A few days ago, YouTube removed an interview with Professor Dolores Cahill from the Computing Forever channel after Business Insider complained that it was “filled with COVID-19 conspiracies” and reported it to YouTube.
After the video was removed, the channel’s host, Dave Cullen, posted a brief 3:38 second update where he discussed the censorship of this Cahill interview.
And now YouTube has taken down Cullen’s update video for “violating YouTube’s community guidelines.”
In this update video, Cullen talked about the takedown of the Cahill interview, shared the vague takedown notice he’d received from YouTube, and encouraged viewers to watch the Cahill interview on BitChute – a YouTube alternative that supports free speech.
He also shared his opinion that the coronavirus is “no more dangerous than seasonal influenza” and that societal changes which are being ushered in as a response to the coronavirus are making way for “what looks like a China-style social credit dystopia.”
Additionally, Cullen slammed the censorship of the Cahill interview, discussed the need for “a broad spectrum of ideas represented in order to finally find the truth,” and warned that such censorship will create a Streisand Effect.
He closed out the update video by encouraging viewers to watch, download, share, and reupload the Cahill interview wherever they can.
While YouTube’s notice only cites general community guideline violations, the update video was presumably taken down because YouTube deemed Cullen sharing his opinion on the coronavirus as going against the World Health Organization (WHO) – something that’s banned under the platform’s controversial coronavirus policies.
Although the video has been removed from YouTube, it’s still available on BitChute.
Not only is YouTube’s decision to censor a video calling out its censorship layered in irony but it also highlights the platform’s increasingly aggressive enforcement against what it deems to be coronavirus misinformation.
The majority of the video focused on YouTube’s censorship of the Cahill interview but Cullen briefly sharing his opinion on the virus seemingly was enough to get it taken down.
The removal of Cullen’s videos is the latest in a wave of recent coronavirus video takedowns on YouTube with some recent examples including the deletion of a video from anti-lockdown epidemiology researcher Knut M. Wittkowskki which had racked up millions of views and the removal of a popular interview with Dr. Judy Mikovits on the Valuetainment channel.
However, as YouTube faces mounting criticism for its censorship of coronavirus content, some videos are being reinstated.
