YouTube has entirely removed LifeSite News from its video-sharing platform. It permanently suspended the group's channel and took down all videos from the channel without prior warning, according to the pro-life group.
According to the group on its website on February 10, "YouTube just completely removed the LifeSiteNews YouTube channel. This isn't a temporary ban; every single one of our videos is completely gone. Thankfully, we have backups of all our videos, but this means hundreds of thousands of people have lost access to our truth-telling content," reported The Epoch Times.
LifeSiteNews YouTube Channel Suspended
The staff writers directed users to watch LifeSiteNews videos on Rumble, a YouTube competitor favored by conservatives concerned about suppressing speech from other social media websites. The website lost access to over 300,000 followers upon being banned from YouTube.
LifeSiteNews has had several run-ins with the video platform's censorship. In November of 2020, YouTube temporarily suspended LifeSite's channel for a week, based on accusations of medical misinformation in a video featuring comments by a medical doctor.
The comments were made by Dr. Roger Hodkinson, a medical director of Western Medical Assessments. According to Hodkinson, there was a very unfounded public frenzy driven by politicians and the media about COVID-19. He added the media reaction to, and the novel coronavirus's politics were the largest hoax perpetrated on an unassuming public.
According to Doug Mainwaring, "If you are a conservative Christian, the tech giants hate you and want to eradicate you. They clearly think that you shouldn't exist. You are being driven out of the modern public square, the internet, where only liberal voices are permitted to speak," reported The Federalist.
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A spokesperson for YouTube stated LifeSiteNews was removed from the platform for accumulating too many contraventions under its strikes system.
In a letter, the video-sharing company wrote they terminated the channel LifeSiteNews Media for repeatedly breaching their novel coronavirus misinformation policy. The policy prohibits content that promotes prevention measures that contradict the World Health Organization (WHO) or local health authorities. Any channel that contravenes their COVID-19 misinformation policy will receive a strike, which temporarily bars them from live-streaming or uploading videos.
'Strikes'
Channels are allowed a specific number of "strikes" before their channel is taken down from YouTube. The strikes also expire for a certain period of time.
LifeSiteNews has reportedly been expecting censorship for some time now.
LifeSite initiated a presence on alternative platforms, including Rumble, Gab, Telegram, and MeWe, prompting viewers to follow them there.
According to Gualberto Garcia Jones, Vice President of LifeSite News, YouTube, alongside other big tech corporations, are not interested in enabling anyone to deviate from their state-approved, liberal ideology.
The pro-life group did not state whether YouTube expounded on the reason behind the prohibition.
In a statement to the Media Research Center, according to LifeSite Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder John-Henry Westen, "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the Lord! With just over 314,000 subscribers and an average of 50K+ views on each episode of our flagship show, with some of our shows reaching over 2 million views, YouTube de-platformed LifeSiteNews, the world's #1 pro-life news website," reported LaCorte News.
