Kerby Anderson

Over the years, I have talked about how social media like Facebook and YouTube have sometimes censored conservative and Christian content. Facebook, for example, a few years ago pulled a page by former Governor Mike Huckabee that called for a “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day.” Later it was added back to Facebook. Lila Rose had her investigative reports on Planned Parenthood pulled from YouTube. And I might mention that the Apple store sometimes has pulled iPhone apps for groups like the Manhattan Declaration from their store. The latest example of censorship involves Dennis Prager and his YouTube videos for PragerU. According to his website, the videos present “the most important ideas in free, five-minute videos.” They usually feature a speaker with excellent video graphics in order to teach a point. They usually begin with a question like: Is Islam a Religion of Peace? or Were the Founders Religious? YouTube has created a list of 21 videos they have restricted. They include: Are the Police Racist? and Why Don’t Feminists Fight for Muslim Women? and What ISIS Wants. These are restricted and this prevents children or anyone concerned about seeing videos that might have adult material. Videos on YouTube are restricted based on vulgar language, violence and disturbing imagery, nudity, and sexually suggestive content. The people working at PragerU cannot find anything in their videos that violate YouTube policies or user guidelines, so they filed a complaint with YouTube. Since a complaint seemed to go nowhere, they decided to put a petition on their website asking YouTube to stop restricting these videos. It already has over 60,000 signatures. It would be tempting to brush this off since the videos are only restricted. But what is restricted today might be removed tomorrow. After all, we have seen this happen before.