The YouTube channel of Mojo Story, a multimedia website led by journalist Barkha Dutt, was hacked and all of its content was deleted, as of Monday, May 5. The display picture of the channel was also changed to a logo of the American locomotive company Tesla. Barkha blamed YouTube for not acting on her complaints about the hackers in time and said, “Four years of blood, toil, sweat, tears, 11,000 videos, COVID work of three years, ALL GONE. I am heartbroken.” However, hours after, some of the deleted videos have begun to reappear, and the channel display image also has been changed to the original.
Sharing news of the channel’s content being deleted, Barkha said on Monday morning, “After hours of urging @TeamYouTube to act & being assured action is being taken, I woke up to find @themojostory channel content ALL DELETED by the hackers.” The senior journalist also mentioned that her organisation had urged YouTube several times to freeze the platform, so that hackers would not be able to alter it. “I feel someone took a knife through my heart is all I can say. This could have been stopped,” she further wrote, tagging Youtube CEO Neal Mohan.
Barkha also mentioned in her tweet thread that if the channel had been frozen or locked when they had complained to YouTube earlier as is done in the case of copyright strikes, this could have been averted. “But we kept being told "process of investigation has to be followed" – and now it's gone,” she wrote.
After hours of urging @TeamYouTube to act & being assured action is being taken, I woke up to find @themojostory channel content ALL DELETED by the hackers- four years of blood, toil, sweat, tears, 11 thousand videos, COVID work of 3 years, ALL GONE. I am heartbroken @nealmohan
— barkha dutt (@BDUTT) June 5, 2023
Team YouTube responded to her tweet saying they are working on the issue. “Jumping in to let you know that we're still working on investigating/fixing this! your partner manager will be sharing more updates,” the YouTube team handle wrote, replying to Barkha. Many including noted journalists also posted messages of consolation and reassurance under her tweet.
Only a journalist will understand how heartbreaking it is to lose your work. I am hoping this is reversible and Mojo's reportage gets restored soon. https://t.co/JVyWt4sk7P
— Rituparna Chatterjee (@MasalaBai) June 5, 2023
Hi @YouTube
— Chinmayi Sripaada (@Chinmayi) June 5, 2023
Why even??? https://t.co/nV8lctPBWM
Very scary. @YouTubeIndia should have acted sooner. https://t.co/IPcaKEsiE6
— Manisha Pande (@MnshaP) June 5, 2023
Mojo Story, an independent digital news platform, has won several awards for their journalism, including the Red Ink Award for Excellence in Journalism for Best COVID Reporting (TV) in 2022, and Gold at the World Association of News Publishers Digital Media award for South Asia for their reportage on COVID, among others. The organisation’s website says Mojo Story was founded to address the crisis of credibility and quality in the news media, especially television.