On the same day that Rush Limbaugh read my recent column on air, YouTube — in the dead of night — demonetized a large percentage of videos on my channel. My YouTube channel has been around for years with many recordings of very boring village meetings highlighting local Chicago-area corruption. Recently, I started doing reaction videos and comedy and gained a bunch of new subscribers and it’s been fun. I don’t swear (certainly no “F” words) and there’s nothing really controversial unless you count making fun of gender-confused rabid leftists with blue hair “controversial.”
Yesterday, October 5, after Rush read my article on his show, I made a video that included my reaction to him talking about it on the air. It wasn’t up for three hours before my videos started getting the dreaded yellow dollar signs — which means YouTube just took away my ability to be paid for them. YouTube made sure that whatever bump in subscribers or views I got from Rush would not benefit me in any way.
YouTube decided that a video discussing Rush — who broadcasts every day and is paid obscene amounts of money by advertisers — is not “advertiser-friendly.” This would be news to Rush’s entire staff who are making a living off his advertiser-friendly show that the FCC has allowed for over twenty years.
A small portion of demonetized videos on Megan Fox’s channel/ credit PJ Media
YouTube has been going after politically conservative content creators for a long time. Paul Joseph Watson’s videos have largely been demonetized along with those of Trump-stumping sisters Diamond and Silk and other big-name conservative talkers. Diversity & Comics creator Richard Meyer has received two strikes against his account in the last week. One more will result in his account being deleted and his content lost forever. All he knows is that his channel has been reported for dubious reasons by people who don’t want to be criticized in the comics industry. YouTube shows no desire to right such situations.
In fact, YouTube does not allow anyone to dispute the demonetization strikes unless the video in question receives 1000 views in the next seven days (go watch it—now!). This makes it impossible for anyone without hundreds of thousands of subscribers to have a prayer of being monetized again.
Even an advertisement I made for my book, “Shut Up! The Bizarre War That One Public Library Waged Against the First Amendment” was hit unironically with the YouTube censorship stick. If a video depicting an ad for a book about free speech isn’t allowed, what is? One thing is for sure:
Google sucks.
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