Tag: censorship

A Case of “Intellectual Capture?” On YouTube’s Demonetization Of Bret Weinstein

Just under three years ago, Infowars anchor Alex Jones was tossed off Facebook, Apple, YouTube, and Spotify, marking the unofficial launch of the “content moderation” era. The censorship envelope has since widened dramatically via a series of high-profile incidents: Facebook and Twitter suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story, Donald Trump’s social media suspension, Apple and Amazon’s kneecapping of Parler, the removal of real raw footage from the January 6th riots, and others.

This week’s decision by YouTube to demonetize podcaster Bret Weinstein belongs on that list, and has a case to be to be put at or near the top, representing a different and perhaps more unnerving speech conundrum than those other episodes.

Profiled in this space two weeks ago, Weinstein and his wife Heather Heying — both biologists — host the podcast DarkHorse, which by any measure is among the more successful independent media operations in the country. They have two YouTube channels, a main channel featuring whole episodes and livestreams, and a “clips” channel featuring excerpts from those shows.

Between the two channels, they’ve been flagged 11 times in the last month or so. Specifically, YouTube has honed in on two areas of discussion it believes promote “medical misinformation.” The first is the potential efficacy of the repurposed drug ivermectin as a Covid-19 treatment. The second is the third rail of third rails, i.e. the possible shortcomings of the mRNA vaccines produced by companies like Moderna and Pfizer.

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YouTube removes videos exposing China’s abuse of Uyghurs, citing policy violation

A human rights group that gained popularity on YouTube largely because of its videos exposing China’s human rights abuses against the Uyghur Muslims had several of its videos removed from the platform, with YouTube citing unrelated policy violations, according to a report. 

Reuters reported that the YouTube channel Atajurt Kazakh Human Rights, which is based in Kazakhstan, also had its channel temporarily blocked by YouTube. The activist who runs the channel, Serikzhan Bilash, has been called a “well-known rights activist” by the group Human Rights Watch.

According to Reuters, 12 of Bilash’s videos were removed this year by YouTube amid an apparent campaign by groups who deny China is committing genocide to mass-report the Atajurt Kazakh Human Rights videos. The channel was completely blocked this month and only restored after inquiries from Reuters.

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YouTube censors video of Nobel Prize winner Dr. Satoshi Ōmura discussing ivermectin

Before the coronavirus pandemic, ivermectin was described as a “wonder” drug by the medical community. And in 2015, Dr. Satoshi Ōmura and Dr. William C. Campbell were awarded half the Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work that led to the development of ivermectin.

“The importance of Ivermectin for improving the health and wellbeing of millions of individuals with River Blindness and Lymphatic Filariasis, primarily in the poorest regions of the world, is immeasurable,” the Nobel Assembly stated in its press release for the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

But after the pandemic began, the tech giants have gone all out to purge content that recommends ivermectin as a treatment for COVID-19.

And today, these Big Tech policies against ivermectin resulted in one of Ōmura’s speeches where he discussed ivermectin being struck down for “violating YouTube’s community guidelines.”

“When the fascists at YouTube censor the Noble Prize winner Dr. Satoshi Omura, a man whose discoveries have saved a hundred million + from blindness, the world has entered a very, very dark place,” Australian Member of Parliament Craig Kelly tweeted. “I cannot express in words how angry & sad this makes me & fearful for the future.”

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‘Violation of First Amendment’ – Judicial Watch YouTube Video Censored at Request of California Government Officials

The California Secretary of State’s office pressured YouTube to remove Judicial Watch’s videos on election integrity.Conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch received 165 pages of new documents showing the California Secretary of State directly emailing YouTube to remove Tom Fitton’s videos on election integrity.

The video titled “ELECTION INTEGRITY CRISIS — Dirty Voter Rolls, Ballot Harvesting & Mail-in-Voting Risks!” was removed three days after California government officials made the request.

Judicial Watch had previously sued California over its dirty voter rolls and Los Angeles County agreed to remove 1.6 million inactive voters.

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Facebook bans propaganda expert Professor Nicholas O’Shaughnessy

You may now be able to discuss coronavirus origins on Facebook – because the current US administration happened to say so – but it appears people are still most decidedly banned from discussing their own scientific work – if it happens to be related to how exactly Facebook goes about censoring and canceling people.

That circle is now complete for renowned UK academic Nicholas O’Shaughnessy, an information and propaganda control researcher, who has been presented with an abrupt, but “lifetime” ban on the platform – for posting about his own research that has in the meanwhile been cited by the academic community.

On June 26, reports say, this professor emeritus at two London University colleges and a Cambridge Quondam fellow was informed that his account got banned. Facebook at least was “egalitarian” here in that it provided the noted academic with no more explanation about what he had supposedly done wrong than it does any of its “ordinary” censorship victims – beyond accusing them of violating unspecified “community standards.”

But the note did have a tone of sinister finality to it, reading, “unfortunately, we won’t be able to reactivate it (the account) for any reason. This will be our last message regarding your account.”

And because even after failing in his attempts to pry the reason for his banning from Facebook’s cold censorship hands, the professor, like the rest of us, is now left guessing why this happened.

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‘Pretty Weird’: Facebook Now Sending Warnings to Users About Potentially ‘Extremist’ Friends

Facebook users have recently reported being sent warning messages from the social media giant relating to “extremists” or “extremist content.”

“Are you concerned that someone you know is becoming an extremist?” one of the purported messages read. “We care about preventing extremism on Facebook. Others in your situation have received confidential support,” it adds before offering the button to “Get Support,” which ostensibly leads to another Facebook page about extremism.

Redstate editor Kira Davis, who said was sent a screenshot of the message from a friend, wrote: “Hey has anyone had this message pop up on their FB? My friend (who is not an ideologue but hosts lots of competing chatter) got this message twice. He’s very disturbed.”

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Twitter Suspends NY Times’ Columnist’s Account After He Denounces Equity as ‘Racism’

Twitter has suspended the account of a Pultizer Prize-winning New York Times op-ed writer one day after he wrote a column denouncing woke ideology as a form of “racism.”

The New York Times posted Bret Stephens’ latest column, titled “The New Racism Won’t Solve the Old Racism,” on its website on June 28 and published it in the print issue dated June 29.

In the piece, Stephens wrote that the drive to bring about intersectional “equity” — often designated by the term “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) — “is insulting to everyone who still believes we should be judged by the content of our character.”

The idea that the government should redistribute wealth along racial lines has taken on new life since Ibram X. Kendi made it the central pillar of his bestseller, “How to be an Antiracist.”

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YouTube censors scientist’s popular podcast for mentioning ivermectin

YouTube censored one of the most popular podcasts in the country because it mentioned the drug ivermectin as a safe and effective treatment for COVID-19.

Bret Weinstein, an evolutionary biologist who was a professor at Evergreen State College, told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson on Tuesday night YouTube has blocked “The Darkhorse Podcast” from generating ad revenue, which is how he makes a living.

YouTube said it will not allow any channel to discuss “[c]laims that ivermectin is effective in treatment or prevention of COVID.”

Carlson asked Weinstein why YouTube, which is owned by Google, would do such a thing.

“It is confusing, but I think to understand it, the thing to do is to consider the question of what would be ideal from the perspective of the pharmaceutical industry at the moment? It would be ideal if vaccines were recommended for all people irrespective of their age, irrespective of whether they had already had COVID-19, and irrespective of whether or not they were pregnant,” he said.

“And it would be essential that there were no safe and effective alternatives to the vaccine because if there were safe and effective alternatives, the Emergency Use Authorizations that allow the administration of the vaccines would evaporate.”

Weinstein said the “evidence is strong that ivermectin works both as a prophylactic and as a treatment if given early.

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Facebook censors those who spread ‘misinformation,’ but looks the other way while pimps abuse children

Before losing a recent landmark court case, Facebook attempted to distance itself from the human trafficking taking place on its platform. If only it were as hands-on about child sex crimes as it is about political speech.

The Texas Supreme Court ruled on Friday that Facebook can be held liable for the conduct of pimps and traffickers on its platform – a landmark decision that opens the firm up to further legal action from a trio of teenage trafficking victims. 

In the suit, filed in 2018, the three young women accused the company of running “an unrestricted platform to stalk, exploit, recruit, groom, and extort children into the sex trade.” One was 15 when an older man contacted her on Facebook, offered her a modeling job, photographed her, posted the pictures on the now-defunct BackPage website, and prostituted her to other men, leading her to be “raped, beaten, and forced into further sex trafficking.” The other two girls were 14, and reported almost identical experiences, with one openly pimped out for “dates” on Instagram, a Facebook subsidiary.

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