Videos promoting ISIS and violent jihad can be found on YouTube. So can those of the KKK, communists and antifa.
But the Bible lessons and radio interviews posted on the personal channel of Carl Gallups, a popular pastor and author, can’t.
They’ve been censored by the Internet giant. Pulled down. Dropped.
According to Gallups, the channel was terminated over Thanksgiving weekend without explanation, even though there had been no “marks” against it and he rigorously followed the rules.
It’s not the first time a faith-focused or conservative-oriented channel has been censored by YouTube. At least three other major cases developed this year, against columnists Michelle Malkin, Michael Brown and Dennis Prager, all of whom have conservative views.
Nor is it the only time there’s been a hint that the company is not fond of conservative thought. An undercover video by Project Veritas captured Earnest Pettie, the brand and diversity curation lead at YouTube, admitting he helped “push to the top” the videos of an editor for the left-leaning New York Times.
“In very rare cases, we will try to make up for the fact that something isn’t in the trending tab,” Pettie said. “We will, like, use some type of intervention … to encourage the thing to be there.”
He said “algorithms do control everything but sometimes you need humans to provide a check.”
Gallups told WND he tried to get an explanation from YouTube, because his channel was “in perfect standing (all green)” immediately prior to its termination.
He noted that there was no warning, and while YouTube has a “three strikes” policy, “We never even received strike 1.”
“YouTube gave no explanation at all for this termination but rather, after repeated requests for an explanation, simply referred us to their ‘Terms and Conditions’ page,” he said.
YouTube declined to respond to a WND request for comment.
Gallups said his channel “was fully monetized,” explaining “we only used either our own material or music sanctioned by YouTube’s creator studio as suitable for use and monetizing.”
That means, he said, the channel’s termination “has caused great harm to our messaging ability and done irreparable damage to our relationships within the professional community.”
The channel contained his biblical videos and a few of his radio interviews.
He said he suspects he was targeted by a “flagging” effort by an activist group to generate complaints from those “who disagree with our views and opinions.”
WND reported last month a lawsuit was filed on behalf of WND columnist Dennis Prager in his fight with YouTube.
The complaint expressed outrage over how the online giants “use their restricted mode filtering not to protect younger or sensitive viewers from ‘inappropriate’ video content, but as a political gag mechanism to silence PragerU.”
Prager University, founded by Prager, is “a conservative nonprofit digital media organization that is associated with and presents the views of leading conservative experts on current and historical events.”
Liberty Counsel, which is defending Prager, explained the organization produces short videos viewed by millions that are “broadly based on Judeo-Christian values and conservative thought.”
WND commentator Michael Brown said in August that 900 of his videos were demonetized.
“Debates I had with rabbis were flagged; powerful stories, like a Muslim woman being healed by Jesus, were flagged; videos where I answered questions like, ‘Should Christians Homeschool Their Children?’ or ‘Did Jesus Claim to Be God?’ were flagged, along with videos of spiritual encouragement (like the one encouraging believers to look to the Lord in the midst of chaos),” he said. “Teaching videos were flagged (like the one explaining that the preface to the King James Version of the Bible refutes King James Onlyism), along with motivational videos (like the one where I talked about how I lost 95 lbs.). All these were flagged, along with the many videos that focused on LGBT issues or radical Islam or politics. Seriously?”
And Michelle Malkin said:Â “If you post videos on YouTube radicalizing Muslim viewers to kill innocent people, YouTube will leave you alone. But if you post a video on YouTube honoring innocent people murdered by barbaric jihadists, your video will get banned.”
In January, the YouTube account of the blog Legal Insurrection, by Cornell Law professor William Jacobson, was ended.
Several years ago, a video on a channel to which Gallups contributed had been targeted, resulting in termination of the channel.
However, after a review, it was reinstated.
At that time, a source inside Google who asked not to be identified told Gallups a “coordinated flagging” campaign had occurred, which triggered the termination of the channel.
The targeted video was titled “A Call To Prayer.”
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Videos posted on YouTube can be rated by viewers. An individual can click the “like” button (a “thumbs up” icon) or the dislike button (a “thumbs down” icon). A viewer also can click a “flag” icon to tell YouTube a video a certain video is “inappropriate.”