigns.
Automated Keyword, Symbol, and Audio Suppression: Automated moderation algorithms and content filters are reportedly being manipulated to flag benign expressions of identity, historical symbolism—including the traditional green, yellow, and red Ethiopian flag—and fundamental terminology such as “Amhara” and “Fano,” as well as regional humanitarian distress calls.
Silencing Atrocity Awareness: While human rights reporting, survivor testimonies, and humanitarian appeals are reportedly removed under questionable pretexts, state propaganda appears to continue circulating on YouTube with comparatively fewer restrictions.
3. Our Demands to YouTube Leadership
When platform moderation tools are manipulated to silence those reporting violence and human rights abuse, YouTube risks reinforcing the very information vacuum in which atrocities occur.
We urgently request that YouTube’s human Trust & Safety team take the following actions:
Investigate Coordinated Mass-Reporting: Conduct an immediate investigation into suspected state-sponsored bot networks and organized troll farms orchestrating targeted mass-reporting campaigns against Amhara-focused channels and independent reporting outlets.
Audit Automated Enforcement: Review automated enforcement protocols affecting Amhara related keywords, human rights reporting, and independent news broadcasts to identify and correct patterns of wrongful suppression.
Restore Wrongfully Terminated Channels: Conduct fair, independent human reviews of appeals submitted by affected creators and restore access to channels found to have been wrongfully banned, suspended, or suppressed.
Protect Human Rights Advocates: Implement safeguards to prevent platform moderation systems from being weaponized against vulnerable communities seeking to expose atrocities, share eyewitness accounts, and coordinate essential humanitarian assistance.
YouTube has a responsibility to ensure that its policies are enforced fairly and consistently and that its moderation systems do not inadvertently silence vulnerable communities documenting human rights abuses. We urge your team to treat this appeal with the seriousness and urgency it deserves.
We respectfully request a timely response outlining the steps YouTube will take to investigate these concerns and protect affected creators and independent media channels.
Sincerely,
Federation of Amharas in North America (FANA)
Email: fanalightofamhara@gmail.com
Website: fanaamhara.org
About FANA: The Federation of Amharas in North America is a nonprofit organization focused on advocating for human rights and protecting vulnerable populations in Ethiopia, especially within the Amhara community.