UPDATE: After this piece's publication, YouTube spokesperson Jack Malon provided the following statement: "We issued a strike to the channel in question for violating our hate speech policy, which prohibits content promoting hatred against protected individuals or groups, including the LGBTQ+ community."
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The Big Tech censorship hydra has once again reared its head, this time lashing out at pro-life digital news outlet LifeSite.
YouTube issued two strikes against LifeSite co-founder and Editor-in-Chief John-Henry Westen's channel, according to screenshots included in a LifeSiteNews report. The platform claimed one of the channel's videos violated its “hate speech” policy.
The so-called “hateful” video in question criticized the 95th Academy Award Winning Movie Everything Everywhere All at Once.
“Everything, Everywhere, All at Once is a standard-bearer for the anti-family, anti-life, and anti-Catholic propaganda so beloved by the Left,” Westen told LifeSite.
YouTube’s notice claimed, “Content glorifying or inciting violence against another person or group of people is not allowed on YouTube. We also don’t allow any content that encourages hatred of another person or group of people based on their membership in a protected group.”
Weston objected to YouTube labeling the video as hateful. “[W]e were banned for violating their ‘hate speech’ policy even though our approach to LGBT issues has always been about love – loving people in those homosexual relationships enough to tell them that the sexual behavior they are engaged in is harmful to their bodies and ultimately their souls,” he said.
As part of the channel strike, YouTube also deleted LifeSite’s flagged video.
Apparently, critical analysis of a popular movie is not allowed on YouTube if it dares to swim against the current of leftist identity politics.
“[T]he movie is their new golden calf,” Westen said, “and disrespect towards this new LGBT monument is not allowed. But we at LifeSite have eternal souls and the wellbeing of your families front-and-center, and nothing Big Tech can do will silence us.”
If LifeSite’s channel receives a third strike in a 90-day period, YouTube will permanently remove the organization’s account, according to the platform’s Community Guidelines.
YouTube did not respond to MRC Free Speech America’s request for comment at the time of publication.
LifeSite is a member of the Free Speech Alliance headed by the Media Research Center.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on so-called “hate speech” and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
