You Tube Censorship of Progressive & Independent Media, Plus Why I have a New You Tube Channel

Submitted by Steven D on Mon, 04/10/2017 - 12:44pm

Unlike many progressive sites on You Tube, I didn't lose any ad revenue from my videos posted there in this recent censorship effort by TPTB, because I never allowed You Tube ads to run on my YouTube channel. But I did have to create a new one called Steven D Speaks.

The demonitization of progressive voices on You Tube is a serious matter. The Jimmy Dore Show (which if you are not watching you should be) has lost most, if not all of of its ad revenue. Other websites that have been "demonitized" by You Tube include Ring of Fire, Secular Talk, Tim Black and the Humanist Report, to name a few. Zero Hedge claims that You Tune explained the loss of revenue on Zero Hedge's You Tube platform, iBankCoin.com, as follows:

On iBankCoin's channel, which only has around 3,000 subs, our revenues have flatlined as well.

YouTube said they've begun to hire 3rd party 'brand safety' organizations, who will help eliminate 'bad actors' from the platform. How nice.

David Pakman's progressive You Tube channel, The David Pakman Show recently earned $.34 for a video that had over a half million views. He is claiming that You Tube is blacklisting progressive channels, and reveals that an advertiser who specifically has been and wants to continue to advertise on his show received a letter from You Tube officials telling her she could not advertise there because You Tube's "new rules" regarding "provocative words" in the titles to Mr. Pakman's videos. Words like "homosexual," "hate,""burning" and "son of god." I'm serious. Those were the words she was told were "provocative" enough to justify refusing to share ad revenue generated by Pakman's channel. Here's a link to his video which contains the text of that letter.

This strikes me as complete and utter bullshit. Here's a short list of video titles for videos that appear on Pakman's You Tube Channel that have had all their ad revenue completely cut off:

Trump signs away your internet privacy

OF COURSE Keystone XL Pipeline Won't Be Built with American Steel

Turns Out Rule That Blocked Obama SCOTUS Nominee Not Really a Rule

Legal Scholar Cass Sunstein on Internet Echo Chambers & Democracy

Quite provocative to some I suppose, but hardly the type of content that requires a punitive response from the higher-ups at You Tune by taking away Pakman's share of ad revenue generated by those videos, in my opinion.

Now as for me, when I upgraded my Vista operating system to Windows 10 I lost access to my You Tube Channel, Steven D Talks. I could not upload any videos because I wasn't being recognized as the owner of that channel. Now I this might not be the result of censorship by You Tube, even though You Tube is owned and operated by Google, and I created my You Tube channel through my Google account. After all, I have never opted to run ads on my channel.

Still it was a little strange this happened. Was it a Windows problem because it is a competitor with Google? Maybe. Who knows. I researched the heck out of how to regain access, but found there was no way anyone online knew get Google and YouTube to recognize me as the creator/own of Steven D Talks. In addition, You Tube does not provide customer support to its You Tube customers that might have helped me regain access. So, I created a new You Tube Channel called Steven D Speaks. Hopefully I won’t get locked out of that one anytime soon.

By the way, here's my first video, which I uploaded there today, titled "I'm Not Getting any Ad Revenue like Other Progressive Sites on YouTube (plus my rant about Syria)" for your viewing enjoyment if you wish:

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u930n6axdlY]

So that sucks for me, but not nearly as much as those progressive sites with big audiences that depended on their You Tube ad revenue to survive. Still I now can post to You Tube and I will also be moving content to my Pantheon site where you can view it also. Many of the larger and more well-known progressive sites, such as The Jimmy Dore Show, are moving their content to Pantheon, because Pantheon at least allows viewers of their videos to donate to them and keep their progressive and independent content alive - maybe.

In the meantime, who knew regime change in Syria was the one thing that would bring bipartisanship to our two major parties (they only disagree on what Trump's plan for regime change should be). What lucky duckies we are.

Tags:

#Censorship #YouTube #Syria

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Comments

Submitted by HenryAWallace on Mon, 04/10/2017 - 1:12pm

Thanks for this info, Steven D.

In general, this stinks.

I try to stay away from the term progressive. So, in my lexicon, you are a liberal writer. Pakman, however, seems very establishment center right to me. I especially remember a show of his that I saw on TV when he was enthusing wildly over Hillary's allegedly being the best qualified Presidential candidate ever, which is straight out of the Hillary campaign, Obama's mouth, etc.. (My, wouldn't guys like Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and the Roosevelt boys feel small!)

So, whatever You Tube is doing seems to me to be broader than, or just different from, censoring liberals. Maybe it's "blandifying," the site, or making it lighter or de-politicizing it or whatever?

Submitted by gjohnsit on Mon, 04/10/2017 - 1:16pm

I knew this censorship was happening

but I didn't know it was this bad, and so biased against the left.
Thanks for the update.

Submitted by Thaumlord-Exelbirth on Tue, 04/11/2017 - 1:24am

There's also blacklisted channels

@gjohnsit Example: Secular Talk. Why? Because of the word "Secular" in the channel name. "Atheist/Atheism" are also blacklisted. No idea what the full list of blacklisted terms are, but having a blacklisted term in your channel's title completely disqualifies you from ads on all videos, even if an advertiser specifically states to Google that they want their ads on that channel.

And to think, this is all happening because of the dying MSM pulling at strings. They tried going after prominent Youtubers directly with smear campaigns, and failed. So now they go after the finances.