I’ve been meaning to cover this issue again for a while now. I guess I kept hoping it would go away – but it’s only getting worse. What am I talking about? “Demonitizing.”
 
No, that term doesn’t have anything to do with demons (- or maybe it does!). It means de-monitizing, as in taking away a YouTube channel’s ability to make any money from their productions.
 

If you’ve spent much time watching YouTube videos you’ve no doubt noticed the annoying ads the precede each video. In a nutshell, those ads are how all the various individuals and organizations that create and post to YouTube make any money. The move “views” their videos get, the more money they make.
 
Now YouTube – and when it comes to conservatives this goes back to at least last year – has a couple ways to “disapprove” of content. They can flag a video for content as “offensive.” (“Offensive” being a totally arbitrary assessment.) They can “restrict” it, preventing any or all visitors from viewing it. Or they can “demonitize” it; they remove the ads so that whoever created the video no longer gets paid for any views.
 
This gets more complicated, but just briefly; more video views not only generate more ad money, they move that particular video up in the rankings. The higher the rankings, the more that YouTube’s internal algorithms point potential viewers to watch it.
 
So a popular video just makes more and more money for its producer. Which sounds like good old-fashioned free-market capitalism – except when YouTube’s increasingly totalitarian impulses get in the way 😡
 

I first learned about this demonitizing phenomenon from Paul Romano (His YouTube channel “Pockets of the Future” features his take on current events and cultural decline. The guy’s kind of out-there, but he does make some interesting videos.). A self-identified member of the “Truth Community,” Romano may have some tin-foil hat tendencies, but when it comes to YouTube’s censorship he was definitely on to something.
 

Two months ago, Dr. Michael Brown, Messianic Jew, author and one of my favorite talk-show hosts, realized he’d been censored ~ YouTube Just Demonetized Hundreds of Our Videos ~

It wasn’t just a few videos here and there that were flagged. It was dozens of them. No, wait, it was pages of them. No wait, pages and pages of them.
 
Literally, in front of my eyes, I watched the pages grow — from 2 pages, to 5, to 7, to 10, to 15, to 20, to, 32 pages, each with 30 videos — so, more than 900 videos.
 
It wasn’t individual videos being flagged. It was our account that was flagged. 

 
Suddenly, the vast majority of our videos had been demonetized since the content was ostensibly too controversial […]
 
Debates I had with rabbis were flagged; powerful stories, like a Muslim woman being healed by Jesus, were flagged. Videos where I answered questions like, “Should Christians Homeschool Their Children?” or “Did Jesus Claim to Be God?” were flagged, along with videos of spiritual encouragement (like the one encouraging believers to look to the Lord in the midst of chaos).
 
Teaching videos were flagged (like the one explaining that the Preface to the King James Version of the Bible refutes King James Onlyism), along with motivational videos (like the one where I talked about how I lost 95 pounds.). All these were flagged, along with the many videos that focused on LGBT issues or radical Islam or politics. Seriously?

 
Seriously. Prager U, whose videos I frequently post here, has been a victim of YouTube’s muzzling for a year. As Dr. Brown continued ~

For months, we’ve been hearing about the YouTube crackdown on conservative voices, especially those who have the temerity to confront certain “controversial” issues. And we’ve known that, with the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) joining forces with YouTube, blatant censorship could be next.
 
We’ve watched as Prager U videos were temporarily removed. We’ve heard others cry foul as their videos were demonetized, most recently major internet players like Paul Joseph Watson and Diamond and Silk. (Whether or not you agree with these voices, they deserve the same rights and privileges others have on YouTube.)

 
Now, having watched dozens and dozens of videos produced by Dr. Brown and Prager U, I can unequivocally say there is never – anything – the least bit offensive in their productions – UNLESS – you’re an anti-Israel, pro-ISIS, angry, progressive atheist! On the contrary, if YouTube has demonetized it, you can bet it’s probably TRUE!

 
It’s great to see that Dennis Prager is going on the offense ~ PragerU Sues YouTube, Google For ‘Intentional’ Censorship of Conservative Speakers ~

On Monday, the conservative educational nonprofit Prager University filed a lawsuit against YouTube and its parent company, Google, for “intentional” censorship of conservative speakers. YouTube made more than fifteen percent of the organization’s videos impossible to access in its “restrictive mode” — meant to protect younger and more sensitive viewers — and only slowly provided contradictory answers for why they were restricted.
 
“Watch any one of our videos and you’ll immediately realize that Google/YouTube censorship is entirely ideologically driven,” PragerU founder Dennis Prager declared in a statement on the lawsuit. He accused Google and YouTube of “engaging in an arbitrary and capricious use of their ‘restricted mode’ and ‘demonetization’ to restrict non-left political thought.”
 
“This is speech discrimination plain and simple, censorship based entirely on unspecified ideological objection to the message or on the perceived identity and political viewpoint of the speaker,” former California Governor Pete Wilson, partner at the law firm Browne Georg Ross, said in the statement.

 
Hooray for Prager! I intend to post as many more of his videos and Brown’s as possible – simply to help counter YouTube’s restrictions. Please view and share them. Let’s stand up for free speech – before it’s gone!

 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Related:
YouTube Appears to Be on a Crusade to Blacklist Conservative and Independent Opinions
 

YouTube Banned Me, but Not the Hate Imams ~ Michelle Malkin is another target ~

If you post videos on YouTube radicalizing Muslim viewers to kill innocent people, YouTube will leave you alone.
 
But if you post a video on YouTube honoring innocent people murdered by barbaric jihadists, your video will get banned.

 
YouTube Caught Silencing ~ Steven Crowder discusses the conservative ban and makes a critical point: because his videos are all compliant with FCC standards (he also has a radio show), there’s no legitimate reason for them to be restricted. So how does YouTube justify its censorship?