YouTube Bans Navy SEAL Vet Who Helped Expose Nathan Phillips’ Military Record
Tom Pappert
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The Big Tech Giant banned the veteran and YouTuber who helped break the story about Native American activist Nathan Phillips being a refrigerator repairman who never left the United States, and not a “Recon Ranger” who served in Vietnam.
Don Shipley’s YouTube account “Buds131” was banned by the platform citing years old videos, but Shipley considers the act to be retribution for his recent videos revealing that Phillips was a refrigerator repairman who routinely went AWOL, and not a Vietnam veteran.
Shipley used his YouTube channel to expose stolen valor in the United States military.
“I have been in YouTube Prison before when phony SEALs would cry to them about being posted,” Shipley said via email. He said his posting privileges in the past had been restricted for six months.
“This time I was told/emailed I was banned from a video I had posted several years ago about a phony SEAL, but after several years I doubt that caused it,” he said. “If you ask me, it was because I outed Nathan Philips. That Indian who masqueraded as a Vietnam vet,” Shipley added. “THAT video got a lot of attention and a lot of big lawsuits pending from it.”
The veteran is still active on Facebook, and has a separate website where he is still uploading videos exposing stolen valor.
While Phillips technically served and does not fit the criteria of stolen valor, it is a serious crime in which a member of the public produces “fraudulent claims about military service to subject to a fine, imprisonment for not more than one year, or both an individual who, with intent to obtain money, property, or other tangible benefit, fraudulently holds himself or herself out to be a recipient of” honors reserved for veterans of the United States military.
It was largely because of Shipley and others like him that led mainstream media outlets, including the Washington Post, to amend their stories about Phillips to specifically state that he was not a Vietnam veteran.
The Washington Post, one of the first mainstream news publications to seize on the narrative of racist teenagers harassing an elderly veteran, published a correction to its story today, noting that Phillips is not a Vietnam veteran.
Many began questioning the media’s reporting that Phillips served in Vietnam when his age, 64, became known. Assuming he enlisted at 17, Phillips would have had to be deployed to Vietnam in 1972, and the last Marines left Vietnam in 1971.
YouTube has offered no explanation for its decision to ban Shipley.
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