YouTube CENSORED livestreams and commentary of several independent legal experts who commented on Kyle Rittenhouse trial just moments after judge dismissed gun charge

YouTube censored the livestreams of a number of independent law groups who were streaming the Kyle Rittenhouse trial Monday with commentary, briefly suspending their videos after Judge Bruce Schroeder dropped the Kenosha shooter’s charge of illegal possession of a firearm. 

The tech giant intermittently suspended at least four different channels for a 20-minute period during the trial’s closing arguments, over what the company called 'policy violations' for using copyrighted audio – despite trial footage being in the public domain. 

Once the company determined the videos were not in violation of copyright law, they were all back up and running. But law group, Rekieta Media, lost about 40,000 viewers - nearly half the people watching their video. 

It is against YouTube's terms and conditions to use copyrighted content, meaning the site could suspend videos and streams that do. However, it's not clear what the company thought was copyrighted in the livestreams that it suspended or why it only cut out, intermittently, for about 20 minutes.