UPDATE: Since posting this story, CPAC spokesperson Alex Pfeiffer told MRC Free Speech America that YouTube has removed another day of proceedings from the CPAC Texas event held in Dallas Aug. 4-7. Initially, YouTube had only removed the proceedings from Friday, Aug. 5, but has now also removed the proceedings from Saturday, Aug. 6, Pfeiffer said.
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YouTube on Friday removed “an entire day” of content posted by the Conservative Political Action Conference with no warning, CPAC said in a statement Wednesday.
A CPAC event in Dallas that took place Aug. 4-7 featured “high-profile conservatives,” including former President Donald Trump, Fox News host Sean Hannity, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH).
CPAC spokesperson Alex Pfeiffer told MRC Free Speech America in an email Thursday that YouTube told his organization it removed the video because of so-called “misinformation.”
“YouTube continues to operate as an arm of the Democratic Party,” Pfeiffer said in a brief interview. “It shuts down all dissent. But they’re not going to win. We’re going to continue to talk about election integrity. Those fascist dorks in Silicon Valley won’t succeed.”
Pfeiffer said that YouTube gave CPAC a “strike,” which prohibits the organization from posting for one week. Three strikes would result in removal of CPAC’s account.
This isn’t the first time YouTube has gone after CPAC.
YouTube in March removed two days’ worth of February CPAC speeches from congressional lawmakers as well as Trump for supposed violations of its “election integrity policy.” In those speeches, the politicians discussed topics including Big Tech’s alleged meddling in the 2020 election. Removed content included speeches from Republican Reps. Andy Biggs (AZ) and Lauren Boebert (CO).
In June 2021, YouTube deleted an episode of CPAC’s “America Uncanceled” show, which contained video of Trump, Pfeiffer said. In an email to CPAC, YouTube cited “medical misinformation” about COVID-19 as the reason it removed the America Uncanceled episode, but didn’t specify any statements made in the video that allegedly violated the platform’s policies, Pfeiffer said. Trump in the video referenced research by the Smith Center for Infectious Diseases & Urban Health, CPAC said, adding that Trump noted doctors and medical groups were “barred from these platforms for posting about therapeutics such as hydroxychloroquine … now, most recent studies say [the drug is] effective in combating the virus.”
In a statement to MRC Free Speech America, YouTube spokesperson Ivy Choi claimed her platform removed the content from CPAC’s channel this week for violating YouTube’s “election integrity policy.” That policy “prohibits content that advances false claims that widespread fraud occurred in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, such as claims that the election was stolen or rigged,” she wrote.
YouTube’s latest censorship of CPAC fits with a trend of recent actions taken by Big Tech to suppress certain election-related content just six weeks ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, as several leftist tech companies have established programs to quash disagreeable political content.
Last month, at least four Big Tech platforms announced the creation of election “misinformation” centers to censor certain election-related content.
YouTube’s program – provided through parent company Google – focuses on “pre-bunking” supposed election “misinformation” by providing video viewers a “forewarning” of “an impending misinformation attack,” and then preemptively refuting the content.
No stranger to propaganda, the Chinese Communist Party-tied TikTok vowed to use its Elections Center to subjectively ban so-called “election misinformation, harassment - including that directed towards election workers - hateful behavior, and violent extremism.”
Meanwhile, Facebook in August announced it launched a “dedicated team” focused on the 2022 midterms to “combat election and voter interference.”
And Twitter, last month, said it is ramping up enforcement of its “Civic Integrity Policy” to target so-called “misleading claims about the voting process, misleading content intended to intimidate or dissuade people from participating in the election, or misleading claims that may undermine public confidence in elections outcomes.”
CPAC and CPAC Texas both have accounts on the pro-free-speech platform Rumble.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment.
