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YouTube Blacklists Dennis Prager
Another Progressive machine decides to limit free speech by denying easy access to the educational videos of Prager University: YouTube.
I guess we shouldn’t be surprised. YouTube has decided that 21 Prager University videos need to be placed on “restricted mode,” a category meant for inappropriate and objectionable adult and sexual content. The videos all run only five minutes or less.
Dennis Prager filed a formal complain to try to stop this censorship (which YouTube insists is not censorship), but Prager finally felt he had no option but to go public.
The YouTube video series, known as Prager University, has enjoyed wide success and for good reason. In each video, a noted academic, media personality, or other well known person, addresses a particular issue in a practical and straightforward way, usually in five minutes or less.
There is nothing controversial about the videos, certainly nothing that requires an age rating for viewing so it’s very strange that YouTube would restrict them in any way.
YouTube is owned by Google, and PragerU states on its website that “in response to an official complaint we filed, Google specialists defended their restriction of our videos, and said, ‘We don’t censor anyone,’ although they do ‘take into consideration what the intent of the video is’ and ‘what the focus of the video is.’”
There is no excuse for Google and YouTube censoring and restricting any PragerU videos, which are produced “with the sole intent of educating people of all ages about America’s founding values,” the conservative nonprofit states on its website.
Here’s a List of the videos that YouTube has put on restricted mode:
Are The Police Racist?
Why Don’t Feminists Fight for Muslim Women?
Why Did America Fight the Korean War?
Who’s More Pro-Choice: Europe or America?
What ISIS Wants
Why Are There Still Palestinian Refugees?
Are 1 in 5 Women Raped at College?
Islamic Terror: What Muslim Americans Can Do
Did Bush Lie About Iraq?
Who NOT to Vote For
Men and the Power of the Visual
Is America Racist?
Israel: The World’s Most Moral Army
Radical Islam: The Most Dangerous Ideology
The Most Important Question About Abortion
Why Do People Become Islamic Extremists?
Don’t Judge Blacks Differently
What is the University Diversity Scam?
He Wants You
Israel’s Legal Founding
Pakistan: Can Sharia and Freedom Coexist?
Just another attack on free speech . . .
Published in Politics
Very well said, Jim! And it just seems to get worse all the time!
I would love to see another venue where free speech is emphasized, and it begins to draw more and more people and becomes widely used and wildly famous. Well, at least well-known. You’re right on target, Roberto!
See my comment #8 above
Please see my earlier comment #8.
A couple of people have mentioned it, RA. I wonder what it would look like to change the Conservative party into a “counter-cultural rebel”?? I love it!
Hey, Mr. Nick, what’s wrong with people over 65?? ;-)
Please see my comment #8. There seems to be a slight possibility that the pressure is working, but people can still put the restriction on their computers. Also, the point is that Google is trying to defame Prager (I believe) by taking this step, and imposing censorship, which they can do as a private company, but it smells.
Rocket & Susan,
This is an incredible list. Unless somebody can come up with a list of leftist videos that were put on restricted mode this stinks to high heaven. This must be protested and put out in the light of day where people can be made aware of the corrupt bias of YouTube’s policies.
Regards,
Jim
I’m going to try to see if there’s an update on the situation, Jim. It is ugly.
That’s a good article. Thanks for the link. Maybe I don’t dislike Prager as much as I thought I did.
It’s not for nothing that what he’s talking about is sometimes called the hate machine. It works assembly-line fashion, using oh-so-sensitive Republicans as raw material, and produces hate of the specified intensity in the quantity required, and on the schedule required. People on the left may act as though they have no business sense, but they sure know how to run the hate industry.
Of course Google has the right to do this. It isn’t so much that it was done, it’s why it was done.
Prager U is intended to reach into the academic cesspools in the US and retrieve as many redeemable young people as possible. Dennis regularly interviews college kids who’ve been turned by being exposed to information and ideas in these videos that they’ve never heard before. And then these disciples share the videos around with their friends — who are all watching YouTube and wouldn’t know another (especially a conservative one — blech!!) platform if it bit them in the ass.
Google and the Left (but, I repeat) can’t let the truth get out because it undermines the intellectually sloppy feel-goodism of leftism. They’re targeting Prager U because it’s effective. That’s what we have to expose. If ginning up some controversy helps Prager U get more eyeballs, that’s a good thing, and reason enough to be talking about it.
As of 10:52 am today, I don’t see a news update on Google about this situation. Prager U now has over 30,000 signatures on its petition protesting the YouTube actions.
But it’s good if their search engines see a lot of requests for “Dennis Prager YouTube restricted”
James Gawron:
While Google may have been doing this to campaign against Donald Trump, I think it’s more likely a response to those meetings that Obama held with the social media industry, to get them to provide narratives to counter terrorism. And by terrorism, most leftists would understand that to mean people like Prager.
I still find it amazing that Obama’s brazen attempt to pressure the social media companies (or lend the authority of his office to what they’d tend to do anyway) has received so little comment from conservatives. Is it because rightwing radio and TV haven’t picked up on it? Is it because conservatives think all methods are fair if you use the word “terrorism”? I haven’t figured that one out.
Very good point, Reticulator!!! Keep those hits comin’ in!
No time to read previous comments now. Censorship of non-progressive views in order to enforce political correctness is the reason I do not use any of these services.
Limiting free speech is nothing compared to the lewd comments about women Trump made ten years ago.
Ret,
This is a pure object lesson in the anti-democratic nature of the left. The Global Governance Gang of which both BHO and HRC are prime examples can not be trusted!!! They will use every opportunity to advance an anti-democratic socialist agenda. There is no fair play in their mindset. Just forget it.
Regards,
Jim
Actually I’ve been advocating something like this. Really all we’d have to do is call our new party the Classical Liberal Party, and we’d rope in millions of poorly educated lefties haha.
On whether the youtube restrictions are legal, I find myself differing with many of the comments here. YouTube could declare in their policies that they are going to censure anything they want. Then, any one going to create video content would know that. That is one scenario.
The other is that their is no language in the terms of service etc. that would indicate that google will censure viewpoints. At that stage, there is a contract between google and content creators like Prager. This contract ( explicit or implicit) says that youtube will host and display to everyone according to their algorithms and similar video searches etc (so that Prager can get more people to see his content). If Prager in any way violated his side like making inappropriate content (which we know he didn’t ), then youtube would have cause to limit the exposure Prager gets. However, because of the way the arrangement might be set up (with youtube monetizing the videos) and the fact that some creators are posting content in order to monetize as partners with youtube, this becomes a whole new ball game.
In this other scenario, Prager (or any other content creator) are implicitly working for youtube by working on content that both the creator and service are expecting to be monetized. This means that youtube no longer has the right to onesidedly remove or hinder discovery of the content created by Prager if the creator makes content with the expectation of returns monetary or not.
I was able to view one of these videos today without any sign of it being restricted, but perhaps that’s because I am subscribed to Prager U.
Please see my comment #8, Team.
Rutube.ru.
Shame you might have to go to Putins Russia to get away from Googles Censorship.
Interesting, ModEcon. So here’s my question. Technically YouTube now allows parents to restrict access for their children or anyone who uses their computers. YouTube has provided that capability, but has not impeded access themselves. How might that change things?
Under a cooperation agreement (granted that I am not familiar with any specifics here), I would say that while youtube is free to give the ability for individuals to filter their own content (parental controls/mature content filters), youtube would not be able to label any video as restricted without cause.
In fact, in the game commentary industry, there is a significant problem right now with a similar problem. The creators of content that make youtube profitable are being harassed with certain kinds of strikes against there channels.
This causes real harm to anyone trying to be popular through creating content. It is not just a “people didn’t see my video” type of harm, it’s a “I lost 100s of dollars of add revenue due to my video being hidden and my fans having to go elsewhere for the entertainment (market share loss). Both are very significant!
Got it! Thank you!
As a follow up.
In the case of Prager, the channel is creating videos not just for money, but activist goals. The lost publicity (as well as any add revenue if monetized) is a harm caused by youtube to Prager without cause. So if was not an accident, then I believe youtube would be liable for damages since youtube placed an unwarranted negative rating that was against the agreement that youtube originally gave when Prager created the videos.
So very specifically, youtube promises to not mark restricted those videos that do not deserve the tag. If youtube itself were to mark the video intentionally in such a way that it limited the views or publicity of the video, then that would breach of agreement.
And the distinction I think you may have been asking about is that the ability of parents to place filters is separate from youtube marking the video as restricted. So it is not that some people don’t see the video that is the problem (people have the right to not watch Prager’s videos after all), its that youtube was the one to cause harm by marking the video.
Prager gives something to youtube, his produced video. That is like a payment of sorts. Prager only gives the video to youtube on the understanding that youtube will at least not hinder anyone from viewing it and in fact will promote the video under the normal circumstances just like any other video that Prager competes with.
I went to the PragerU site and sent a message quoting this last comment. I assume that Prager has an attorney working on the problem, but I thought he’d find your comment helpful. After the fact, I hope that’s okay (since you were anonymous anyway!)
Susan, I read comment number8 and followed the link. It merely tells you how to set up parental controls, so I don’t see your point. In other words, I haven’t seen any evidence of Youtube restricting access to Prager U videos.
No problem. In fact, it would be quite the claim to fame to have given a hmm, whatever that comment was (legal advise?) to Prager who I deeply admire for his quality, succinct, and just generally awesome commentaries on the world. I find those Prager U. videos to be some of the best explanations of reality that are virtually unmatched, even by the very reputable podcasts of Richochet that tend to be a little less practical.
But still, I haven’t even graduated college and you think that I given a good enough comment to share like that, my parents must have done something right!