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Conservative figures have accused YouTube of political censorship after the video hosting platform removed an interview with Donald Trump over "misinformation."

In July, the former president appeared on the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show, with the interview still available to watch on Facebook and on the podcast's website.

However, the interview has been pulled from YouTube, with a message on the site stating that the video had violated its community guidelines.

In a series of tweets, Travis said YouTube took down the video for "misinformation" without giving further details.

"How does censoring interviews with political leaders aid any voters or democracy itself? This is scary. When have political censors ever been on the right side of history?" Travis tweeted.

"Voters should be able to see everything that any political figure says in public in order to judge for themselves whether they want to support or not support that person. That's democracy itself. YouTube should be ashamed for censoring interviews with any political figure."

Replying to the tweets, Texas GOP Senator Ted Cruz wrote: "This...is...insane."

Trump attorney Jenna Ellis also described the video's removal as "ridiculous," with Sean Davis, co-founder of the conservative website The Federalist, tweeting: "These Big Tech tyrannies have become governments unto themselves. They don't need to be regulated or reined in. They need to be destroyed before they destroy our entire constitutional republic."

It's unclear what prompted YouTube to remove the video.

During the interview, Trump claimed that the 2020 Election was "rigged and stolen" a claim he has made in almost every interview and public appearance for nearly two years now.

As he persisted with the unsubstantiated claims, Trump even expressed concern that the video might be removed.

"No sitting president's ever even come close, and I lost. It was a rigged election," Trump said. "I hope they don't take you off the air, but if they do, please, just delete this, because I don't want to see you guys go off the air."

Elsewhere in the July interview, Trump also appears to suggest that there is a link between the rise of COVID cases in the U.S. and the fact the midterm elections would be taking place in a few months.

"I looked at a map yesterday. It's very interesting. We have an election coming up, and all of a sudden, they're saying COVID is all over the place," Trump said.

When Clay responds that the "midterm variant is certainly spreading," Trump replies: "May have to go to mail-in ballots. Crooked mail-in ballots."

Conspiracy theorists have previously attempted to make the claim that the coronavirus pandemic was a hoax so mail-in voting would have to be brought in for the 2020 Election, making it easier to rig it against Trump.

Conservatives have also frequently spoken out about how so-called "Big Tech" such as Google, Facebook or YouTube reportedly censor right-wing voices in favor of more liberal ones.

YouTube has been contacted for comment.

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Donald Trump Interview Removed by YouTube Decried as 'Insane' Censorship - Newsweek

Considering the show's strong bent towards social justice, it's not too surprising to find that one of the biggest inspirations for the series was the 1955 murder of Emmett Till. Till was aBlack 14-year-old boy who was"abducted, beaten, and shot" while visiting family in Mississippi, and whose killers both white were acquitted of all charges by an all-white jury. It was a tragedy that helped kickstart the civil rights movement, and also inspired Rod Serling to write a teleplay ("Noon on Doomsday") about the racism that led to such a miscarriage of justice unfolding.

Serling was expecting to deal with a lot of pushback and censorship with his script, but was still surprised by how extreme it all turned out to be. He later claimed the story was "gone over with a fine-tooth comb by 30 different people," and that by the time it aired it was basically unrecognizable from the story Serling was trying to tell. As Smithsonian Magazine put it, "Any hint of the South was removed from the plot; not even a Coca-Cola bottle could appear, lest viewers invoke the idea of the region."

The whole thing made Serling rethink his approach to social commentary, and soon after he had the idea for "The Twilight Zone," a show that was about apolitical sci-fi/fantasy concepts on the surface, but often used them as an avenue to explore more controversial ideas. It was through the "Twilight Zone" that Serling managed to get his Emmett Till-inspired story aired on TV: the aforementioned episode "I Am the Night," which is still one of the most memorable episodes of the series.

See the article here:
Censorship Was The Spark That Sent Rod Serling To The Twilight Zone - /Film

John Oliver was a bit puzzled that his reference on HBOs Last Week Tonight to the shocking death of Queen Elizabeth II was censored by Sky television in the UK. Or at least thats what he told Seth Meyers last night on NBCs Late Night.

With more than a little comic disingenuousness, Oliver insisted that his censored comment hed said that the UK was reeling from the shocking death of a 96-year-old woman from natural causes wasnt even a joke, but merely a fact stated with a kind of dickish inflection.

And yet they cut it out, Oliver continued, which is pretty shitty because apparently all weve heard all week is the queen had this incredible sense of humor. Just nonstop Oh, she was so funny. Seth, she was so funny. The queen, she was razor sharp. Both Oliver and Meyers then teased the commentators who insisted, repeatedly, that the Queen was a laugh riot.

Said Oliver about the oft-aired clip in which Queen Elizabeth shared marmalade sandwiches with Paddington Bear, Im watching a bear carry her comedically in a scene. Shes giving that bear nothing back.

As Deadline reported last week,UK pay TV service Sky cut portions ofLast Week TonightWith John Oliver over the tongue-in-cheek comments. Angered viewers took to social media to question why two segments had been dropped from the British version of the HBO satire show, which followed the UK royals passing last Thursday.

The comments in question came in a post-opening credits segment. During this, Oliver lampooned several unexpected social media tributes to the Queen from the likes of cartoon character The Crazy Frog and Dominos Pizza, saying: Obviously, we have to start with the UK, which is clearly still reeling from the shocking death of a 96-year-old woman from natural causes. It is a big moment this week and for some reason absolutely everyone felt they had to wade in on [it].

In another comment minutes later, Oliver responded to new UK leader Liz Truss praise of profit-making companies by saying: The nicest thing the Queen of England ever did for anyone was die the week that woman became Prime Minister. Because for at least a week, shes not going to be getting justifiably destroyed for answers like that.

Watch Olivers segment with Meyers above.

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John Oliver Perplexed Over UK Censorship Of His Queen Joke: Didnt She Have This Incredible Sense Of Humor? - Deadline

The right is obsessed with Critical Race Theory (CRT). It is hell-bent on censoring it where public schools are deprived of teaching students some inconvenient truths about the dark side of history in the United States.

The censoring of CRT will deprive students of a chance to gain knowledge of the U.S.s racism in the past and the overt and institutional racism of today; and how they connect. After all, present conditions are the results of past events. The past influences the present. It is cause and effect. In turn, censoring CRT will make students, and people in general, ignorant of why and how racism still exists today and thus will put obstacles in the way to finding out how to eliminate racism in the future.

There is a group called the Alliance Defending Freedom. This entity published a fact sheet on October 4, 2021 and revised it on August 5, 2022 entitled What is Critical Race Theory? In its opposition to CRT, the argument it presents sounds sophisticated, but contains a number of flaws making its bottom-line message suspect.

It starts out saying, Critical Race Theory (CRT) teaches that people are either oppressor or oppressed, good or bad based on their race. This is a simplistic claim that doesnt get to the shades of gray regarding racial conflict. It seems to imply that in CRT, one race has to be totally bad while another is totally good. This isnt realistic since there is good and bad in every race.

There is the claim that CRT wants to tear down existing institutions and replace our constitutional form of government as the only way to stop racism. This is another simplistic claim that ignores the shades of gray in CRT. Those who teach CRT probably have somewhat different ideas about it. But one of the goals of CRT is to eliminate institutional, and overt, racism. Does that mean tearing down existing institutions? It means tearing down the institutions that are inherently racist. What about our constitutional form of government? Likewise, it has the goal of tearing down only the racist aspects of government.

The sheet quoted Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, authors of Critical Race Theory: An Introduction:

The critical race theory (CRT) movement is a collection of activists and scholars interested in studying and transforming the relationship among race, racism, and powerUnlike traditional civil rights, which embraces incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory questions the foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law.

What in hell is wrong with transforming relationships that perpetuate racism, as well as homophobia, sexism and classism? The assertions from them also includes step-by-step progress and incrementalism as though that alone will guarantee real change. In reality, one can look at the civil rights movement and see that there was not only step-by-step progress, but also civil disobedience. Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of a bus. Was that wrong? No. There were marches led by Martin Luther King which invited oppression from the racist establishment in the South. Was that wrong? No. These were necessary steps to push the political establishment into taking action.

The sheet mentions Martin Luther King and implies that proponents of CRT would be against his legacy based on race being the only thing that matters. First, the hypocrisy: whites have historically oppressed people of color based on race. Second, the statement is a wide generalization about people of color who support CRT. There are probably gray areas among supporters of CRT.

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Other claims: CRT rejects religious freedom and free speech. Another generalization. CRT rejects racism, both overt and institutionalized; CRT views fundamental freedoms as more ways to oppress the oppressed. But there is no doubt that among the oppressed there are CRT supporters. And the oppressed have largely been targets of white racism, past and present.

As with the Alliance Defending Freedom, there are like-minded individuals in politics who oppose CRT and have introduced bills to censor it. In an article published in The Atlantic (May 7, 2021) by Adam Harris, there is mention of Keith Ammon, a Republican of the New Hampshire House of Representatives who introduced a bill that bans divisive concepts like CRT. The bill would forbid race or sex scapegoating, questioning meritocracy and not allowing the word, racist, to be used against New Hampshire and the United States itself.

Other states have been taking up the crusade. Among them, Arkansas where the state legislature approved a ban on CRT. Harris partially quoted the bill which states that there will be no promotion of division between, resentment of, or social justice for groups based on race, gender or political affiliation. The Idaho legislature passed a bill that would prohibit public schools from compelling students to personally affirm, adopt or adhere to specific beliefs about race, sex or religion. Louisiana, likewise, is considering censoring CRT.

Meanwhile in Kentucky, there are Sens. Max Wise and Robby Mills who introduced the Teaching American Principles Act. Writing for Peoples World (February 9, 2022), Berry Craiga Kentuckian who is an emeritus professor at West Kentucky Community and Technical College in Paducahasserted that the bill promotes censorship, restricting the teaching of systemic racism in public schools. The bill is supposed to promote the teaching of diverse topics without giving a preference to a particular topic. But it may ,e.g, present pro-slavery positions and anti-slavery positions as morally equivalent.

Craig boiled it down to the following regarding the purpose of the bill: A teacher mustnt make white students feel bad by telling the truth about whites enslaving black people and whites making black people second-class citizens. Craig quoted Brian Clardy, a Murray, Ky., State University historian, who said the language of the bill is Orwellian double-talk. How is shielding students from the brutal lessons of history going to benefit the intellectual and personal development of any student? The bill is lunacy.

What those who oppose CRT have been doing is creating a moral panic. According to Thom Hartmann, writing in CounterPunch (February 4, 2022), he wrote specifically who the guilty parties are: libertarian billionaires, Republican Party leaders, multi-millionaire white evangelical preachers, white supremacist militia leaders, etc. Hartmann: These are goal-oriented crisis actors whove brought us the moral panic around Critical Race Theory that has now morphed into a book-banning frenzy.

Hartmann quoted Betsy DeVos, the unqualified Education Secretary, who wanted to end unionized, public education: Because wokeness is the lefts religion, banning critical race Theory wont fix the problem. The liberal education establishment will simply rename, rebrand, or repackage these insidious ideas to get around so-called bans. So, according to DeVos and others of the right-wing establishment, wokeness is portrayed as a bad thing. But being woke means being aware or alert. And wokeness is preferable to ignorance, the latter of which is rampant among the right.

Students in U.S. public schools need an overall education about the United States, teaching the good and the bad. That can contribute to making real change. Heres hoping that the censorship of CRT will eventually fail.

Crossposted from StarrNarrative.

Read more from the original source:
The Crusade on Critical Race Theory Is Censorship - LA Progressive

Commentary

These days, I rarely encounter people who disagree that the COVID-19 pandemic policy was a disaster.

You can usually get a laugh at a cocktail party when making fun of sanitizer madness, 15 days to flatten the curve, ubiquitous plexiglass, or six feet of distance. The school closures are in disrepute, as is the restriction on hospital visits or the banning of funerals and weddings. Even masking seems ridiculous in retrospect.

And remember when you couldnt get a haircut for three months? How many lives did that save?

One even encounters widespread derision at the notion that the vaccines were effective at disease blocking. People whisper in private about vaccine injury, which seems incredibly common.

To be sure, theres still a hard-core of true believers out there, easily recognizable by their beaks worn in public spaces and the funny two-step they do in stores to keep from getting near others. They wish we had stayed locked down longer or imposed even more violence against the unvaccinated.

Lets say that group constitutes 10 percent but surely no more than 20 percent of the population. As for the rest, the days of delusion are long gone. The entire public health establishment faces tremendous public incredulity. Traditionally, medical science has been among the most trusted of all sectors of life. But the Pew Research Center documents that it has taken a huge hit this year. Its not as bad as elected leaders in whom three-quarters of Americans say they have little or no trust, but its still bad.

And yet, however many people think these things in private, these opinions were nowhere in the mainstream media for the better part of two years. The near-universal opinion was that Dr. Anthony Fauci was a genius with the best interest of the country at heart. Dissidents were silenced and punished with throttles and bans. The government collaborated with Big Tech to mark all opposition to the extremist lockdowns and mandates as misinformation.

What effect does that have? It causes the opposition sectors to migrate into a Samizdat category, a banned point of view thats nonetheless widely held. Think of opposition to Communist Party rule in the Soviet Union in the old days. Trust in the party was nearly zero, but that was hardly ever expressed in public culture. As a result, people felt a sense of shame for holding perfectly reasonable views.

In fact, most people who today disagree profoundly with regime priorities during the pandemic dont know that some of the worlds leading experts on the topic shared their views completely. There were some who spoke outnot nearly enoughbut there was a conspiracy from the top to crush and discredit them. We know this. We have the receipts.

The government worked closely with social media companies to shut down scientifically informed voices, which isnt only an outrage against truth and justice; its also a flagrant violation of First Amendment rights.

Still, the censors succeeded in keeping these reasonable views out of the mainstream of the public mind, which is to say that their censorship worked. You and I might be pleased to have read the right Substack or encountered a contrarian book or paper. But remember that for every one piece of exposure of a dissenting perspective, tens of millions of others receive the mainstream line.

I was speaking to a group of highly informed finance professionals and making all of the above points. They seemed to be in full agreement. But then I became curious and asked how many in the audience had heard of the Great Barrington Declaration. Only six hands went up from the whole crowd.

Six people out of 600! This was a great reality check for me since this topic had reached more mainstream readers and listeners than any other during the pandemic. But in this crowd of highly educated professionals, only 1 percent had even heard of it.

This statement of public health principles has nearly 1 million signatures after a year of being online, but thats a drop in the bucket compared with the daily reach of Faucis pronouncements. Even if people dont really believe what they read and hear from the mainstream, a reputable alternative has never really had widespread reach.

The sad reality today is that people who have a seriously informed understanding of the issues underlying the great public health and economic calamity of our lifetimesand perhaps in all of modern historyconstitute a very tiny group. This is the triumph of the censors.

This leaves us today in a very strange position. An economic crisis is brewing, and inflation has already wrecked the value of wages and savings. This is a direct consequence of the pandemic lockdowns and wild congressional spending packages that were funded entirely by funny money created by the Fed. When Americans want to know why all of this is happening, they need only reflect on the policies over the past two years.

And yet, when you scour the mainstream media for this point of view, its extremely difficult to find. Even now, there has been no large effort to rethink what happened. Instead, we get the Orwellian memory hole. The entire lockdown experience is being dropped from memory simply because it was such an unworkable disaster but nonetheless one backed by the whole of the public and private establishment as if it were a normal and scientific application of public health mitigation strategy.

These days, the whole subject is treated like something weird that goes on in China and nothing more. The New York Times and CNN write about Chinas continuing lockdowns as if nothing like that ever happened here, even though that did happen here. We just pretend otherwise.

Another strange effect of censorship is to train the public mind in a kind of protocol of compliance. We all know what we can and cant say. We can believe what we want to believe of course, but constant compliance has spillover psychological effects. Force a person to behave as if he believes something long enough and it might eventually become an authentic belief. Even worse, a person comes to believe that authenticity and truth dont really matter anymore.

Im graced often these days with the opportunity to speak out about lockdowns and mandates and the remarkable disaster of the past 2 1/2 years. I often hear from listeners that it isnt only educational; its also therapeutic. People truly need to talk, share, learn, decompress, and come to terms with the trauma that all of this has been for the world.

My message states to many people that they arent insane, evil, victims of misinformation, or dangerous non-compliers. Instead, theyre reasonable and responsible citizens who are looking at facts and reality for what they are. And the reality is that the ruling class that imposed this new order of things on the world is the real danger.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn served such a crucial role in the latter years of communism and after simply because he told the truth that everyone knew in their hearts but couldnt formulate fully or state without penalty or personal trauma. He said openly and with moral passion what multitudes knew but couldnt say.

Theres a crying need today for a coming together of reality and public culture instead of the preposterous game of pretend that Big Tech and Big Media play every day. They know they were and are wrong, but they have to keep up the masquerade as champions of science and slayers of misinformation. They wasted vast amounts of their own credibility in the effort and seem determined to keep it up until their reputations are in complete ruins.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

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Did the Censors Succeed? - The Epoch Times