Leer en Español
YouTube has once again censored conservative voices. This time, they removed the videos that showed in full the speech of former President Donald Trump during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). At the same time, the platform suspended the Right Side Broadcasting Network (RSBN) account for two weeks.
If you type “Trump CPAC Speech” into YouTube, right now you will only see videos of old speeches by the former president at CPAC. You will also find three-minute NBC News videos of Trump’s speech, but not the speech itself.
RSBN pointed out that YouTube claimed that the video “violated its election disinformation guidelines” and was therefore removed/censored. The media outlet also commented that Trump’s video reached nearly four million plays.
Last Sunday, RSBN informed on Twitter that it would not censor Trump, despite the fact that the video of the former president’s speech violated the rules of several of the platforms they use to disseminate information. Among them, YouTube.
“We try to play by the rules (…) We’re not going to remove or edit this video. Just so we’re clear, if it gets removed, we didn’t do it,” the RSBN said on Twitter.
Trump delivered his speech at CPAC last Sunday night. There he spoke about the Nov. 3 election, whose results were challenged by the Republican’s campaign for two months without success. He also criticized Big Tech’s censorship of conservative voices.
YouTube’s anti-conservative crusade
The Epoch Times was one of the first media outlets to cover the story of YouTube’s censorship of Trump’s speech at CPAC 2021. The media outlet itself reached out to the Google-owned platform for comment. It was unsuccessful, for now.
“Earlier this week, YouTube suspended former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s channel for the second time because it allegedly violated the platform’s policies on the use of nicotine and elections,” The Epoch Times reports. “
“About a week ago, YouTube also removed a Newsmax video that included an interview with Trump, and about the same time it removed a video of a lawyer testifying before the Ohio legislature, claiming it included COVID-19 misinformation.”
They also explained that “The Epoch Times itself was demonetized by YouTube in late January without prior warning or a specific reason explaining why.”
A YouTube spokesperson explained in a statement that they removed Giuliani’s content “for violating our regulated product sales policy, which prohibits content that facilitates nicotine use, and our presidential election integrity policy.”
This is not the first time YouTube has censored content from conservative voices. Last February, the platform censored the pro-life group LifeSiteNews.
“Google-owned YouTube has removed LifeSiteNews entirely, without offering any warning or explanation,” the pro-life group said on Wednesday, The Federalist media outlet reported. “Before the website’s channel was removed from the Internet’s largest video-sharing platform, LifeSiteNews had garnered more than 314,000 subscribers.”
Also in February, YouTube censored videos from the U.S. Senate in which medical specialists offered their testimonies on the first treatments for patients with coronavirus (COVID-19).
Emmanuel Alejandro Rondón is a journalist at El American specializing in the areas of American politics and media analysis // Emmanuel Alejandro Rondón es periodista de El American especializado en las áreas de política americana y análisis de medios de comunicación.
Contacto: [email protected]