In the last year, many conservatives have been speaking out against the discriminatory practices of massive online entities like YouTube, Google, Twitter, and Facebook, against conservatives and Christians for simply sharing their views online.
While ISIS and violent leftists are largely unmolested on social media, people like Steven Crowder, Live Action Network, Activist Mommy, and Prager U constantly battle censorship and red tape.
Now, Dennis Prager of the popular video series “PragerU” is taking on YouTube and its parent company Google for what he deems a deliberate and systematic attack on “conservative political thought.”
The Blaze reports that back in 2016, college students began emailing PragerU asking them if they’d taken certain videos down that they could no longer find on the PragerU YouTube channel.
Since PragerU staffers had not in fact taken down the videos, they looked into it and found that YouTube was putting some of their content into “restricted mode”, which can’t be viewed on many campus networks.
YouTube did not immediately respond to PragerU’s requests for further information, but after they gathered thousands of signatures on a petition and got some news coverage, finally the video giant made contact.
A lawsuit which Dennis Prager has now filed against YouTube and Google states that Google/YouTube told PragerU the videos “Why Isn’t Communism as Hated as Nazism?” and “What’s Holding the Arab World Back?” were placed in restricted mode for the discussion of such topics as “hate and genocide” and “terrorism and genocide,” respectively.
“No further explanation as to what language constituted an inappropriate discussion of ‘hate and genocide’ or ‘terrorism and genocide’ was given,” the suit reads.
Restricted mode makes it virtually impossible to access the videos without navigating directly to them, and also removes monetization so PragerU is unable to profit from advertising revenue the videos might generate.
They say that nearly 40 videos have been placed on restricted mode, and that the total number of videos that have been either placed on restricted mode or simply demonetized is about 50.
Some of these titles include “Why America Must Lead,” “The Ten Commandments: Do Not Murder,” “Why Did America Fight the Korean War,” and “The World’s Most Persecuted Minority: Christians.”
These are certainly very dangerous, radical topics….if you’re a raging leftist who can’t stand to hear another viewpoint.
They contain no violence, no cursing, no racism (according to sensible people anyway), and yet YouTube felt compelled to restrict these videos from younger audiences. Many YouTube ads that play on children’s videos are more inappropriate for young audiences than PragerU videos.
It’s hard to imagine this has any agenda other than to censor conservative opinions.
“It looks like it’s the videos they don’t agree with ideologically,” PragerU CEO Marissa Streit told TheBlaze, adding that all their videos “fully comply with YouTube’s user guidelines.”
“As the person who runs this organization, I want fair treatment,” Streit said. “I don’t want to be discriminated against. … Our hope is to make a correction that will lead to goodness.”
“Can you imagine what the world would look like if Google is allowed to continue to arbitrarily censor ideas they simply don’t agree with?” she asks.
A chilling prospect indeed! Let’s pray that PragerU is successful in holding YouTube accountable for their disciminatory practices!
