Mumkey Jones: Political Censorship on Youtube in Practice.

I just saw the news today that a
politically significant YouTube channel was deleted for politically significant reasons this channel was called monkey Jones and you can probably guess already from the name of the channel it was satirical it was comedic but let me tell you something in politics a joke is not just a joke he actually did some really significant original research on the life of Elliot Rodger Elliot Rodger was an attempted mass murderer he did murder a few people I think he actually really shared with the public a lot of facts about that case that you would not find in mainstream press coverage and yeah he also did make comedic videos comedic videos about Elliot Rodger about those mass murders and on other topics so he engaged in satire and humor but it was not just joking for the sake of getting a laugh and I can genuinely say that I did learn things I learned things that were useful and meaningful to me and I think I quoted his channel in at least one or two videos here in the past he had a positive impact on my life might be surprising to some of you seeing this video but that's the truth now both of his channels have been deleted by YouTube through the usual YouTube strike process they use the term strike because of the concept of three-strikes-you're-out right now someone is trying to get my channel deleted by sending in complaints that would under normal circumstances give me strikes and that result in specific videos being deleted and this is not the first time I've been through this because I've been through this repeatedly of people perniciously trying to have my channel deleted through complaints that YouTube may regard as ostensibly legitimate or they may not I'm kind of open door there because I have that back from that experience I wasn't surprised at all to hear that monkey Jones's channel was deleted on the contrary when I discovered his channel just a couple of months ago I thought oh wow it's a matter of time before these videos get deleted not as sorry the whole channel many people don't understand what's happening in terms of the uncontrolled sequence of caused an event that's transforming the content on YouTube inside and out step one was just the D monetization of overtly violent videos if you go back five years people used to actually make money and get famous but uploading videos of people having fistfights and YouTube was I think ambivalent about making money themselves or their contributors making money out of this kind of overtly negative amateur filmmaking I mean there really were videotapes of like a bunch of kids in the neighborhood punching each other in the face that would get uploaded here notoriously to other websites like WorldStarHipHop and YouTube obviously it was in a position where they were trying to come up with some kind of policy statement that would draw a line about what type of content they do and don't want to be making money out of there were some enormous ly successful channels that spread a neo-nazi message so I've mentioned one here repeatedly she was a really skinny Canadian girl who was putting up videos of herself celebrating the birthday of Adolf Hitler she had a videotape of her literally blowing out the birthday candles on a cake she baked for Adolf Hitler and having the photograph Adolf Hitler on the wall this kind of thing um at that time that so many years ago has more like four years ago it really wasn't clear what policy statement YouTube was enforcing here there was an ad-hoc sense that every so often something crosses the line and nobody's ever really drawn the line but when something crosses the line on an ad-hoc basis some executive at YouTube makes the decision to to take it down so in as much as the ad hoc period seem to only punish people who were rich and famous the majority of us didn't complain because of course there were dozens or hundreds of small channels doing the same things and not making money or not getting famous they were just committing the same transgressions on a smaller scale so I think a lot of people ignored what the creeping effect of this would be now I didn't ignore it and it's no great I'm boast on my part I didn't ignore it because I couldn't ignore it I got a strike so video removed and a strike against my channel because of my criticism of the diet and exercise routine of Ted car now you've full disclosure I was also really criticizing what he said about education and career plans because he was encouraging his video server D he was encouraging his audience to just kind of drop out of school and not worry about having a career and not think long term and I saw a lot wrong with that advice so from my perspective that was my main focus in criticizing Ted Caron his channel but that's not why the video was deleted had a strike I dared to say that he looked about 10 years older than he looks I dared to say that his his he's presenting himself he's the guy who's has his shirt off and his presenting himself as a kind of beauty beauty icon for men as being an athlete and someone you should aspire to look like and I said that he is not terribly good-looking that he does not look terribly youthful or vital or what-have-you I did make some comments in passing about his appearance bullying and or hate speech not just demonetized video deleted strike against your channel and if you get three strikes you're out your channels gone forever now you can see exactly what I said about Ted car on this channel still because I edited it into shorter segments and re-uploaded the video which is a risk because then if it's there in three pieces and you get three strikes your whole channel is deleted but I did that and honestly I did it because I really believed in what I said in that video and I really thought it was important to take the chance and have that on the record and for me also it means I can now say that this audience hey if you want to know just how easy it just how strict the censorship is on YouTube that's mostly invisible to you I guess I'll give a link below this video none of you guys gonna say you're gonna click on this code what how could this possibly be blocked this way well I have a worse example for you and this relates very directly to what monkey Jones just went through some monkey Jones is complaining that he had videos deleted for hate speech I think it's specifically hate speech not threats of violence where he's quoting elliot rodger so he's quoting elliot rodger in the process of criticizing him or of ridiculing him even and he is being punished as if he's stating these political views on his own behalf in the same way I made a video harshly criticizing a vegan diet guru another guy who likes to have a shirt off on camera by the way guy named John Rose and it was completely clear that I was harshly condemning him for being a neo-nazi by the way I'm of Jewish ancestry myself my political leaning as you can see on this channel but I have no sympathy whatsoever with this guy's political position but if it wasn't completely obvious to you if watching the video that I was harshly condemning him for his views it actually had a warning at the bottom of the video throughout whenever I was quoting the person I was criticizing it said in text on screen this is being quoted only - in order to criticize and excoriate it you know the this is not the view of the person making this video and the irony is that wasn't just deleted on my channel and I got it was deleted as hate speech on this channel but the scene videos I was quoting are still on John Rose's channel not censored no-strike etc so the same statements about Adolf Hitler he does he's not that subtle about he directly is talking about his views on Adolf Hitler on his channel where their stated positively where he's approving they'd all that Hitler that's not hate speech according to YouTube that's not censored my quoting his zone Adolf Hitler in order to condemn and excoriate him that is okay so this is the reality even if these are the only examples I had to work with this is my only experience it's not if you know watch my channel other people have tried to destroy my channel okay um this shows you very clearly what is possible and what's not on YouTube and I feel bad for machi Jones I believe he was making enough money from YouTube that it was his full-time job or at least it was a part-time job that had really changed his life so I think his financial situation is probably suddenly really damaged he's probably going to impact his life in many different ways having his channels deleted you could say about me at least right now as 2080 net closes that's not particularly true I get a couple hundred dollars a month but it doesn't impact my life that much one way or another if you want to be paid on YouTube you got to put on you got to put on a suit and tie and you got to sit at a news desk and you've got to be incredibly careful about who you quote and what you say whether or not that was the preconceived plan that YouTube created it's not just that the era of fistfights on the street corner is over the era of Real Talk on YouTube is over in 2018 there will never be another anisia there will never be another the amazing atheist there will never be another monkey Jones if you do upload those kinds of videos you will never be able to make money out of them you will never be able to earn a living you will never be able to gather a large audience not on YouTube maybe try some other website okay so the rules have changed and the implications and effect of that change in rules was very subtle at first but now we see it in all its devastating knock-on effects and use a legal term some of you may or may not know this is especially famous in American law what censorship has is a chilling effect on free speech it has a chilling effect on political commentary and criticism that's the legal term and that's exactly what this is