1984 is here.[PJMedia] In October, the conservative educational nonprofit Prager University filed a lawsuit against YouTube and its parent company, Google, for "intentional" censorship of conservative speakers. PragerU told PJ Media that after five months, YouTube is still restricting its videos. PragerU will go before a California judge on March 15.
"There’s one thing we know and that’s that we’re being targeted by YouTube," Craig Strazzeri, chief marketing officer at PragerU, told PJ Media. "We tried the diplomatic approach for over a year and a half. We had email dialogue, phone call dialogue with them. I was even invited to New York to discuss the problem, where absolutely nothing got done."
After a year, PragerU had had enough and filed the lawsuit. After this, they had to wait six months before appearing before a judge.
More than 40 of PragerU's videos have been "restricted" by YouTube. "We have in writing from them that they’ve reviewed our videos and deemed them inappropriate. They’re not even hiding behind it," Strazzeri said.
"Restricted" videos cannot be viewed in specific "modes," such as "child mode," a version of YouTube supposedly tailored to children. The video company told PragerU they deemed the videos inappropriate for young people, because they discuss "mature topics."
"However, there are millions ‐ that’s not an exaggeration ‐ of other videos on the same topic that are not restricted. Sometimes either an identical title from a Left-leaning perspective and theirs won’t be restricted and ours will be," Strazzeri told PJ Media.
Ironically, there are many YouTube accounts that copy a PragerU video ‐ in its entirety ‐ and do not find their copycat videos restricted, even though PragerU's original video was.
For instance, on December 4, 2017, PragerU released a video with author and film producer Dinesh D'Souza on the true nature of fascism.
Six days later, a user named Jack Kern published an identical video.
People using YouTube in a restricted mode cannot watch the PragerU video, but they can watch the exact same content from Jack Kern. The PragerU video has more than 893,000 views, while Kern's video has a mere 40 views. It seems YouTube is specifically targeting PragerU because it has a wide audience.
The issue goes far beyond PragerU, however. Google dominates Internet search traffic with over 75 percent of the market. This dominance has a cultural impact, as "Google" itself has become a verb meaning "Internet search."
"It's in Google's mission statement that they make information accessible. People don’t realize when they Google something they may not actually get all the information that's available," Strazzeri said.
"It would be different if they said they were a Leftist organization, but they claim themselves to be this place where they collect and organize the world's information for people to access," he explained. "The public thinks they're getting an objective look, not so much that Google is picking and choosing and hiding and deleting anyone who disagrees with their point of view."
More at the link.