YouTube Blocks American Conservative Union from Streaming Donald Trump's CPAC Speech
Google-owned video-sharing platform YouTube censored the American Conservative Union by removing an episode of “America UnCanceled,” a program on the ACU’s CPAC NOW network.
The taken-down episode featured information about former President Donald Trump’s America First Policy Institute-led class-action lawsuit against Big Tech, the ACU said in a news release.
“It is clear that YouTube censored CPAC because we stood with former President Donald Trump on his lawsuit against Big Tech,” ACU Chairman Matt Schlapp said.
“This is yet another example of Big Tech censoring content with which they disagree in order to promote the political positions they favor.”
On top of removing the episode from the platform, YouTube put a strike against the ACU’s YouTube account on Friday.
The ACU was banned from uploading any content for one week, effectively preventing them from broadcasting speeches from CPAC 2021 in Dallas, including Trump’s Sunday address to the conference’s attendees.
A YouTube spokeswoman told Breitbart News that the platform took the aforementioned actions because of alleged “medical misinformation.”
“At YouTube, we enforce our Community Guidelines equally for everyone, regardless of the speaker,” the spokesperson told the outlet.
“Based on guidance from the CDC, FDA and other local health authorities, our COVID-19 misinformation policy doesn’t currently allow content recommending Hydroxychloroquine (HQN) as an effective treatment or prevention method for the virus. In accordance with this policy, we removed several videos of the press conference that contained the claim that HQN is effective in combating COVID-19. Thousands of videos of this press conference that do not contain this claim — including those critical of YouTube — remain on our platform,” reads the YouTube spokeswoman’s statement to Breitbart News.
The ACU said in the news release that YouTube “did not specify any statements made in the video that allegedly violated their policies.”
The organization, however, stated that it believes YouTube took the actions because Trump referenced a study by the Smith Center for Infectious Diseases & Urban Health and the Saint Barnabas Medical Center in the censored episode.
The former president, according to the ACU, said, “doctors and medical groups have been barred from these platforms for posting about therapeutics such as hydroxychloroquine … now, most recent studies say [the drug is] effective in combating the virus.”
“Clearly, Google’s political biases heavily influence YouTube’s definitions of ‘misinformation’ and that the political beliefs of Google executives take priority over the free speech rights of Google users,” the ACU media release stated.
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