Former
US Congressman Ron Paul has joined a growing list of independent political
journalists and commentators who’re being economically punished by YouTube
despite producing videos that routinely receive hundreds of thousands of views.
In a
tweet published Saturday, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange tweeted a screenshot
of Paul’s “Liberty Report” page showing that his videos had been labeled “not suitable”
for all advertisers by YouTube's content arbiters.
YouTube
economically censors former presidential candidate @RonPaul for
criticizing U.S. foreign policy on Afghanistan and WikiLeaks.
Assange
claims that Paul was being punished for speaking out about President Donald
Trump’s decision to increase the number of US troops in Afghanistan, after Paul
published a video on the subject earlier this week.
The
notion that YouTube would want to economically punish a former US Congressman
for sharing his views on US foreign policy – a topic that he is unequivocally
qualified to speak about – is absurd. Furthermore, the “review requested” marking
on one of Paul's videos reveals that they were initially flagged by users
before YouTube's moderators confirmed that the videos were unsuitable for a
broad audience.
Other
political commentators who’ve been censored by YouTube include Paul Joseph
Watson and Tim Black – both ostensibly for sharing political views that differ
from the mainstream neo-liberal ideology favored by the Silicon Valley elite.
Last
week, Google – another Alphabet Inc. company – briefly banned Salil
Mehta, an adjunct professor at Columbia and Georgetown who
teaches probability and data science, from using its service, freezing his
accounts without providing an explanation. He was later allowed to return to
the service.
Conservative
journalist Lauren Southern spoke out about YouTube’s drive to stifle
politically divergent journalists and commentators during an interview with
the Daily Caller.
“I think it
would be insane to suggest there’s not an active effort to censor conservative
and independent views,” said Southern.
“Considering most of Silicon
Valley participate in the censorship of alleged ‘hate speech,’ diversity hiring
and inclusivity committees. Their entire model is based around a far left
outline. There’s no merit hiring, there’s no support of free speech and there
certainly is not an equal representation of political views at these
companies.”
Of
course, Google isn’t the only Silicon Valley company that’s enamored with
censorship. Facebook has promised to eradicate “fake
news,” which, by its definition, includes political content
that falls outside of the mainstream.
Still,
economically punishing a former US Congressman and medical doctor is a new low
in Silicon Valley's campaign to stamp out dissent.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-27/youtube-economically-censors-ron-paul-labels-videos-not-suitable-all-advertisers
