YouTube Vs PragerU - The Battle To Censor Conservative Content

Censorship on YouTube has long been a tool of anti-conservative manipulation and the latest target has been a video uploaded by the educational channel Prager University. 

Prager University is known for its short, graphical videos that educate viewers on a range of political and social topics and which have featured a wide range of prominent intellectuals as their narrators. 

Though the censored video has since been restored after 72 hours of petitions, it is far from the first time that this has happened and 18 PragerU videos still remain age restricted, though they contain no objectionable content.

The video that was censored as 'hate speech' is ironically an inside look from a Muslim's perspective of how pervasive anti-Semitism has become in many Muslim communities. 

At just under 5 minutes long, Born to Hate Jews is a personal monolog by a British Muslim who experienced first-hand religious indoctrination and tells how he later realized the truth. 

In a press release following the incident, PragerU's Communications Director Jared Sichel described the ban as "alarming." Sichel said, "YouTube labeled the video as 'hate speech,' which is ironic since the video is about fighting hatred and anti-Semitism, and is presented by a Muslim."

 He went on to label YouTube's decision "de facto" censorship in that it would prevent millions of people from seeing and learning from it.

European laws allowing censorship of hate speech and corporate policies on social media sites are now being manipulated with alarming frequency to enforce a liberal perspective and ideology. 

Hate speech becomes, in the hands of the liberal thought police, a facile label that allows them to demand the removal of any opinions that conflict with their own. 

Yet the petition to restore the PragerU video was able to gain more than 105,000 signatures

in less than a day, a sign that conservatives can and will push back.

Another recent PragerU video, discussing racism in the United States, was censored while a competing video from vox.com was not. 

Both videos have a similar content, are free from violence, sexual content and neither promotes racist messages, but somehow the conservative video was suppressed. 

Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have all been caught up in scandals involving the censorship of conservative viewpoints, such as the recent revelation that Facebook employees admitted to suppressing conservative stories in the news feed.

So why does this matter? 

Increasing numbers of people now depend on social media sites for their news and, in some cases, a more nuanced explanation of events than is available in the mainstream broadcast media. 

With the overwhelming liberal bias present at most academic institutions, YouTube has been an incredible platform both for informing and educating millions in a wide range of topics.

The creator of the Pager University channel, Conservative radio show host Dennis Prager, intends to "change the world, five minutes at a time." 

The engaging format allows for a much higher viewer connection than traditional stories. Allen Estrin, the CEO of PragerU, says the videos are "like potato chips; you can't just watch one."

Where are the liberal defenders of freedom when a video explaining and condemning anti-Semitic hatred is censored? 

They are nowhere to be found because the video presents a conservative viewpoint. And therein lies the rub. 

By labeling conservative viewpoints as "hate speech", it no longer matters the weight of the argument, the preponderance of evidence or even if the video is question is anti-hate. 

All that matters is that YouTube is willing to censor it.