After a spate of takedowns of video content peddling alt-right ideologies YouTube has said that some of the material may now be unblocked.

The Outline reports that a number of accounts were hit with outright bans including Anti-School, Bombard's Body Language, Defango, Destroying The Illusion, Ron Johnson and Titus Frost.

Others such as According to Joe, Blackstone Intelligence, BakedAlaska, Military Arms Channel and, as previously reported, InfoWars, have been issued with warnings. Military Arms meanwhile has entered into a state of voluntary suspension in an effort to avoid further strikes.

Innocent or guilty?

Many of the takedowns seem to focus specifically on gun-related content as YouTube grapples with the political and social implications of last month’s Florida school shootings.

While most of these channels pale in size compared to InfoWars, many still have tens - sometimes hundreds - of thousands of subscribers, while some boast monthly views in the millions.

Many of the creators in question are now turning to alternative video platforms as they scramble to maintain their viewer base.

However, Bloomberg reports that YouTube now says at least some of the takedowns were mistakenly made by its alleged new 10,000-strong moderation team.

"As we work to hire rapidly and ramp up our policy enforcement teams throughout 2018, newer members may misapply some of our policies resulting in mistaken removals," a statement from the company read.

"We’re continuing to enforce our existing policies regarding harmful and dangerous content, they have not changed. We’ll reinstate any videos that were removed in error."