Shortly after YouTube blocked him from selling ads for his show, Louder with Crowder, YouTuber Steven Crowder debriefed his audience in between occasional references to his attorney as his “half-Asian lawyer, Bill Richmond.”
“If you think this is not going to happen to you – this isn’t just for conservatives any more,” Crowder said. “It’s everybody who creates original content.”
Crowder hadn’t been censored, and YouTube’s actions only came after public outrage over how the tech company had handled allegations of hate speech. For several years, Crowder had used his show to target Vox’s Carlos Maza, leading Crowder’s followers to harass Maza. Facing public pressure for doing nothing after Maza shared a video compilation of Crowder targeting him, YouTube opted to leave Crowder’s show on the platform but to bar it from selling ads.
The punishment amounted to a slap on the wrist, as Crowder acknowledged most of the show’s revenue comes from selling merchandise – things like bumper stickers that say, “There are only 2 genders. Change my mind,” or a shirt reading “Socialism is for f*gs.” Crowder joined other far-right figures who had been expelled from or suspended by social media platforms for hate speech or spreading misinformation. And he followed their next act in lockstep – crying censorship.
Here are three times when individuals or organizations misleadingly claimed to be victims of censorship.
Live Action
Last week, the folks at pseudo-investigative news outlet and reliable source of garbage information Project Veritas did themselves up an exposé. This time, the target was Pinterest, which Project Veritas accused of censoring a pro-life site.
The problem with this concept is that the pro-life site in this case is Live Action, a completely bonkers and misinformation-laden site that focuses on abortion. Project Veritas pointed out, accurately, that Pinterest blocks users from posting pins from the Live Action site, while suggesting, inaccurately, that Pinterest had blocked the site for containing pornographic content.
Pinterest had added Live Action to its blocked domain list, nicknamed the porn block list, because it originally contained only porn domains. According to a screenshot from this second exciting installment in Project Veritas’ Pinterest series, the tech company sent Project Veritas a statement explaining that the list doesn’t just block porn.
Project Veritas also didn’t share Pinterest’s explanation for blocking Live Action in the first place. Pinterest’s statement said the company blocked Live Action for containing misinformation, including conspiracies and anti-vax content. According to screenshots from the initial Project Veritas video, the platform blocks a range of domains responsible for misinformation, including anti-vax sites, hoax news sites and Alex Jones-associated Prison Planet.
The Federalist and Fox News’ Tucker Carlson followed the story by running pieces claiming that the Pinterest employee who brought this to Project Veritas’ attention, Eric Cochran, was fired after the piece ran. Project Veritas said the same thing before running a correction saying Cochran was on administrative leave. Pinterest didn’t respond to an email seeking clarification.
A Go Fund Me supporting Cochran has raised more than $50,000.
Alex Jones and InfoWars
Last year, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Pinterest all banned conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his site, InfoWars. Leading up to being deplatformed, Jones had spent years fueling the conspiracy theory that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was fake. Last year, he also claimed that the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida was a “false flag,” a conspiracy theory term for a government operation carried out to manipulate the public.
Jones’ ouster led to far-right fearmongering that social media platforms target conservatives. Months before being banned from YouTube, InfoWars accused CNN of trying to censor its YouTube channel, where Jones’ organization had posted videos accusing Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg of being a crisis actor, a term conspiracy theorists coined for people paid to play the role of witnesses to staged events, like mass shootings. It should go without saying, but crisis actors aren’t real.
Diamond and Silk
Last year, Diamond and Silk claimed that Facebook had censored them, and the conservative duo’s Lynnette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson appeared on “Fox & Friends” and “The Ingraham Angle” to talk about it.
But their Facebook page had never been taken down, banned or suspended. Facebook had sent the pair a message saying their content was “unsafe for the community,” a message that Facebook later said was inaccurate. A Facebook representative sent an email to Diamond and Silk apologizing for the original message, which he characterized as “mishandled communications.” Facebook also tried to contact the pair by phone, Facebook and Twitter. Yet they maintained during multiple Fox News interviews that Facebook had not tried to contact them or had only reached out on Twitter, while continuing to claim falsely that Facebook had censored them.
Note: American Mythology is a series where we factcheck an entire piece or debunk a topic across multiple publications or platforms. You can learn more about our approach to factchecking here.
Contact Mollie Bryant at 405-990-0988 or bryant@bigiftrue.org. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.