Popular YouTube stars Black Pigeon Speaks and Soph have returned to the video sharing site after previously being deplatformed. Black Pigeon Speaks had his YouTube channel suddenly deleted without warning while Soph was temporarily blocked from uploading after a BuzzFeed hit piece.
Black Pigeon Speaks announced his return to YouTube on Twitter and thanked everyone for the support while his channel was down.
https://twitter.com/navyhato/status/1139325544145838081
YouTube still hasn’t said why his channel was removed but did acknowledge that it had been reinstated after a second review.
In his latest video, which he posted after YouTube reinstated his channel, Black Pigeon Speaks said that he believes the support of the community and the mass outrage over the banning of his channel forced YouTube to restore it.
Soph also announced that she was back on YouTube via Twitter and added that she has re-uploaded “Be Not Afraid” – the video that was featured prominently in the BuzzFeed hit piece against her.
The return of Black Pigeon Speaks and Soph comes amid a mass wave of censorship across YouTube. History channels, independent journalists, and many other creators are seeing their channels demonetized and deleted in the wake of YouTube rolling out new “hate speech” rules. These “hate speech” rules were introduced after Vox host Carlos Maza and other legacy media outlets pressured YouTube to take action against comedian Steven Crowder and they allow YouTube to censor creators regardless of whether they violate community guidelines.
After returning to YouTube, Black Pigeon Speaks has seen a rapid increase in his subscriber numbers, gaining (archive link) more than 20,000 subscribers in 48 hours and blasting past the half a million subscriber mark. Soph has also seen almost a 10X increase (archive link) in her video views since her upload ban was lifted.
Despite these rising YouTube metrics, Black Pigeon Speaks and Soph have both acknowledged the new reality of YouTube for independent creators under these new “hate speech” rules.
In his most recent video, Black Pigeon Speaks said:
“Certain realities now need to be confronted. Political YouTube is over. This [censorship] will not stop. Pretty much the only thing left on the platform in the near future will be legacy media and outfits like The Young Turks. The migration to BitChute has to continue. There needs to be a move away from a platform that seeks to silence truth in their drive for ideology.”
BitChute is a YouTube competitor that embraces free speech and has allowed many creators, including Soph, to continue uploading videos when they have been deplatformed by YouTube.
Soph has also acknowledged the importance of using BitChute now that YouTube is increasingly demonetizing and censoring its creators. The intro to her re-upload of “Be Not Afraid” on YouTube says:
“The intro to this video was struck down by Susan [YouTube’s CEO] for “hate speech. If you want to see it go to bitchute.com/soph”
To encourage his fans to migrate to BitChute, Black Pigeon Speaks says he will be uploading the majority of his videos to his BitChute channel 24 hours before he posts them to YouTube. Soph’s BitChute channel is also the only place fans can get the full versions of all her videos. Other YouTube creators including Computing Forever, Sargon of Akkad, and Styxhexenhammer666 are also starting to promote their BitChute channels more heavily as the rate of censorship on YouTube reaches record levels.
Update – June 15, 2019: YouTube has removed “Be Not Afraid” for violating its community guidelines and “Greta” for violating its policy on harassment and bullying. However, both videos are still available on Soph’s BitChute channel.
