Posted on 07/17/2019 7:23:05 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Before the Senate on Tuesday, Dennis Prager, the founder of the conservative behemoth PragerU and its affiliated YouTube Channels, railed against the video-sharing service for restricting access to roughly one-fifth of his video content for being “mature contents” considered inappropriate for younger audiences.
Prager testified that YouTube routinely suppresses conservative perspectives such as his on its website and bars “restricted mode” users from viewing roughly twenty percent of the 320 videos uploaded by his channel. Censored content includes videos on the Ten Commandments and the history of Israel, according to Prager.
“We have repeatedly asked Google why our videos are restricted. No explanation is ever given," he said. "But, of course, we know why. Because they come from a conservative perspective."
"Restricted mode" is an optional feature on YouTube that purportedly filters out “mature content” that is inappropriate for children and young people or institutions like churches and schools. Google, which owns YouTube, does not make clear what exactly constitutes “mature content” on its website.
Karan Bhatia, a Google executive who also testified at the Monday hearing, explained that the feature is supposed to tag “war, rape, and things like that.”
Bhatia explained during the hearing that YouTube tagged PragerU’s ten commandment video specifically because it “contains references to murder … [and] potentially Nazism and World War Two, perhaps something along those lines.”
The Ten Commandments video in question considers the moral and religious arguments surrounding murder to explain the importance of God’s command. It also contains a passing reference to Nazi and Communist killings to argue atheism does not prevent murder. The Ten Commandments video is still unwatchable for “restricted mode” users as of this article’s publication.
Prager said that Bhatia’s explanation for suppressing his video was “so absurd as to be hilarious.” He promised to upload a video without any reference to “thou shalt not murder” to get around the restrictions.
“I feel like I’m in a Monty Python film when [Bhatia] says something like that. The only possible explanation for all of this is they don’t like PragerU because we’re a very, very influential conservative voice touching a lot of lives. There’s no other explanation.”
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) expressed sympathy for Prager, sarcastically pointing out, “You would think we would want young people hearing ‘thous shalt not murder.’”
PragerU was founded in 2009 to consider various political, economic, and philosophical issues from a conservative perspective. Prager said the YouTube channel, which now has 2.2 million subscribers and nearly 750 million views, aims to inform youths in America and the world-at-large — a mission that is hurt by this type of censorship.
“Vast number of parents have filters — totally understandable, given how much junk there is on the internet,” he said. “It not only hurts us in that that family cannot see that video. It hurts us because then it is a statement by Google that Prager University produces videos on the moral level of pornography.”
YouTube’s policy notes that the site will take down porn or any “sexually gratifying” content from its website, but says some “fetish content” may only be age-restricted. Restricted mode, however, does not necessarily flag content because it is pornographic, as it polices all “mature contents” more generally. Bhatia, the Google executive, noted many videos barred in restricted mode are “perfectly acceptable to watch.”
Bhatia downplayed Prager’s concerns of censorship, arguing that the vast majority of users can watch PragerU videos without restriction. But while only two percent of accounts have restricted mode turned on, Prager noted that many restricted mode users are young people — the very demographic that PragerU hopes to appeal to.
As a result of YouTube’s restriction, Prager sued the video-hosting company in January for “continuing to unlawfully restrict and restrain speech and expression,” Fox reported.
“Do you think the secretary-general of NATO, or the former prime-ministers of Norway, Canada, and Spain, or the late Charles Krauthammer, or Philip Hamburger, distinguished professor of law at Columbia Law School, would make a video for an extreme or hate-filled site?” he wrote in his testimony. “The idea is not only preposterous; it is a smear.”
Documents submitted by Google as part of Prager’s lawsuit, and introduced in the hearing by Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI), complicates the picture painted by Prager. The document shows that restricted mode has flagged a much higher percentage of content produced by left-leaning accounts — such as Vox, Buzzfeed, and The Young Turk — compared to PragerU. For instance, 42.53 percent of videos produced by NowThis World are flagged by restricted mode.
“If Google’s treatment of PragerU is meant to show Google’s anti-conservative bias, Google isn’t doing a very good job with it,” Hirono said.
“I’m really not understanding Mr. Prager’s concerns,” she added later.
The senator did not give Prager the time to respond to her confusion.
I thought Dennis Prager was a serial killer.
Statement by Dennis Prager to Senate Committee — July 16, 2019
It is an honor to be invited to speak in the United States Senate. But I wish I were not so honored. Because the subject of this hearing—Google and YouTube’s (and for that matter Twitter and Facebook’s) suppression of internet content on ideological grounds—threatens the future of America more than any external enemy.
In fact, never in American history has there been as strong a threat to freedom of speech
as there is today.
Before addressing this, however, I think it important that you know a bit about me and the organization I co-founded, Prager University, PragerU as it often referred to.
I was born in Brooklyn NY. My late father, Max Prager, was a CPA and an Orthodox Jew who volunteered to serve in the US Navy at the start of World War II. My father’s senior class thesis at the City College of New York was on anti-Semitism in America. Yet, despite his keen
awareness of the subject, he believed that Jews living in America were the luckiest Jews to have ever lived outside of Israel.
He was right. Having taught Jewish history at Brooklyn College, written a book on antisemitism, and fought Jew-hatred my whole life, I thank God for living in America.
It breaks my heart that a vast number of young Americans have not only not been taught how lucky they are to be Americans but have been taught either how unlucky they are or how ashamed they should be.
It breaks my heart for them because contempt for one’s country leaves a terrible hole in one’s soul and because ungrateful people always become unhappy and angry people.
And it breaks my heart for America, because no good country can survive when its people have contempt for it.
I have been communicating this appreciation of America for 35 years as a radio talk show host, the last 20 in national syndication with the Salem Radio Network, an organization that is a blessing in American life. One reason I started PragerU was to communicate America’s moral purpose and moral achievements both to young Americans and to young people around the world. With a billion views a year, and with more than half of the viewers under age of 35, PragerU has achieved some success.
My philosophy of life is easily summarized: God wants us to be good. Period. God without goodness is fanaticism and goodness without God will not long endure. Everything I and PragerU do emanates from belief in the importance of being a good person. That some label us extreme or “haters” only reflects on the character and the broken moral compass of those making such accusations. They are the haters and extremists.
PragerU releases a five-minute video every week. Our presenters include three former prime-ministers, four Pulitzer-Prize winners, liberals, conservatives, gays, blacks, Latinos, atheists, believers, Jews, Christians, Muslims, and professors and scientists from
MIT, Harvard, Stanford and a dozen other universities.
Do you think the secretary-general of NATO, or the former prime-ministers of Norway, Canada, and Spain, or the late Charles Krauthammer, or Philip Hamburger, distinguished
professor of law at Columbia Law School, would make a video for an extreme or hate-filled site?
The idea is not only preposterous; it is a smear.
Yet, Google, which owns YouTube has restricted access to 56 of our 320 five-minute videos and to other videos we produce. “Restricted” means that families that have a filter to avoid pornography and violence cannot see that video. It also means that no school or library can show that video.
Google has even restricted access to a video on the Ten Commandments. Yes, the Ten Commandments.
We have repeatedly asked Google why our videos are restricted. No explanation is ever
given.
But, of course, we know why. Because they come from a conservative perspective.
Liberals and conservatives differ on many issues. But they have always agreed that free speech must be preserved. While the left has never supported free speech, liberals always have. I therefore appeal to liberals to join us in fighting on behalf of America’s crowning glory – free speech. Otherwise, I promise you, one day you will say, “first they came after conservatives, and I said nothing, and then they came after me. And there was no one left to speak up for me.”
Thank you
Statement by Dennis Prager to Senate Committee — July 16, 2019
It is an honor to be invited to speak in the United States Senate. But I wish I were not so honored. Because the subject of this hearing—Google and YouTube’s (and for that matter Twitter and Facebook’s) suppression of internet content on ideological grounds—threatens the future of America more than any external enemy.
In fact, never in American history has there been as strong a threat to freedom of speech
as there is today.
Before addressing this, however, I think it important that you know a bit about me and the organization I co-founded, Prager University, PragerU as it often referred to.
I was born in Brooklyn NY. My late father, Max Prager, was a CPA and an Orthodox Jew who volunteered to serve in the US Navy at the start of World War II. My father’s senior class thesis at the City College of New York was on anti-Semitism in America. Yet, despite his keen
awareness of the subject, he believed that Jews living in America were the luckiest Jews to have ever lived outside of Israel.
He was right. Having taught Jewish history at Brooklyn College, written a book on antisemitism, and fought Jew-hatred my whole life, I thank God for living in America.
It breaks my heart that a vast number of young Americans have not only not been taught how lucky they are to be Americans but have been taught either how unlucky they are or how ashamed they should be.
It breaks my heart for them because contempt for one’s country leaves a terrible hole in one’s soul and because ungrateful people always become unhappy and angry people.
And it breaks my heart for America, because no good country can survive when its people have contempt for it.
I have been communicating this appreciation of America for 35 years as a radio talk show host, the last 20 in national syndication with the Salem Radio Network, an organization that is a blessing in American life. One reason I started PragerU was to communicate America’s moral purpose and moral achievements both to young Americans and to young people around the world. With a billion views a year, and with more than half of the viewers under age of 35, PragerU has achieved some success.
My philosophy of life is easily summarized: God wants us to be good. Period. God without goodness is fanaticism and goodness without God will not long endure. Everything I and PragerU do emanates from belief in the importance of being a good person. That some label us extreme or “haters” only reflects on the character and the broken moral compass of those making such accusations. They are the haters and extremists.
PragerU releases a five-minute video every week. Our presenters include three former prime-ministers, four Pulitzer-Prize winners, liberals, conservatives, gays, blacks, Latinos, atheists, believers, Jews, Christians, Muslims, and professors and scientists from
MIT, Harvard, Stanford and a dozen other universities.
Do you think the secretary-general of NATO, or the former prime-ministers of Norway, Canada, and Spain, or the late Charles Krauthammer, or Philip Hamburger, distinguished
professor of law at Columbia Law School, would make a video for an extreme or hate-filled site?
The idea is not only preposterous; it is a smear.
Yet, Google, which owns YouTube has restricted access to 56 of our 320 five-minute videos and to other videos we produce. “Restricted” means that families that have a filter to avoid pornography and violence cannot see that video. It also means that no school or library can show that video.
Google has even restricted access to a video on the Ten Commandments. Yes, the Ten Commandments.
We have repeatedly asked Google why our videos are restricted. No explanation is ever
given.
But, of course, we know why. Because they come from a conservative perspective.
Liberals and conservatives differ on many issues. But they have always agreed that free speech must be preserved. While the left has never supported free speech, liberals always have. I therefore appeal to liberals to join us in fighting on behalf of America’s crowning glory – free speech. Otherwise, I promise you, one day you will say, “first they came after conservatives, and I said nothing, and then they came after me. And there was no one left to speak up for me.”
Thank you
“I’m really not understanding Mr. Prager’s concerns,” she added later.
- -
No surprise there. Sen Hirono is an exceptionally stupid person. One might say weapons grade stupid.
You need to listen to his radio show. My problem is he comes on the same time as Rush. I listen during commercials and when Rush is gone. Second best conservative radio host with Larry Elder, Levin and Hanity tied for third.
Dennis Rader!!!
That’s the serial killer.
Great post BTW.
I don’t listen to Radio but I will listen in for a little while.
I was thinking of Dennis Rader. HE was a serial killer.
Dennis Prager is always very much worth a listen.
I actually prefer him to Rush because not all his shows are focused on news/politics. A lot of time is spent on other major aspects of life: relationships, religion/philosophy, history, etc
These restrictions also make the videos unavailable to people like me who will not get a Google or YouTube account, so it assumes I am a minor.
I assume most of their employees are college graduates. Liberalism reigns strong
I prefer him to Rush. He’s honest and not faking anything. I love him and go to his high holiday services every year.
Do we really have to say it?
I guess I will say it.
It is laughable to say that they censored the Ten Commandments video because of references to murder or violence.
The Commandment is Thou shalt not kill, or in more recent translations , Thou shalt not murder.
The Commandment is not encouraging violence or murder.
The commandant is discouraging people from doing those terrible activities.
Do the idiots who run Google and YouTube really think that somehow mention of a commandment on the subject of murder is an encouragement or an endorsement of violence? Are they that obtuse?
My guess is that Google screens job applicants' online profiles and applies the same sort of "social score" that is currently being used in the PRC. Do I know Google is doing that? No, but the evidence would suggest either a pre-screening of that sort, or induced groupthink afterwards.
RE: Dennis Prager to Testify Before Senate
https://youtu.be/A_BtqmpCN1A?t=11430
______________________
Well, at least Google ( who owns YOUTUBE ) did not censor this testimony...
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