YouTube has admitted it “mistakenly” removed a controversial music video by Melbourne doom duo Divide And Dissolve from its service, and has now reinstated the clip online.
The video for the band’s recent single ‘Resistance’, which depicts members Takiaya Reed and Sylvie Nehill spraying urine-coloured water on monuments to colonial figures like Captain James Cook and John Batman, was initially removed from the site when it was found to have “violated” YouTube’s Community Guidelines, following criticism from a number of politicians and media outlets.
Now, in a statement to Music Feeds, YouTube says that upon further review, the video has been found not to violate the Community Guidelines. However, because of its content, it has been returned to YouTube as an age-restricted video.
“With the massive volume of videos on our site, sometimes we make the wrong call,” a spokesperson says.
“When it’s brought to our attention that a video has been removed mistakenly, we act quickly to reinstate it.”
Divide And Dissolve have declined to comment on the video being returned to YouTube. However, in an earlier statement, the band said their art “includes decolonising, decentralising, disestablishing, and destroying white supremacy”.
“With our video for ‘Resistance’ we are drawing attention to the memorialisation of genocide, slavery, rape, murder, cultural genocide, and ecocide,” they said.
“The people commenting with hate are clearly displaying the fact that we do not live in a society free from white supremacy, and are perpetrating everything we stand against.”
Watch the video for ‘Resistance’, from Divide And Dissolve’s album Abomination, below.
