VIDEO sharing platform YouTube has said it will not allow content promoting "proscribed terror organisations", after being criticised for removing `thousands of hours' of footage of loyalist bands.
There was an outcry after social media pages focussing on marching bands found videos and accounts deleted without warning.
"Many forms of cultural expression are allowed on YouTube, however we do not allow content that promotes proscribed terror organisations," a spokeswoman for platform owner Google said.
It is understood that some of the videos were removed based on content featuring parades of the Red Hand Defenders, which is a proscribed organisation.
Meanwhile, PUP councillor John Kyle accused an Alliance representative of "defaming" a band for objecting to its flag being flown in east Belfast.
David Armitage called for the newly-erected banner at My Lady's Road in the Woodstock area to be taken down and said he had reported it to police.
"This banner is nothing more than an act of intimidation and should not have been put up in the first place," he said.
Mr Kyle insisted the UVF Regimental Flute Band "is a well respected and long established local flute band".
"This banner has been flown in east Belfast for the past twenty years without criticism," he said.
"The Alliance Party has not only defamed the Band but the statement taints the memory of the fallen whom this marching band seeks to commemorate."
