I related here the fact that YouTube deleted the livestream of our program today with Heather Mac Donald, in which she demolished the anti-police myths propagated by the Marxist Black Lives Matter and other leftist elements. It was too much for YouTube to take, apparently.
I appealed YouTube’s deletion of the video, and it didn’t take long for cooler heads to prevail. A little while ago, we got this email from YouTube:
That is good. Eight minutes after that email, however, YouTube sent us a second email, saying that our video has been age-restricted:
I have no idea what there could be in Heather’s presentation that is more unsuitable for consumption by teenagers than most of YouTube’s content. Maybe we will contest this at some point, but for now we may as well celebrate victory.
What remains unexplained, of course, is why our video was banned in the first place. YouTube told us the American Experiment/Mac Donald video was “flagged for review.” As I noted here, “flagged” is a weasel word. Was Heather’s presentation “flagged” by a computer algorithm? If so, based on what? Was it “flagged” by a YouTube employee? If so, why, and based on what internal YouTube guidelines? Was it “flagged” by a goofball leftist? If so, on what basis, and why did YouTube immediately respond to such “flagging” by deleting the video?
Rest assured that in the weeks and months to come, we will press for answers to these questions. They are important not just to us, but to the free flow of ideas and information in the U.S.A.
Meanwhile, you can watch the data-based presentation that someone didn’t want you to see on YouTube right here:
You also can see it on Facebook and, soon, pretty much everywhere. It isn’t as easy to suppress free speech as today’s liberals seem to think.
One more thing: in this whole series of events, my favorite moment was at the beginning of Heather’s presentation, when she described Center of the American Experiment as “the feistiest think tank in America.” High praise.
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