Youtube censors religious criticism?
Nick Gisburne, an atheist active on Youtube, has had his youtube accounts deleted after posting a video containing some of the more nasty quotations from the Qur’an amongst other religous criticism. Youtube later changed their reasons, claiming an error, saying that he had been banned for copyright infringement.
For those of you who don’t know, Youtube allows all its videos to be flagged by users for “inappropriate content”. Those videos flagged as such then show a warning screen before viewing. They are then reviewed by Youtube staff, and if they are decided to be “inappropriate” the warning stays, or the video is removed.
Nick has the full story, featuring copies of all the e-mails he has received from Youtube and copies of the videos in question at his website.
In support of Nick Gisburne, I found a copy of the banned video already in .flv format and tried to uploaded it. They immediately deleted it and emailed me saying that it was copyrighted material. I pointed out the irony in Nick Gisburne thanking everybody for uploading his videos to show support, but it seems the YouTube staff — much like the Muslim extremists they seem to be afraid of — have no sense of irony.
[…] (Via Media Watch Watch) […]
The same has happened to my videos. I received a warning saying if I received another warning, all my videos would be deleted. Within an hour my videos were deleted and my account disabled. I have emailed youtube twice asking why but have had no response.
If we can’t bring Nick back to YouTube, then lets bring Nick’s story to the rest of the web!