The American Conservative Union (ACU), the organization that runs the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) has blasted Google-owned YouTube for censoring its channel after it uploaded a video of former President Donald Trump’s speech at this year’s conference.
In a letter to the CEO of Google obtained exclusively by Breitbart News, CPAC chairman Matt Schlapp promised to use the organization’s clout in the conservative movement to push for new regulation and legislation to tackle Google’s censorship.
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)
Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union (NELSON ALMEIDA/AFP via Getty Images)
The letter follows in full:
Dear Mr. Pichai,
Once again, Google has chosen to play politics and censor, using its market dominant position to do so. While we are disappointed, we are not surprised.
I recently learned that you have inappropriately taken down CPAC’s entire Saturday, February 26th livestream content from our recent conference in Orlando, Florida. In addition, you issued CPAC a “strike” for citing “mis-information” regarding the 2020 presidential election.
Regardless of your personal beliefs and those of your senior leadership (not to mention your absolute liberal bias), there remain very serious questions about the way the 2020 election was conducted. Removing our content does not erase those questions, no matter how hard you try. Indeed, it is telling you offer no evidence that would demonstrate any falsity in the content you censored.
Moreover, your action was needlessly indiscriminate. Aside from a discussion of the 2020 election, topics you censored include: Putin’s thuggery, the rise of antisemitism, and the need to value all human life. But I guess those concepts can be sacrificed on the altar of Orwellian political correctness.
How ironic that during a dangerous time when autocrats like Vladimir Putin deny free people their rights in Russia and the Ukraine, Google would act similarly to stifle differing perspectives here at home.
We all lament the destruction of civil discourse. But make no mistake, Google’s actions to suppress freedom of speech, thought and expression are what truly destroys civil discourse. It is when people are not allowed to express themselves freely that they take matters into their own hands.
Such treatment of Americans cannot stand. CPAC will appropriately use its voice to urge conservatives in state capitals across the country, and the new majority in Congress come November – to pursue appropriate government regulation and legislation to hold Google accountable for its censorship. Neither Google nor its YouTube subsidiary can be allowed to run roughshod over the rights of Americans who are simply voicing their political beliefs.
Matt Schlapp
CPAC Chairman
YouTube has been aggressively censoring channels that host content featuring President Trump. Last week, it censored a viral interview with Trump on The Nelk Boys’ Full Send podcast. The interview had accumulated over 5 million views in the 24 hours prior to its removal.
YouTube reportedly removed the video claiming that it violated the site’s community guidelines and “misinformation policy.” According to YouTube’s communication shared by the Nelk Boys, the Masters of the Universe censored the Trump interview over discussion of election fraud.
The NELK Boys are a YouTube group from Canada that makes videos centered around pranks, college culture, and lifestyle vlogs. Their main channel currently has over 7 million subscribers.
YouTube also suspended the account of the Hill, an establishment media outlet covering politics, because it hosted clips of Trump’s CPAC speech.
Via Wired:
Last week, YouTube suspended the Hill, a political publication in Washington, DC, for seven days after its YouTube channel aired clips of Trump claiming election fraud. One came from his recent speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference. The second was a snippet from a Trump interview on Fox News, which was broadcast on the Hill’s daily commentary show, Rising.
The latter clip wasn’t even primarily about the election. In it, Trump gives his less-than-statesmanlike analysis of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which the Rising hosts proceeded to mock. But right at the end of the clip, Trump says, “And it all happened because of a rigged election.”
Even Wired, which has adopted leftist editorial positions in recent years, voiced its concern with the “never-ending disinformation emergency” used by Big Tech companies to censor reporting and political content.
“By asking news hosts to explicitly denounce any mention of election fraud, YouTube isn’t just making its own content decisions; it’s injecting itself into the editorial processes of actual media outlets,” wrote Wired writer Gilad Edelman.
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.
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