YouTube has banned the platforming of former President Donald Trump’s full 2021 CPAC speech from their platform, unless users add “countervailing viewpoints” about Trump’s refuted elections claims to their post.
Unlike Trump’s 2020 CPAC speech, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a full version of the speech on YouTube. And when you do find it, there is added commentary pushing back on Trump’s election-related comments.
The Daily Wire reached out to YouTube on Friday about the unavailability of the full speech, specifically asking why the outlet Right Side Broadcasting Network had their video of Trump’s full speech removed from the platform, as well as hit with a two-week suspension.
YouTube spokeswoman Ivy Choi told The Daily Wire that the video violated their “presidential election integrity policy,” which was implemented on December 9.
“We enforce our Community Guidelines consistently, regardless of speaker or political leaning,” Choi told The Daily Wire. “In accordance with our established presidential election integrity policy, which prohibits content uploaded after the safe harbor deadline claiming widespread fraud changed the outcome of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, we removed this video from Right Side Broadcasting Network. Content featuring footage from CPAC 2021 that does not violate our policies or contains sufficient educational, documentary, scientific and artistic context remains on YouTube.”
Google Support details the implementation of the new policy, which removes any content uploaded on or after Dec. 9 that suggests any past U.S. presidential election was fraudulent.
“On December 9, we started applying our Presidential Election Integrity policy (below) to the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, meaning we remove content that misleads people by alleging that widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election uploaded on or after December 9,” Google Support detailed. “We have begun issuing strikes for new content that violates the policy uploaded on or after January 7, 2021.”
Under “Presidential Election Integrity,” the site stated: “Content that advances false claims that widespread fraud, errors, or glitches changed the outcome of any past U.S. presidential election (Note: this applies to elections in the United States only). For the U.S. 2020 presidential election, this applies to content uploaded on or after December 9, 2020.”
After being notified that RSBN’s video was removed, The Daily Wire asked YouTube about two other streams: SkyNews’ video, which hosts nearly the entirety of Trump’s 2021 speech, and NewsNOW from FOX’s video, which shows the entirety of the speech.
Notably, both videos add moments of commentary at the end of the streams emphasizing that Trump did not win the 2020 presidential election, a refutation of his claim during the speech that he might run again and “win” for the “third time.”
Choi told The Daily Wire the videos from SkyNews and NewsNOW from FOX do not violate their Community Guidelines, though YouTube declined multiple times to identify where RSBN’s video of the speech violated the guidance.
“On background, the two videos you shared with us do not violate our Community Guidelines,” Choi said. “As I shared in my statement, content featuring footage from CPAC 2021 that contains sufficient educational, documentary, scientific and artistic context remains on YouTube.”
When The Daily Wire reached out to RSBN about the video removal and the ban, their claims aligned with what appears to be the YouTube standard on allegations: compelled speech refuting claims about widespread election fraud must be added in order to platform Trump’s 2021 full CPAC speech.
“Our video was removed because we refused to give ‘countervailing viewpoints’ following Trump’s speech,” the outlet told The Daily Wire. “Essentially they wanted us to go on air after he was done with his speech and ‘push back’ against his claims of election fraud.”
In a post published on Mar. 4, the outlet reported that they had been “suspended from YouTube for two weeks, with live streaming and the ability to upload new videos revoked. YouTube has also removed the video from their platform, which at last check was approaching nearly four million views.”
“According to YouTube, this is due to our video of President Trump’s speech at CPAC, which violated their policies on election misinformation,” the report added. “Any further violations may result in the permanent suspension of our YouTube channel, which has amassed over 1.5 million subscribers.”