Free Speech, Media, Politics

YouTube Demonetizes Taibbi Video Showing Democrats Claiming Prior Elections Were Stolen

In the latest attack on free speech, YouTube had demonetized a video disseminated by former Rolling Stone and current Substack journalist Matt Taibbi. YouTube has previously shown open political bias in its censorship and demonetization policies. However, this is remarkably blatant in demonetizing a video that showed how Democrats previously claimed elections of Republicans were stolen — contradicting the narrative maintained in the media and on social media.

Taibbi sent out an email to his subscribers that revealed YouTube’s decision to demonetize:

Today we’re releasing a video Matt Orfalea has been working on, showing years of audio and video clips, tweets, and headlines in which Democratic Party politicians and media figures describe Donald Trump’s presidency as illegitimate. Before it was even published on this site, Matt received the above notice.

I’d like to thank YouTube for making our point. The material in this video does not promote the idea that any election was stolen or illegitimate. On the contrary, it shows a great mass of comments from Democratic partisans and pundits who themselves make that claim, about the 2016 election. Those comments were not censored or suppressed when made the first time around, by the likes of Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Karine Jean-Pierre, Adam Schiff, Rob Reiner, Tom Arnold, and Chris Hayes, among many others.

Nor did any platform step in to issue warnings when my former boss, Keith Olbermann, promised with regard to Trump’s ascension to the White House, “It will not be a peaceful transfer of power.”

However, the decision to assemble these materials in one place, inviting audiences to consider their meaning, apparently crosses a line. Now we know: you can deny election results on a platform like YouTube as much as you want, you can even promise disruption, but drawing attention to such behavior angers the algorithm. It’s hard to imagine a better demonstration of the double-standard in content moderation.

Demonetizing a video of what Democrats have previously declared is reminiscent of Twitter blocking of the site LiberalsofTicTok to stop the site from replaying the postings of liberals.

YouTube and other companies are now openly advancing a political agenda in blocking or demonetizing such postings. This is only likely to get worse as we approach the midterm and 2024 elections. The effort is to actively block resources or access to conservative, libertarian, or contrarians viewpoints.

The company is owned by Google, which has also faced such criticism of political bias. These are publicly traded companies like Twitter that have written off many potential users to advance a political agenda of company staff.  They are selling a censored product to consumers who want free speech forums. While these companies continue to dominate the market, they are fueling calls for Substack and other alternative sites committed to free speech.  Taibbi writes on Substack.

Here is the video:

 

 

113 thoughts on “YouTube Demonetizes Taibbi Video Showing Democrats Claiming Prior Elections Were Stolen”

    1. Thanks for the link, now could you be more specific about the monitization rule he broke? I read it, but couldn’t for the life of me figure out which policy he was breaking. Copyright maybe?

    2. “If you don’t like their rules, don’t agree to them.”

      The rules are simple. Progressives can say whatever they wish. Conservatives can say only what progressives want to hear.

    3. “Demonitization is distinct from censorship.”

      No, it’s not. It leads to the same place, via the backdoor.

      Dear Publisher: You can publish whatever books you want. But we’re barring you from charging money for them.

      Soon, that publisher is out of business.

      Mission accomplished.

      1. Demonitizing is not barring anyone from charging for content. The more accurate analogy is you are free to publish whatever you want, but i am not going to pay you for it. Forcing youtube to pay people to produce content that youtube does not want to pay for would actually be a form of socialism.

  2. When you think about it, politicians of all stripes are narcissistic at heart and because of that cannot believe that someone may not like them since in their own minds they are wonderful to say the least. Trump may have been the best example of that but Obama wasn’t (or isn’t) much better. Poor Brandon doesn’t know what world he woke up in this morning so I have no idea what kind of thought process he may have. I know I sound like a broken record but until we have term limits, we are going to continue the insane conduct of our elected government officials. Note that I don’t call them leaders as 99% of them couldn’t lead a starving horse to a hay bale.

  3. This is an EXCELLENT video/visual collage that EVERYONE needs to watch. THANK YOU to Professor and staff. It may temper some views that it is the “right wing” that is causing all the polarity/division in this country.

  4. GOP “stole” the 1980 election, stole the 2000 election, and tried to steal the 2020 election.
    LBJ stole the 1948 Texas election for U.S. senate.

  5. Democrats created the lie that “Russia hacked the 2016 election.” It was totally, completely false. Fabricated. Made up by Hillary Clinton who lost the election. The lie spread like wildfire, through public schools, universities, most of the media, tv, movies, social media, magazines. The lie was repeated until it incorporated into the Democrat psyche so deeply, that no matter how much information was revealed to prove it was all a hoax, people still believe it. They at least believe something fishy went on. One of the claims was based upon hackers getting into a mass marketing email server used for Trump’s businesses. Like they get into all mass mailers. They pretended it was Donald Trump himself that was compromised, not some mass mailer his corporation used to send out advertising emails.

    The brainwashing cannot be removed.

    This ploy worked so well, it will be the playbook forever.

    It worked to convince people that Trump inquiring about Joe Biden bragging about a quid pro quo with Ukraine was an impeachable offense.

    It worked to convince people that Trump called white supremacists “very fine people”, which required them to disregard video evidence of him saying, “and I’m not talking about the white supremacists who should be condemned totally.”

    It worked to convince people Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation, even while his lawyers kept trying to get Hunter’s laptop back.

    It worked to convince people to ignore Democrats looting, burning, and destroying cities, throwing bombs at federal buildings, burning down a police station, and even seizing entire city blocks at gunpoint for their own zone of anarchy, while claiming that one peaceful protest that turned riotous, in which the only person killed was a rioter, was somehow an attempt to overthrow the entire country.

    Naive people actually believe this. It’s insane.

    There seems to be no defense against Democrats brainwashing their voters with propaganda. They don’t want to know the truth.

  6. Oops. I was writing a comment for a different thread–about the missing-in-action (MIA) media coverage over Hillary Clinton and Stacey Abrams continuing to this day to claim that their “wins” were stolen from them. I exited from that thread and now see that the good professor is covering same/similar issue.

  7. It is just the strangest thing, but Democrats have a well-established history of gaslighting us all. We all remember Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, Stacey Abrams, and many other Democrats claiming elections were stolen, and suing in court.

    Trump voters expressed serious concern over fraud, meddling, and unfair advantages in the 2020 election, including Pennsylvania employing different legal standards for ballots in different counties in violation of the 14th Amendment, the dismissal of Republican poll watchers while Democrat poll watchers observed massive ballot dumps during the night, the use of mail in ballots which are infamous for fraud, the resistance to auditing voter rolls, ballot harvesting, Democrats filling out ballots for elderly patients with dementia in nursing homes, the dead voting, and the tremendous boost the media gave by hiding injurious stories such as about Hunter Biden’s laptop and Joe Biden’s obvious cognitive decline. That’s when Democrats gaslighted us and claimed that crying foul over an election was sedition. Videos were hastily erased, links buried, and Democrats just lied to our faces about their past statements. I saw, with my own eyes, Stacey Abrams lie like a rug, and claim she’d never questioned the election results, and was only speaking metaphorically when she claimed to have won. Bullocks.

    We watched Democrats’ “peaceful protests” burn, loot, and destroy cities, firebomb federal buildings, burn down a police precinct, seize entire city blocks and hold them at gunpoint as their own kingdom, and assault and kill police officers. This was “the good fight”. Those same Democrats called the one, single, solitary Republican-voter protest turn into a riot at the Capitol building sedition, treason, and they had them thrown into solitary for 9 months. People got fired for attending a peaceful, family-friendly rally on January 6th, who didn’t break off and walk down to the Capitol. Democrats who bailed out looters and arsonists have tried to prevent any Republican politician who either attended the literally peaceful Jan 6th rally, not participating in the riot, or who publicly criticized the claim that they were seditionists, from ever running for office again.

    We heard Democrats accuse Donald Trump of working for Russia, only to discover that Hillary Clinton paid a disgraced former British spy to get Russian misinformation and basically fabricate the Russia Hoax.

    We saw Joe Biden brag on camera about a quid pro quo with Ukraine that benefitted his drug addicted son, now accused of peddling his father’s political favors to foreign nations and companies, and Donald Trump got impeached for inquiring about it.

    This requires massive amnesia on command. Some people do it. It is absolutely chilling to see people so brainwashed that when you show them their total hypocrisy, they just get angry and keep repeating what they’ve been told. “But, you Democrats always question elections you lose, and you go to court about it.” “Questioning elections is fascist! Republicans are Fascist!” “Are you not hearing me? You guys always questions elections.” “Republicans are fascist because they questioned elections. It’s a Constitutional crisis!” “Hello?” It’s impenetrable, and frankly creepy.

    1. Karen S.
      Outstanding post.
      This Biden admin lying about everything from this supposedly strong economy and how great it is, to a Congress woman whom has been dead for nearly two months and the WH press sec response/lie was even worse!
      They really do believe in their own alternative reality.

    2. Just to be clear about what Hillary did in 2016. You way understate it. It was a six-way subterfuge. Hillary paid her law firm who paid a PR agency who paid a former low-level British spy who paid a Russian living in the United States (who was under investigation for spying for Russia) to write down some clearly false crap given to him by — drum roll please — a Hillary campaign worker so that the Russian, Brit, PR hack and ambulance chaser, and even the FBI and State Department, could give it to Hillary journalists at the Clinton News Network

  8. 1. That there are legitimate concerns about other elections does not mean Trumps 2020 lies were anything but lies.
    2. The Democrats did not take their lie and do an attempted coup.

    1. Sammy:
      1. Are Hillary Clinton’s and Stacey Abrams “concerns” -that their “wins” were stolen from them-, lies?
      2. Marginal Trump supporters (and outside agitators whom the Biden admin. is impotent in investigating)-not Republicans-are responsible for Jan. 6.
      (3). I notice that you, others, Jan. 6 committee, and important media anchors have backed off from calling Jan. 6 an “insurrection,” and now mostly refer to it as an “attempted insurrection.” (in your case, “attempted coup.” Good for you, bro. That’s a good start.

    2. 2. The Democrats did not take their lie and do an attempted coup.

      Correct. Their attempted coup began before the election. Their “election being stolen” lie was merely a tactic to advance the “big lie” strategy of Trump/Russia collusion.

    3. Sammy: “Democrats did not take their lie and do an attempted coup” — neither did Republicans. You really didn’t read Karen’s post, did you. You’re another poster child for Democratic mind control.

    4. You’re right. However, when Republicans claim an election was stolen, Liberals and Media scream from the rooftops about how crazy those “racist White Supremacists blah, blah, blah” are. When Democrats claim the election was stolen those same people nod their heads in full agreement.

    5. FJB supporters attacked the White House in 2020.

      https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/31/politics/trump-underground-bunker-white-house-protests/index.html

      The decision to physically move the President came as protesters confronted Secret Service officers outside the White House for hours on Friday – shouting, throwing water bottles and other objects at the line of officers, and attempting to break through the metal barriers.

      (emphasis added)

    6. Actually the democrats did attempt a coup. That is precisely what the collusion delusion was – an attempted coup.
      That is what the SC investigating what he knew was a deliberate Hoax was – a coup attempt.
      That is also what Faux impeachment I was – a coup.

      If you think J6 was a coup attempt – why did thousands of people show up without weapons ?
      Is John Eastman Telling Trump to try to Impliment in 2020 The plan Lawrence Tribe developed to win the election in the house a coup attempt ?

      You seem to think that we all have no memory.

  9. Please, break up Facebook, Google, YouTube, and Twitter. Use antitrust, not regulation. Federal regulation will only put the Deep State in their wheelhouse.

    We can start by voting the bums out right now. The Democrats will never punish their top donors.

    Now the troll-scum that comment here will claim that these are private companies and thus are inviolate. Actually, these corporations are private oligarchies. It’s time to open a can of industrial-grade whup-ass.

    Past progressives broke up private trusts like Standard Oil and to good effect. Funny, how past progressives are so much at odds with fake “progressives” now. The fakers follow Beijing’s model of corporate fascism, masquerading as social justice. That tells us everything about these fakers and their love of social scores, virtue signaling, censorship, and speech codes.

      1. Warren’s speech on the floor about breaking up Citibank is one of the best in the history of the Senate.

      2. Not anymore .. . . When Big Tech likes you and your cause, well then hey now they are a private company who has constitutional rights to do what they want.

      3. I acknowledge Warren has been hard on the oligarchs. I applaud that. I thought about her as I was typing my comment, but we have to recognize that she’ll get no help from the party currently in power. If the GOP ever moves against the oligarchs, maybe she and a few other Democrats can make it a bipartisan effort.

    2. “Past progressives broke up private trusts like Standard Oil and to good effect.”

      Why do you want to punish a productive giant (such as Rockefeller) for his achievements and success?

      1. Sam, are you enthusiastic that social media is indirectly helping government violate the 1st amendment?

        1. “Sam, are you . . .”

          What does that question have to do with my comment? (And I’ve already anwered that question.)

          1. You assume I am supposed to know more of what your words mean than you. If you say that is true, then it must be true. NO, you didn’t answer my question. I don’t think you answered Diogenes’ query either.

  10. Rep Elise Stefanik, R-NY: “There have been over 14 whistleblowers that have reached out to House Republicans, specifically Ranking Member Jim Jordan, our leading Republican on the Judiciary Committee, saying that the FBI is targeting conservatives internally…So, again, this is politicization.”

  12. We get back to the same question raised where the government indirectly violates the First Amendment.
    —
    Outsourced censorship: Feds used private entity to target millions of social posts in 2020
    Biden administration gave millions in tax dollars to groups after election, records show. Election Integrity Partnership says it had 35% success rate getting tech platforms to label, remove or restrict content.

    A consortium of four private groups worked with the departments of Homeland Security (DHS) and State to censor massive numbers of social media posts they considered misinformation during the 2020 election, and its members then got rewarded with millions of federal dollars from the Biden administration afterwards, according to interviews and documents obtained by Just the News. …

    Three liberal groups — the Democratic National Committee, Common Cause and the NAACP — were also empowered like the federal agencies to file tickets seeking censorship of content. …

    He told Just the News the consortium was the largest federally-sanctioned censorship operation he had ever seen, a precursor to the now-scrapped Disinformation Governance Board and one that is likely to grow in future elections.

    https://justthenews.com/government/federal-agencies/biden-administration-rewarded-private-entities-got-2020-election?utm_source=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter

  13. A bit harsh to demonitize this perhaps, agreed Jon Turley. All it basically does is highlight the difference between the talk of the D’s and the action of the Trumpists.

    Plainly D’s talk, but they didn’t then attempt a low level coup along with it like the trumpists. Yet another level of Trump, and trumpists, not understanding nuance.

    1. Nuance, is that what you call the destruction and the ‘peacefully’ protests in Portland, Chicago, NY, Seattle en more?

    2. As much as the sham congressional hearing would like to characterize January 6 as a Coup, it was not. Nor was it an insurrection. Those terms imply there was a concerted action directed by a nominated faction leader resulting in a seizure of power. January 6 was a bunch of disorganized protesters allowed to overrun the Capitol due to an intentional withholding of security forces.

      1. Thanks, C.A. Penney. But upon review of *actual* data, i couldn’t disagree more. Plus I can’t actually convey how little I care what you think. I was responding to Turley.

        1. I am interested in what Penney thinks. It is far better than your reviews of “*actual* data” which is almost always wrong.

          1. Cool. Get Penney to comment in a thread where the energy is better used. I was commenting to Turley.

    3. Snorkraptor: “a low level coup”? How about a riot and 4-hour selfie fest? There have been lots of revolutions and insurrections throughout history — and not one has ever happened without the mob bringing lots of weapons. You don’t bring a knife to a gun fight, and you don’t bring a cell phone to a “coup.” You accept Nancy Pelosi’s characterization of something without question. Democratic mind control in action.

      1. A coup is an attempt by high ranking political officials, and military personnel to overthrow a government. The taking of key facilities and newsoutlets are usually targeted/objectives. Weapons are generally required to take these objectives by force.
        There were no weapons inside the Capitol on Jan6th.
        And Biden said in order to overthrow the US government, they would need F-15s.
        On Jan6th, there were no Ultra-MAGA F-15s in the air.

        1. You refer to coups not planned by morons. Thankfully, 1/6 was planned by supreme morons who put no thought into what would happen if they were actually able to take the Capitol while the military hates you.

        1. A 3rd rate riot doesn’t meet the definition of “coup” even in a Banana Republic.

          1. 1/6 was one leg of a coup. A last resort desperation move after the main thrust of the coup had already failed.

  14. Lots of Americans still do not believe that the lefties are censoring.

    Every act of censorship chips away at the illusion.

    Don’t know what the answer is, but the EU has some ideas.

    Big tech won’t like it.

  15. Here is another video named: :”Rigged” Election Claims | Trump 2020 vs Clinton 2016″

  16. Put me down as a contrarian. Anything they are pushing or anything they are denying to be seen, I will do my research to know more of why. YouTube is a great place to learn more about how to do something; but when they start telling me how to think, I want to know more of why they are telling me how to think. Social media pushed the impeachment but denied the laptop story. Again, one has to do their own research to find out “Why”.

  19. The more outrageous the prog/left becomes, the more it indicates their desperation. It would appear that the “fundamental transformation” of America was just another product of those faculty lounge imagineers; those prog elites never bothered to consider that all those “deplorables” might not agree.

  20. What do you expect when virtually every major internet media outlet has become a latter day incarnation of Pravda?

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