Lila Rose, a prolife advocate and a rising young prolife leader, has exposed Planned Parenthood illegal activities through Project Mona Lisa.
Sadly, Youtube has been censoring the videos of her organization, Live Action. As of to date, they have banned eight of her videos.
Jill Stanek’s commentary over at World Net Daily is insightful. It can be read over here: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=104699
An except:
YouTube allows almost any surgery video imaginable, like gastric bypass, gallbladder removal, toe amputation, appendectomy and brain tumor removal, and gross-out body parts videos like a buttock fecal fistula or peritoneal cancer – but not abortion.
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Neither does YouTube have a problem with videos pertaining to the female anatomy like mastectomies, breast augmentations, hysterectomies or even baby deliveries – but not abortion, unless it is in the form of bloodless illustrations.
YouTube also seems to go out of its way to protect the abortion industry, particularly Planned Parenthood.
To date, YouTube has removed eight videos posted by Lila Rose and Live Action Films shot undercover at Planned Parenthoods in several states. In them Lila posed as a 13-year-old impregnated by her 31-year-old “boyfriend.” Videos show staffers trying to help cover up the illegal statutory rape and even offering to help Lila circumvent parental consent laws.
Live Action Films tried ever harder to abide by YouTube’s rule of maintaining privacy as well as its vague censorship catch-all: “If a video is particularly graphic or disturbing, it should be balanced with additional context and information.”
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But it’s not only Planned Parenthood YouTube protects. It also provides cover-up for run-of-the-abortion-mill skanks.
Take Michigan late-term abortionist Alberto Hodari. Last year Citizens for a Pro-life Society filmed video of garbage retrieved from two of his dumpsters.
YouTube has videos posted of “the world’s biggest garbage dump” in the center of the Pacific Ocean as well as of a boy living in a huge garbage dump in India. YouTube even has video posted of a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation news team following dumpster divers on the hunt for food.
But CPLS’s video was of preborn human garbage Hodari’s staff illegally tossed, and for which Hodari was later fined by authorities, corroborating the video’s authenticity, or “context.” The video was up 10 months and received 25,000 views before being inexplicably removed.
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YouTube allows graphic social justice videos pertaining to the Holocaust, slavery, the civil rights movement, Darfur and child sex trafficking. It allows graphic videos of wars throughout history.
But abortion, no.
As Monica Miller, head of CPLS told me, “How are you going to talk about abortion without it being disturbing? YouTube is a primary way we can compete in the United States with pro-abortion propaganda and have a voice.”
But social engineers at YouTube don’t want pro-lifers to have a visual voice.
[...] SLIMJIM wrote an interesting post today onYoutube censors prolife videos « The <b>Domain</b> for TruthHere’s a quick excerpt [...]
Its been my experience that reformed boards censor opinions they disagree with pretty freely. I believe that free and open discussion of ideas is vital for a healthy culture. Do you and if so why do your compatriots seem to not agree?
Where is the moral justification for disagreeing with youtube if you abandon the notion of free speech?
I liked it. So much useful material. I read with great interest.
CD,
1.) “Its been my experience that reformed boards censor opinions they disagree with pretty freely.”
This post is not about reformed boards, so I don’t know why you are here commenting about reformed boards.
And who knows what reformed boards you are talking about.
Seeing that it’s unrelated, why don’t you write about what you think about these reformed boards over at your blog instead of going to someone’s post unrelated to the topic?
Assuming they have “censor” (whatever that means you have not specified) you, isn’t there a difference between moderated discussions in a forum and youtube deleting videos even though they fit their criteria of appropriate videos?
If you write about things off topic and troll on their board like you are doing here, perhaps that is why they deleted your comment. In which case, I doubt it is as much of an issue of censorship as it is getting rid of an annoying experience similar to the one most people get in deleting spam emails.
2.) “I believe that free and open discussion of ideas is vital for a healthy culture. Do you and if so why do your compatriots seem to not agree?”
I don’t run any reformed boards, so I don’t know why this relate to me. Whether or not they agree, you have to ask them, not me.
I do believe that discussion of ideas should be permitted by society, but that does not translate that an individual’s opinion must be heard by everyone everywhere and at all times. I don’t suppose you want a mormon articulating his religion in your dining room when you want him to leave, or an anarchist articulating his philosophy to you when you are in the restroom? I don’t suppose a jihadist extremist have a fundamental right to be on a homosexual dating forum when he goes against what the moderaters intended the forum to be? Sure, Westboro baptist has a right to having their sign “God bless IED” and “God’s wrath on US military because of gays” around a soldier’s funeral, but it cannot take place AT the funeral itself.
While I believe society should not ban discussion and the presentation of ideas, this is not a blank check: where and how it takes place is crucial as well.
3.) “Where is the moral justification for disagreeing with youtube if you abandon the notion of free speech?”
You are committing the logical fallacy of complex question. I don’t “abandon” the notion of free speech, which your question assume. To be frank I find it offensive that you misrepresent me as anti-free speech, and demand an apology from you CD.
This post is not about reformed boards, so I don’t know why you are here commenting about reformed boards.
I don’t think you know what that expression means:
board is a reference to a place of discussion short for “bulletin boards” which is what electronic discussion locations have been called for 25 years. Reformed is just an adjective, i.e. a discussion location with a reformed christian slant. And yeah this is one.
As for the question:
“How are you going to have time to pick up groceries if you go the library” does not assume you are going to the library. It is a hypothetical.
And I’m thrilled you took a strong stand committed stand for free speech in principle. That’s great!
YouTube is not censoring all pro-life videos. There are many that have remained. As far as I know, YouTube does not investigate videos unless someone complains, and since pro-abortion groups complain about pro-life image usage, this may be why pro-life videos with graphic images are quick to be removed.
I’ve done a quick search and found many pro-life videos. Many of those do not contain the graphic imagery of http://www.abortionno.org though, which may be why they remain.
I believe that some of the images might be too graphic for children, so there needs to be some censorship. I wouldn’t let my children watch a TV show or movie with those kinds of images… images that are haunting to me, let alone to a young person. If I tell them, “abortion is the murder of babies that are in their mommies,” their imaginations are sufficient to fill in the blanks. Thankfully, I haven’t had to answer the question “What is abortion” yet, but I’d rather not have my children stumble across these YouTube images in the mean time.
Shaun,
The videos produced by Live Action have not been physically graphic; they were undercover expose of Planned Parenthood’s conduct when it comes to various illegal scenario.
I share the same concern as you do about graphic videos and there must be a proper time and place for everything, especially the images of abortion.
Yes, I forgot to comment about that. I wonder if there are some laws about recording private conversations without the consent of both individuals that might be part of the dispute.
I’m not trying to defend YouTube, by the way. If they’re in the wrong, they have to be called out for it. I just want to get more information before making a judgment.
Hm…I wonder what the law touches on that too Shaun. But I wonder then how investigative journalism do their expose reporting?
Just for background information, Lila Rose was a freshman when I was in my last year at UCLA. As a 19 year old, Planned Parenthood tried to sue her, concerning the videos and from what I understand, there was no ground for the lawsuit, it was just an intimidation for her to take down the video on youtube and Live Action website, so they never carried it out with the lawsuit.
Interesting. I have seen a couple of the videos, and the corruption it exposes is astounding. I wonder if YouTube is simply caving to the same legal pressure as you describe, especially if folks at YouTube are pro-abortion anyway. It would be interesting to see some legal stuff on this. Pah. They don’t teach you anything useful at seminary, do they?