Leftist Commentator and YouTuber Blasts Company for Selectively Enforcing Their “Misinformation” Policies and Wrongly Censoring His Videos

A left-wing political commentator and YouTube user has blasted the video sharing platform for selective enforcement of its “misinformation” policies.

Matt Orfalea, speaking on air with RT, detailed his personal experiences with the Google-owned site Sunday. He said YouTube recently demonetized his channel and gave him a “strike” for ostensibly promoting a “violent criminal organization.” It turns out, however, that the video in question did nothing of the sort, and YouTube even admitted that it had given the strike “in error.”

Although YouTube removed the strike and supposedly allowed him to make money from ads once again, Orfalea says the latter claim is false, telling RT that his channel remains demonetized.

“Why are you digging back into my history and trying to twist things so absurdly that you accuse me of being involved with a violent criminal organization?” he wondered aloud. “The things that YouTube’s got its algorithm searching for, as bad material, as dangerous material that we have to ban people for, is just normal discourse.”

The Big Tech platform has flagged and removed other videos on Orfalea’s channel as well. One flagged video was first uploaded several years ago and discussed the drug ivermectin, which could potentially be an effective treatment of COVID-19. It is possible but not proven that YouTube’s algorithm flagged the video, as opposed to human YouTube employees. The platform also removed a video that argued against their ban of another user for trying to show how NBC and CNN have engaged in “medical misinformation” during the COVID pandemic.

Big League Politics recently reported on a German court slapping YouTube with a 100,000 Euro fine for deleting a COVID-19 protest video and continuing to censor it for weeks, despite a court order that required them to reinstate it.

YouTube initially removed a video in late January covering lockdown protests in Switzerland, claiming it violated its “COVID-19 Medical Misinformation Policy.” Then on April 20 the Dresden Regional High Court (OLG), according to the German-language news site WELT, issued a preliminary injunction that required YouTube to immediately reinstate the video. But the Google-owned video sharing platform only did so on May 14, almost one full month later.

Last Monday the Dresden OLG called YouTube’s delayed compliance with their injunction an “intentional” and “serious” violation and slapped them with a fine of 100,000 Euros.

“With this historically high fine, the OLG makes it very clear that court decisions must be observed without qualification,” said Joachim Steinhöfel, a lawyer representing the affected YouTube channel. “It doesn’t matter whether YouTube supposes a violation of its guidelines or not.”

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