YouTube, Vimeo Remove Conservative Entrepreneur’s COVID-19 Video

The online video platforms YouTube and Vimeo have censored a video of “The Bill Walton Show” about the danger of COVID-19 shutdowns for violating standards enforced by each company.

YouTube removed the 47-minute video of the program in which Walton interviews Jay Richards, one of three authors of the book “The Price of Panic: How the Tyranny of Experts Turned a Pandemic into a Catastrophe.”

YouTube banned the video Oct. 18, saying it “violated their community standards and their COVID-19 medical misinformation policy,” Walton, host of “The Bill Walton Show” and a trustee of The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview Friday.

Walton, a successful business leader, investor, and entrepreneur, has produced 96 episodes of the show. From its inception in 2017, he said, YouTube never before had removed his content.

The episode in question, “‘Paying the Price of Panic’ with Dr. Jay Richards,” argues that “the harm caused by the lockdown vastly exceeds the benefits of protecting people from COVID-19,” Walton said.

“That is not to say that we should not be careful,” Walton said, “ … but I am saying you can carefully protect the vulnerable while at the same time opening up the country.”

Richards, an assistant research professor in the School of Business and Economics at The Catholic University of America, wrote “The Price of Panic” with William Briggs, a mathematician and scientist who was a professor of statistics at Cornell University Medical School, and Douglas Axe, a professor of molecular biology at Biola University.

The true danger of state and local governments’ response to COVID-19 “ultimately is the loss of political and religious freedom,” Richards said on Walton’s show.

“When governments use emergencies historically in order to extend their power over more and more of society, it’s very rare in which they actually retreat from that power,” Richards, also a senior fellow at the think tank Discovery Institute, said.

Upon the video’s removal, Maureen O’Donnell, digital producer for “The Bill Walton Show,” emailed YouTube on Oct. 20 to explain that she had read the platform’s “COVID-19 Medical Misinformation Policy” and thought the Walton program complied with it:

I have read the COVID-19 Medical Misinformation Policy and believe that our video does not violate any of the categories. The video you took down was a promotion of a book that is being published by a reputable publisher written by [three] prominent scholars. If you would please give me specifics as to which one of the categories that was violated, it would be helpful and give me better clarification.

YouTube had not responded to O’Donnell’s email by Monday, but on Oct. 21 posted “appeal rejected” on the show’s YouTube channel without further explanation.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/10/26/youtube-vimeo-remove-conservative-entrepreneurs-covid-19-video

ASU student journalist removed over Jacob Blake tweet sues university in fight for free speech

The Walter Cronkite Blaze Radio station manager who was removed last month after she posted a tweet that sparked student outcry has filed a lawsuit against Arizona State University, claiming the university violated her free speech rights by removing her from her role because of her tweet.

Rae’Lee Klein, a senior at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, on Aug. 29 had shared on her personal Twitter account a New York Post article that brought to light the sexual assault charges against Jacob Blake, a black man who was shot by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Aug. 23.

The caption of her now-deleted tweet had read: “Always more to the story, folks. Please read this article to get the background of Jacob Blake’s warrant. You’ll be quite disgusted.”

Despite immediate intense student backlash at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and demands that she resign, echoed by the Blaze Radio student board’s unanimous vote for her removal, Klein refused to resign.

The lawsuit, which names the school, Interim Dean Kristin Gilger, and ASU as defendants, claims that the university violated Klein’s First Amendment rights and Arizona state law by “refusing to allow [her] to continue as station manager of The Blaze because of the content of her tweet.”

https://www.thecollegefix.com/asu-student-journalist-removed-over-jacob-blake-tweet-sues-university-in-fight-for-free-speech/

***********************************

My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)

*******************************