YouTube attempted to cancel libertarian leader Ron Paul yesterday, perhaps to punish the vaccination skepticism of his high-profile son, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.
The Google-owned company blacklisted the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, the former presidential candidate’s organization, Breitbart reported.
Ron Paul expressed his confusion in a tweet yesterday.
Very shocked that @YouTube has completely removed the Channel of my Ron Paul Institute: no warning, no strikes, no evidence. Only explanation was “severe or repeated violations of our community guidelines.” Channel is rarely used. The appeal was automatically rejected. Help? pic.twitter.com/CuvGAe1bVf
— Ron Paul (@RonPaul) September 30, 2021
“Very shocked that YouTube has completely removed the Channel of my Ron Paul Institute: no warning, no strikes, no evidence,” Paul wrote. “Only explanation was ‘severe or repeated violations of our community guidelines.’ Channel is rarely used. The appeal was automatically rejected.”
After Breitbart published its article, Google reinstated the institute’s account, calling the blacklisting of Dr. Paul’s organization a “mistake.”
Heard back from our team that this was a mistake and your channel has been reinstated. Thanks for being patient while we sorted this out – we’ll be reaching out via email shortly in case you have any questions.
— TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube) September 30, 2021
While it did not elaborate further on the reason for the mistake, speculation quickly turned to whether the company might have been intending to target the younger Paul, who has been a regular nemesis of COVID czar Anthony Fauci during Senate hearings.
A medical doctor by trade, the Kentucky senator also has been an outspoken skeptic of many of the guidelines proposed by government health officials in response to the pandemic.
According to a Just The News piece from earlier in the week, YouTube announced an explicit program to ban all accounts and videos that criticize vaccines or warn about their side effects.
The policy claims to censor “content that falsely alleges that approved vaccines are dangerous and cause chronic health effects, claims that vaccines do not reduce transmission or contraction of disease, or contains misinformation on the substances contained in vaccines will be removed.”
Further, YouTube said the policy will remove accounts that link vaccines to chronic health conditions or mental disorders.
