by Luke Gentile
YouTube’s apology for removing a video of a speech Rep. Darrell Issa , a California Republican, gave that allegedly spread “medical misinformation” is not enough, according to Issa’s communications director, Jonathan Wilcox.
“The apology that’s needed isn’t for Darrell Issa,” Wilcox told the Washington Examiner. “It is for all the other people who are exercising their free speech but fall victim to YouTube’s censors. Something has to change, and, more than ever, we think sooner rather than later.”
The California Republican spoke at the EDGE2021 conference in Las Vegas, where he spoke on various technology areas. At one point, he compared the vaccination efforts between the United States and Russia by using the space race as an analogy.
The comparison was the sole reference to vaccines in the speech on technology, but it saw the organization that had Issa as a speaker lose its YouTube page and “disappear.”
Issa demanded an apology from Google and YouTube for the action and told the Washington Examiner that the video was removed solely because he is a conservative.
“If I said the vaccine doesn’t work, they could have some leg to stand on,” he said. “I’ve been saying the truth, and it’s still taking me down. They take people down because they don’t like our politics. That includes if we disparage vaccine mandates or we disparage masks or anything else.”
YouTube apologized for the video’s removal and admitted it was a mistake, according to a statement shared with the Washington Examiner.
“Upon review, we determined that the video of Rep. Issa didn’t violate our Community Guidelines and it’s now been reinstated, although the video has since been deleted by the uploader,” the statement read. “We sometimes make mistakes, and when flagged we work as quickly as possible to address it.”
Source: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/youtubes-apology-is-not-enough-for-rep-issa