YouTube has censored a video of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s March 18 public health roundtable which featured former White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Scott Atlas and the authors of The Great Barrington Declaration – an anti-lockdown statement from Dr. Sunetra Gupta, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, and Dr. Martin Kulldorff.
During the roundtable, the panelists advised against lockdowns, contact tracing, and mask mandates and warned that these measures were often harmful. They also called for schools to be reopened.
The video of the roundtable had accumulated more than 500,000 views and lots of positive feedback before it was taken down by YouTube for “violating YouTube’s Community Guidelines.”
The removal of the video is the latest of many examples of YouTube removing videos under its far-reaching rules that prohibit anything that goes against the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO).
Many of those featured in this panel have already faced previous Big Tech censorship for expressing dissenting views on the coronavirus.
Atlas was censored by both YouTube and Twitter while serving as a White House coronavirus advisor after he pushed back against lockdowns and mask mandates. The Great Barrington Declaration was also censored by both Facebook and Reddit moderators.
Additionally, DeSantis was the subject of a recent social media controversy after a video that was being shared widely online to debunk 60 Minutes’ claims about DeSantis was suddenly set to private by Forbes. Private videos often receive far less views so the timing likely meant that the total reach of this video was limited after it went private.
An uncensored video to show what YouTube found objectionable is available on the Lbry network.
