Right Wing Watch, an organization that scours the internet to report conservative “bigotry” to Big Tech, has been permanently banned from YouTube. The group has been fuming over the decision, as right-wing commenters gloated.
Right Wing Watch describes itself as a group that “monitors and exposes the activities of Radical Right political organizations.” What that means in practice is RWW combs social media for controversialstatements, before explicitly or implicitly calling for the accounts behind them to be banned.
However, tables were seemingly turned on Monday, when RWW itself was permanently banned from YouTube, due to “severe or repeated violations” of the platform’s community guidelines.
“Our efforts to expose the bigoted view and dangerous conspiracy theories spread by right-wing activists has now resulted in @YouTube banning our channel and removing thousands of our videos,” RWW tweeted. “We attempted to appeal this decision, and YouTube rejected it.”
Our efforts to expose the bigoted view and dangerous conspiracy theories spread by right-wing activists has now resulted in @YouTube banning our channel and removing thousands of our videos. We attempted to appeal this decision, and YouTube rejected it. pic.twitter.com/74Rfi31uQe
YouTube has cracked down hard on right-wing content in recent years, including “misinformation” surrounding the 2020 election and “conspiracy theories” around coronavirus vaccines. The RWW team often pointed out examples of what it considered “bigoted” content on YouTube, but with the ban-hammer now wielded against them, anti-censorship advocates couldn’t help but rub it in.
“Congratulations once again to all the liberals and leftists – led by their journalists – who urged censorship of political speech by Silicon Valley monopolists based in the belief that it would only be used to silence your adversaries and enemies but never your allies,” journalist Glenn Greenwald tweeted.
Hahahahahahahahahaha! Isn’t it fun when you get a dose of your own suppository? https://t.co/MBLO7h9Ueo
Ahem, I believe the mandatoryTwitter response here is, "Shut up, you snowflake. YouTube is a private company and they can do whatever they want." https://t.co/RYWh56OCD0
I will no longer defend anti-speech scumbags who set fire to the system for ideological gain when they get burned by their own arson https://t.co/mBPsF1BIny
RWW would frequently clip content from right-wing creators for its videos. It’s not improbable that this was the cause for the ban – not some political realignment within YouTube itself – but the video-hosting behemoth rarely explains the details of its censorship decisions.
You have to be absolutely brain-dead to not wonder whether your strident efforts to get "bigoted and dangerous" content purged from tech platforms has perhaps backfired -- as was 100% predictable -- but don't put it past these guys to have zero self-awareness https://t.co/M12GdgSG5P
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