YouTube has demonetized prominent conservatives and other dissenters in an apparent campaign to squelch criticism of the transgender agenda.
Sara Gonzales, the host of BlazeTV's "The News & Why It Matters," podcaster Tim Pool, and Matt Walsh, the recently hacked conservative commentator behind the film "What Is a Woman?", have each reportedly seen their revenue streams dammed in part or in full on the platform in recent days.
Gonzales noted on Thursday, "My YouTube channel had 3 videos removed today and received a strike for telling the truth about transgenderism. @Timcast just had 2 videos removed on his channel. They demonetized @MattWalshBlog's entire channel."
\u201cMy YouTube channel had 3 videos removed today and received a strike for telling the truth about transgenderism. \n\n@Timcast just had 2 videos removed on his channel.\n\nThey demonetized @MattWalshBlog\u2019s entire channel. \n\nThey want to censor us out of existence.\u201d
— Sara Gonzales (@Sara Gonzales) 1682036292
"They want to censor us out of existence," said Gonzales, adding in a subsequent tweet, "We will never surrender."
The BlazeTV host indicated that the demonetization has prompted her to explore "the avenue of Rumble."
Matt Walsh spoke Wednesday at a Young America's Foundation event at the University of Iowa, revealing that his entire YouTube channel had been demonetized due to his discussions of Bud Light's transvestite spokesman Dylan Mulvaney.
"We received word from YouTube that I had committed a series of alleged violations of their terms of service and also of their ad partnership guidelines, which will now lead to my demonetization and potentially being banished forever from the platform," said Walsh.
A spokesman for YouTube confirmed the action in a statement to Media Matters, writing, "We suspended monetization on Matt Walsh’s channel due to repeated violations of our YouTube Partner Program policies, which include our Advertiser-Friendly Guidelines. These policies apply equally to all creators, regardless of political viewpoint, and channels that repeatedly violate these policies are demonetized."
Daily Wire CEO Jeremy Boreing suggested in a Twitter post that Walsh had violated "some opaque, arbitrarily applied standard or another related to speaking the biological truth about Dylan Mulvaney."
YouTube's hate speech policy prohibits content promoting "hatred" against anyone on the basis of various attributes, including sex or gender. It is not clear from the policy what precisely constitutes hate.
The policy further indicates that content can be removed and/or accounts penalized when a creator "repeatedly encourages abusive audience behavior"; "repeatedly targets, insults and abuses a group based on the attributes noted above across multiple uploads"; or "creates content that harms the YouTube ecosystem by persistently inciting hostility against a group with attributes noted above for personal financial gain."
Walsh indicated that YouTube had been intentionally vague about its guidelines and even vaguer about how offenders ran afoul of them "because they want to afford themselves the latitude to demonetize and deplatform you whenever they feel like it."
While keen to shut down undesirable speech, the speech police at YouTube could allegedly be appeased with various concessions.
"If I simply respect the preferred pronouns and stop accurately gendering people, then I can likely continue to do my show on the platform, get it remonetized after a short probationary period, and continue making over $100,000 a month on YouTube ads, which is a huge part of how we produce and pay for the show," explained Walsh.
Walsh indicated that this boiled down to YouTube asking him to "just give up your integrity and your soul."
"And to that I say: hell no. Hell no. No way," said Walsh. "There is nothing to even think about. I would rather be demonetized than use someone's preferred pronouns one time. I would rather you kick me off every platform and banish me to Mars than used someone's preferred pronouns."
\u201cSpeaking at University of Iowa, Matt Walsh confirms that his YouTube channel was demonetized for repeatedly attacking Dylan Mulvaney, says that he was making over $100,000 a month \u2014 and that he can get it back if he stops misgendering Mulvaney.\u201d
— Ari Drennen (@Ari Drennen) 1681949962
Later on Twitter, Walsh announced he would no longer be uploading his show to YouTube, but instead posting videos elsewhere, including on Rumble and Twitter.
Oli London, the ambassador of Gays Against Groomers, reiterated Gonzales' report that Tim Pool had also seen his videos demonetized on YouTube.
While a number of her videos have been demonetized, Sara Gonzales' "The News & Why It Matters" is still on YouTube. You can watch it here:
BuzzFeed News Is DONE! Will More Woke Media Outlets Follow Its Demise? | 4/20/23 youtu.be
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