Following a CBC investigation, YouTube shut down a popular channel focused on conservative content after achieving tens of millions of views during the 2025 federal election.
Now, the public broadcaster is bragging about having the channel taken down.
The account, Real Talk Politiks, said it had amassed nearly 70 million views between April 3 and April 30, outperforming mainstream outlets including CBC in the run-up to election day.
The channel published concise political commentary that critiqued progressive politics and government-funded media such as the CBC itself.
Its removal came days after CBC’s Visual Investigations team and Radio-Canada’s Décrypteurs contacted YouTube with questions about its content.
“A YouTube account that was the most popular Canada-based news and politics channel during much of the 2025 federal election has been taken down by YouTube, following inquiries from CBC News’s visual investigations team and Radio-Canada’s Décrypteurs,” wrote CBC reporters.
YouTube said the termination was due to violations of policies on spam, scams and deceptive practices but did not specify what violations the channel committed.
The channel’s creator disputes that claim, calling the takedown was politically motivated.
“A billion dollar, state-funded media outlet went after a small creator, just because I was getting more views than them,” wrote the channel creators.
CBC’s investigation focused on the channel’s use of AI voiceovers in the videos.
The broadcaster described the format as a form of “content farming,” a term used to describe low-quality material produced in mass quantities to provoke engagement.
One example flagged involved an AI-generated version of former U.S. president Ronald Reagan delivering a joke he never said himself, in a comedic script.
The creator told CBC the clip was sourced from elsewhere on YouTube and believed to be authentic.
The video has circulated across YouTube, but the company did not mention if that video factored into the takedown.
The timing has raised questions about whether the CBC crossed a line by pushing a private platform to act against a competitor in the political media field.
The channel’s operator concluded his remarks on X saying “when state media and big tech team up to silence a creator because of political ideology, it’s not just censorship, it’s tyranny with a smile”.