Tag: YouTube

Google and YouTube Will Demonetize Content Denying ‘Scientific Consensus’ on Climate Change

Virginia Star Staff
Person on Smartphone

Google and YouTube announced a new policy Thursday demonetizing all content that denies the scientific consensus on climate change.

Google will no longer allow ads for “content that contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change,” the company announced in a support page added to its website Thursday. The policy, which Google will start enforcing next month, covers YouTube videos and websites that treat climate change as a “hoax or a scam,” content “denying that long-term trends show the global climate is warming” and content “denying that greenhouse gas emissions or human activity contribute to climate change.”

The search giant said it was implementing the policy due to pressure from advertisers, who didn’t want their products associated with content promoting climate denial.

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YouTube Deletes Ron Paul Channel, Rejects Appeal, Then Reinstates It After Getting Called Out on Twitter

Virginia Star Staff

YouTube deleted one of former Texas Rep. Ron Paul’s channels Thursday and denied his appeal to reinstate it, only restoring the account after Paul voiced his frustrations on Twitter.

Paul posted two screenshots on Twitter Thursday of emails sent to him by YouTube informing him his account “RonPaulInstitute” had been removed for “severe or repeated violations of our community guidelines.” A screenshot of another email appeared to show an automatic reply from YouTube informing Paul that his appeal to reinstate the account had been denied.

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YouTube Says Will Ban Posts from Prominent Anti-Vaccine Activists in Effort to Purge Misinformation

Admin

YouTube said Wednesday the platform is banning several prominent anti-vaccine activists from its platform as part of an effort to remove all content that falsely claims that approved vaccines are dangerous.

Amon the accounts being banned are those of Joseph Mercola and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., according to The New York Times.

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Chinese-Owned TikTok Overtakes YouTube in US

Peter D'Abrosca

After former President Donald J. Trump attempted to ban TikTok, a popular video streaming social network, the Chinese-owned company has overtaken Google-owned YouTube in popularity in the United States.

“App users in the UK and US are spending more time on TikTok than on YouTube, a new report suggests,” BBC reported. “Data from app monitoring firm App Annie indicates that average time per user spent on the apps is higher for TikTok, indicating high levels of engagement.”

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Commentary: The Battle Against Big Tech Is an Existential Fight for Conservatives

Virginia Star Staff
Person holding phone up in Times Square.

For Big Tech billionaires, these are the best of times, and the worst of times.

Why the best? Because the long arm of social media and online commerce has never reached further and deeper into Americans’ culture, spending habits, lifestyles, and worldview. Likewise, the net worth of these billionaires has risen to undreamed-of heights. COVID was, for tech barons, a blessing in disguise: it trapped Americans indoors, where they could do little else but browse the web, consume digital entertainment, and spend their stimulus dollars on imported Chinese doohickeys. Even as the dreaded virus has retreated, Big Tech has successfully locked in its gains.

Why the worst of times, though? The very rise of Big Tech has portended greater scrutiny. The debasement of Big Tech’s competitors and natural enemies—from brick-and-mortar stores to Trump supporters—has ensured that the drumbeat of criticism of social media companies and online retailers has never been more stridently percussive. 

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YouTube Deletes Video on Trump’s Big Tech Lawsuit, Blocks His CPAC Speech from the Platform

Virginia Star Staff

YouTube deleted the American Conservative Union’s (ACU) video featuring former President Trump announcing his class-action lawsuit against Big Tech, citing an alleged violation of its COVID-19 terms and conditions.

The ACU, which hosts the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), received “a strike” on their account from YouTube on July 9, preventing them from uploading new content for a week. This includes ACU’s CPAC 2021 Part 2 in Dallas, Texas, and Trump’s CPAC speech scheduled for Sunday, the organization said in a statement.

In the deleted YouTube video of Trump’s announcement of a lawsuit against Big Tech, which includes Google, he also cited a medical study on hydroxychloroquine as a therapeutic for COVID-19.

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Silicon Valley Tech Platforms Receive Failing Grades on Quarterly Censorship Report

Peter D'Abrosca

According to a the most recent quarterly censorship report card from the Media Research Center (MRC), most of the major Silicon Valley tech titans are failing to protect freedom of expression.

“By almost any measure, the first three months of 2021 were the worst ever for online freedom. Amazon, Twitter, Apple, Google, Facebook, YouTube and others proved to the world that the Big Tech censorship of conservatives is a reality,” the group said. “And they did so in disturbing, authoritarian ways that highlight their unchecked power over information and our political process.”

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YouTube CEO Honored with ‘Free Expression’ Award as Big Tech Silences Conservatives

Peter D'Abrosca
Susan Wojcicki

Despite its ongoing censorship and banning of prominent conservatives from its platform, the CEO of Google-owned YouTube collected an award for “free expression” last week. 

The nonprofit Freedom Forum, which describes itself as “celebrating the world’s champions of free expression,” decided that Susan Wojcicki met that high bar. 

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DeSantis and Doctors Accuse Media, Big Tech of Hiding Harm from COVID Restrictions

Admin
Ron DeSantis

The media, academy and Big Tech are suppressing facts about the harms caused by COVID-19 lockdown policies, especially for younger generations, Gov. Ron DeSantis and public health experts said in a “roundtable discussion” on the novel coronavirus Monday.

These powerful American institutions are also misleading their audiences about the public health results from Florida’s open approach, which contrasted sharply with most states, they said.

The potential Republican presidential candidate hammered Google and its YouTube platform in particular for removing his earlier COVID-19 roundtable with the same doctors, branding it “misinformation.” Even some Florida news stations had their coverage removed.

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YouTube Suspends Rudy Giuliani for False Election Claims

Virginia Star Staff

YouTube suspended former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani again for spreading false information related to the 2020 presidential election, claiming the election was stolen.

Rudy Giuliani was suspended for repeatedly claiming the election was stolen from former President Donald Trump, who President Joe Biden unseated in November, Bloomberg reported. YouTube cited its “presidential election integrity policy” and its “regulated goods policy,” alleging that Giuliani had posted content facilitating nicotine use.

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YouTube Removes New Interview with President Trump, Citing ‘Presidential Election Integrity Policy’

Virginia Star Staff

YouTube this week censored a recent interview with former President Donald Trump, claiming the video violated its new standards regarding allegations of election fraud.

The interview, conducted by Newsmax anchor Greg Kelly, included claims by Trump that he himself was the rightful winner of the 2020 election. Trump has repeatedly insisted that widespread voter fraud and vote-rigging tipped the scales in favor of Joe Biden during the race.

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YouTube Deletes Top Pro-Life News Outlet’s Channel for ‘Violating Our COVID-19 Misinformation Policy’

Virginia Star Staff

YouTube deleted a pro-life news outlet’s channel for “violating our COVID-19 misinformation policy,” a spokeswoman told the Daily Caller News Foundation Wednesday.

LifeSite News announced the ban Wednesday morning, noting that it cut the site off from its 300,000 followers.

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Commentary: The Social Media Purge Exposes Net Neutrality’s True Goal

Virginia Star Staff

For nearly two decades, Silicon Valley made net neutrality its highest policy priority. Under the banner of a “free and open” internet, Google, Facebook, and Twitter sought regulations to ensure the uninterrupted flow of information by treating every bit equally. Or so they said.

Beginning last Friday night, these firms and others executed an unprecedented digital purge of the social media and video accounts of their political rivals. After several years of accelerating suspensions and suppressions, this time YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter permanently banned a number of high-profile conservatives and deplatformed thousands of others, at least temporarily. Many of these accounts had nothing to do with last Wednesday’s heinous events at the Capitol. Yet their histories are erased.

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YouTube Suspends Trump Account for at Least Seven Days

Virginia Star Staff

YouTube became the latest social media platform to ban President Donald Trump, announcing late Tuesday that he wouldn’t be able to post new content for seven days.

YouTube, a subsidiary of Google, said it took the action against Trump because of the potential for violence to be sparked from his content. The massive video-sharing platform joined Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Twitch, Reddit and many others in suspending or banning the president, Axios reported.

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Richmond Mom Accessed Explicit Content on School-Issued Virtual Learning Computer

Eric Burk

Richmond Public Schools (RPS) has tightened content filtering restrictions on school computers after Janet Kelly discovered she could access explicit YouTube content on her elementary-aged son’s computer. Kelly is pleased that the school responded to her concerns, but she’s worried about long-term harms linked to having children in front of computers constantly for virtual learning.

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YouTube to Remove Videos Challenging 2020 Election, but ‘Russia Collusion’ Videos Left Uncensored

Virginia Star Staff

Tech giant and Internet video pioneer YouTube this week announced that it will begin to remove videos challenging the results of the 2020 presidential election, a policy it plans to enforce even as numerous videos remain up challenging the outcome of the 2016 election in which Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton.

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YouTube Automatically Deletes Any Comments That Contain Certain Phrases Insulting to Chinese Communist Party

Virginia Star Staff

YouTube’s enforcement algorithm is automatically removing any comments that contain one of two Chinese-language phrases that are critical of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

Any comment posted to YouTube, which is owned by Google, that contains the phrase “共匪,” which stands for “communist bandit,” or “五毛,” which translates to “wumao” and stands for “50-cent party,” is deleted within seconds without notification to the user, The Verge reported Tuesday.

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JC Bowman Commentary: Exposed in a Technological Age

JC Bowman
classroom

An old and wise saying challenges us to: “Believe nothing you hear, half of what you read, and some of what you see.”  It is critical to examine issues from all angles, rejecting gossip, mistruths, bias or information not supported or misinterpreted.  Put what you see or read into proper context to make sure what you think you are seeing is factual. 

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