YouTube has permanently disabled two channels associated with disgraced R&B artist R. Kelly, who was convicted guilty of sex trafficking last week, and will not allow him to register any new channels in the future.
However, YouTube has not removed Kelly’s music: On YouTube Music, the online video giant will continue to sell the singer’s music catalogue.
YouTube suspended the two channels — RKellyTV (3.5 million subscribers) and RKellyVevo (1.6 million subscribers) — on Tuesday, alleging a breach of its terms of service. When trying to watch videos from the now-defunct channels, a message appears that says, “This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated.”
“Egregious actions committed by R. Kelly warrant penalties beyond standard enforcement measures due to a potential to cause widespread harm,” YouTube VP of legal Nicole Alston wrote in a memo, as reported by Bloomberg. “Ultimately we are taking this action to protect our users similar to other platforms.”
Kelly’s official Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook profiles were also just deactivated.
Kelly’s channels were deleted by YouTube eight days after a federal jury found him guilty of racketeering and eight crimes under an anti-sex trafficking law. Kelly’s sentencing date is slated for May 4, 2022. The 54-year-old faces a sentence of 10 years to life in jail.
YouTube stated that it removed the R. Kelly-related channels in compliance with its “creator responsibility guidelines.”
” That policy prohibits “on- and/or off-platform behavior that we may consider to be inappropriate,” including “intending to cause malicious harm to others” and “participating in abuse or violence, demonstrating cruelty, or participating in fraudulent/deceptive behavior leading to real-world harm.”
After months of criticism, Kelly’s longtime company, Sony Music’s RCA Records, cut relations with her in January 2019. However, almost all of his repertoire remains with the company and is still available on major music streaming sites.
In survey conducted by Morning Consult after Kelly’s conviction, 44% of audio-streaming service users said platforms like Spotify and Apple Music should remove his music from their catalogs, while 36% said his songs should stay up and 20% had no opinion or said they didn’t know.
Following decades of women coming forward to accuse him of sex crimes, Kelly was found guilty in federal court in New York on Sept. 27 of leading a scheme to recruit women and girls for sex. Kelly was acquitted of child pornography charges in Illinois in 2008, and he is still facing more accusations there.
During the trial, one witness said that he witnessed Kelly sexually abusing late R&B singer Aaliyah in 1993, when she was just 13 or 14 years old, according to the Associated Press. According to the Associated Press, Kelly is also accused of locking a radio intern in a room where she fell out and sexually assaulting her, videotaping a woman wiping excrement on her face as punishment for not following his rules, and deliberately giving other individuals herpes.