YouTube News: Criticized for Taking Down Advertisements from 'InfoWars' Channel
Streaming giant YouTube has recently been put in a difficult spot after removing some advertisements from the channel of Alex Jones, who is best known for his vlogs titled "InfoWars." This news follows Jones' earlier claims that the streaming company was planning to take down his channel — which infuriated numerous people on the internet.
According to reports, conservative commenters are stating that YouTube is overstepping its "censorship campaign" through its rules and guidelines by viewing conservatives and pro-gun advocates, as well as those with right-wing political perspectives. This has already happened to multiple conservative sites, which has led netizens into stating that YouTube is not a political governing body that should have the power to silence people.
In a report by CBS, YouTube has publicly explained the incident by simply stating that the removal of high-profile advertisements from Jones' channel was something they had discussed and agreed upon with the conspiracy vlogger beforehand. More importantly, the streaming juggernaut also clarified that they have no plans of taking down "InfoWars."
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Jones tweeted last Saturday, March 3, that his YouTube account was "frozen," and that he could only upload videos on Facebook, Periscope, and Twitter to express his political views. This news angered a lot of people, which led YouTube to explain its actions publicly.
This, however, turned out to be false, but the commenters and viewers have now targeted their anger toward YouTube. In Jones' case, what actually happened was that he accrued two strikes from YouTube for not following the guidelines and policies of the site. Jones would have gotten three, had YouTube not decided to rescind the third one — which the company stated was caused by a misguided employee of the company.
YouTube has been more vigilant recently in monitoring its content, and is still hiring more employees to serve as moderators to check the uploaded videos from time to time.
