YouTube comes to kill Rebel News
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
127.26858
Summary
YouTube has completely demonetized us, and when I asked why, they wouldn t say. I think this means YouTube is looking to suspend us altogether. That would be bad news, but I have a plan to overcome it.
Transcript
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Hello, my Rebels. Today, I have some news about us. Listen, I love talking about the world,
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but sometimes we make news too. YouTube wrote to me last night saying they're fully demonetizing
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us. And when I asked why, they wouldn't say. I'll take you through possible theories and what we're
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going to do about it. I think this means YouTube is looking to suspend us altogether. That would
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be bad news, but I have a plan to overcome it. So that's what I'm going to get into in today's show.
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By the way, I'd love it if you became a subscriber. And what I mean by that is
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subscriber to the video version of this podcast. Just go to rebelnews.com and click subscribe. It's
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eight bucks a month. You get the video version of the podcast, plus shows by David Benzies,
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Sheila Gunn-Reed, Andrew Chapados. And oh my God, more important than ever,
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you will support us because YouTube just kicked a $400,000 hole in our company.
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I'll tell you more about that in today's podcast. All right, here's today's show.
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Tonight, YouTube comes to kill rebel news. It's March 23rd, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
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Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
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There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
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The only thing I have to say to the government, the wire publisher, is because it's my bloody
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Last night at 5.30 p.m., I received this letter from YouTube. They're cutting off rebel news.
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They're completely canceling all remaining ads on our channel, even from advertisers who
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specifically request our channel. And worse, they're banning our 1.45 million YouTube subscribers
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from voluntarily paying us through what are called live stream super chats. This is going to cost us
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about $400,000 a year. We've got three choices, really. If we stop criticizing the lockdown,
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they say we can reapply in 30 days and possibly get our ads back. But we would have to stop saying what
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we say. We have to say what they want us to say. Or we could gut our company, cut out $400,000 a year
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in costs. We've just hired great new folks, new reporters, editors. We've done so much great civil
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liberties work. Cutting $400,000 a year means probably cutting seven staff. I think that's really
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what YouTube wants us to do. Which of those would you choose? Change our editorial viewpoint
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or cut $400,000 from our payroll? Me? I'll do neither, thank you. I've got a plan.
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We're going to get through this. We're not going to be just like the CBC or CNN. We're not going to
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parrot the left. We're not going to cut our staff. I have a plan. Stay with me and I'll tell you about
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it. Or if you can't wait, just go to afteryoutube.com and it's all right there.
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I need your help to survive this. I think YouTube is ramping up. To be honest, I think their next step
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will be to suspend our channel altogether, just to delete us. I really don't know how long we've
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got left on YouTube at all, but I do have a plan and you can see it at afteryoutube.com. It's a
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simple plan and today we started to implement it. Frankly, we were expecting something like this.
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We started putting things in motion months ago. But just quickly, before I get to the plan,
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you might think that maybe we did something wrong. YouTube has a three strikes and you're out policy
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for inappropriate videos. I should tell you, we have zero strikes. We've published more than 15,000
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videos on YouTube and we've never violated their terms of service. There was no warning here.
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We don't know about any complaint. We're aware of no video that caused this. When I got that letter
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last night, I phoned our YouTube rep and I asked if there was something in particular that we did
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wrong. Was there a video that broke a rule? I mean, if there was something really bad, maybe we would
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fix it or even just take it down. She said, no, there's no particular video. I asked if we could
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appeal the ruling. She said, no, there's no such thing. I asked if I could talk to a more senior
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boss. She said she'd check. Pretty sure I know the answer. But let me take one more minute on their
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email to me last night. There was a cryptic reference in there. You see that one phrase,
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harmful or dangerous acts? That's a list of things you can't do on YouTube. I read through the whole
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thing very carefully. It's mainly a rule against crazy and dangerous things that we've just never
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done. Here's an example. Acts involving high-risk activities such as skyscraper parkour or depicting
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serious injury like skate slam aftermath. That's an example. Or pranks relating to suicide, death,
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terrorism such as fake bomb scare pranks or threats with lethal weapons, sexually unwanted acts such as
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forced kissing, groping, sexual abuse, spy cams in dress room. These are actual YouTube examples of what
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they mean by harmful or dangerous ads. Have you ever seen anything like that on Rebel News? There's a list
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of things they call medical misinformation like denying that certain medical conditions exist such
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as HIV, COVID-19 and content claiming the vaccine will cause infertility, contain a microchip or be used
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to euthanize parts of a population. Now we've never said those things. I don't think anyone actually knows
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all the facts about the virus or the vaccines yet. But we haven't claimed that COVID doesn't exist or
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that there's a microchip in the vaccine or anything wild at all like that. We just talk about the same
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things everyone else does. It's the news and we're a news channel. If you've watched our videos, you know
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our problem isn't really with the virus itself. It's the political response to the virus we're worried
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about. The lockdowns, the violation of civil liberties, even police brutality. That's what we talk
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about every day. We even put a little warning on the front of our videos about the pandemic, letting people
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know that we are skeptics of the conventional wisdom. YouTube told us that that's all we needed
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to do. So for no reason, YouTube has just gutted $400,000 from our Rebel News budget and they won't
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even tell us why. Is it because we're skeptics of the lockdown? Is it because of political pressure
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on them maybe? Is it because of what I showed you last week that the U.S. Navy and the Canadian Armed
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Forces Special Operations Command paid an Arkansas defense contractor to try to spy on us? I mean,
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that was really weird and creepy. Did those spy agencies pressure YouTube to demonetize us?
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It wouldn't surprise me. I mean, we caught them spying on us. Or maybe it was Trudeau himself.
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Trudeau has ordered police to remove our reporters from his press conferences. He's banned us from
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attending public debates. And he even denounced us by name on the floor of Parliament.
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It is disappointing to see the conservatives engage in peddling rebel media conspiracy theories.
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Was it that? Or was it the fact that just last week we filed a lawsuit against the Heritage Minister,
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Stephen Gilbeau, for blocking and censoring us? I haven't even had a chance to tell you about that
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lawsuit yet. Imagine that. We sue him for censoring us, so he censors us. Is that what happened? I don't
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know. YouTube won't tell us. I don't think we'll ever know. But I know that YouTube, which is owned by
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Google, is a far-left organization politically that really doesn't like conservatives. And after Trump won
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in 2016, they had a staff meeting at Google where they swore they would crack down on any conservative
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YouTubers. Well, it took them four years, but it looks like they finally kept their promise.
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This is step one. Their next step could be to shut us down. To hell with the 1.45 million YouTube
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subscribers who love our content, who constantly give our videos 99% like-to-dislike ratios.
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So what do we do after YouTube? We'll be working on our plan B for when the cancel mob comes for us.
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We've already set up Rebel News channels on smaller rivals to YouTube, like the video website
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BitChute and Rumble.com. That's a Canadian-based company that has a free speech orientation.
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Dan Bongino and even Donald Trump Jr. use Rumble.com for their videos.
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Starting today, we'll put all of our videos up on those sites and five other video alternatives, too.
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And instead of driving traffic to YouTube by linking to YouTube from our Facebook and Twitter accounts,
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we'll now send our people to those new upstart video channels, too. We'll still keep using YouTube.
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We're not going to abandon the 1.45 million people there. We won't cut them off.
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But we're going to let them know in every single video we upload to YouTube
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that they have to tell us who they are, their name and email address,
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or else when YouTube finally pulls the plug on us, we just won't be able to contact them anymore.
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That's the main purpose for AfterYouTube.com, so that when YouTube kills us, which I fear they will,
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our 1.45 million friends know where to find us, and we know where to find them.
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Look, YouTube essentially said that if we stop talking about the lockdowns,
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Well, I'll never censor myself or our reporters like that.
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But we can't survive with a $400,000 a year hole in our company.
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You've seen our new young reporters who are doing great work.
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We just hired a full-time lawyer to help us fight the fight-the-fines cases.
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I suppose a normal company would just lay off seven or eight staff.
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and they immediately laid off their entire Canadian staff.
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Our motto is to tell the other side of the story,
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not to just repeat the story that YouTube wants us to tell.
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So option one is to obey YouTube and become liberal.
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Option two is to do what Huffington Post just did.
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and you don't want to see us bend to the will of YouTube,
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so I know how to reach you when I'm finally deleted from YouTube.
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Second, sign up for our alternative video platforms.
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You can see that right on the page at afteryoutube.com.
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Please help me keep our editorial policy independent.
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Please help me make payroll for all these new journalists.
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And you can do that too right there at afteryoutube.com.
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but YouTube knows our pressure points, don't they?
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They know we don't take money from a big corporation.
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So they know we really, really needed that $400,000 a year from them,
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which is why they blocked that with no explanation.
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Well, thank you for letting me tell you the story
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Being booted off YouTube will be bad news for us.
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It's the second largest search engine in the world,
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and it is the largest video platform in the world.
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to follow us to other sites and to our own site.
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I also have to make up the $400,000 hole in our boat
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But I want to talk to you about something else.
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We've been so busy fighting back against YouTube today
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that I want to, instead of interviewing Sheila,
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Pastor James Coates was finally released from prison,
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where he outrageously spent more than a month in prison
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let alone Alberta, which is supposed to be the freest place.
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So let me throw to a video that Sheila recorded
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I think you're going to break out your shoelace.
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Yes, it's trying to silence us, but it will not work.
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I'd like to have our monetization back, but they're not going to crush us and they sure
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aren't going to tell us what we can or can't say.
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If you can, look, I know we already have your email address if you're watching this because
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you're a member of our Rebel News Plus, but for over a million people out there who watch
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And getting those names and taking them with us is the sure way to beat you too.
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Thanks for joining us and thanks as always for your support.
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On behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters to you at home, good night and