Earlier this week the popular Christian outreach youtube channel PPSIMMONS was "terminated" by youtube. The account, in "good standing", was closed sometime on April 24. When one of the moderators attempted to access the account on that morning he was greeted with:
"This account has been terminated due to repeated or severe violations of our Community Guidelines and/or claims of copyright infringement."This was an enigma if there ever was one. "Violations"? The PPSIMMONS account was, according to youtube themselves, in "good standing". In fact, the folks at PPSIMMONS confirmed this "good standing" the week before when they were slapped by youtube for a Trayvon Martin video they posted and were placed on six month "probation". When PPSIMMONS staff appealed the probation youtube responded with an apology and reinstated the account's "good standing". From youtube:
Dear ppsimmons:Thank you for submitting your video appeal to YouTube. After further review, we've determined that your video doesn't violate our Community Guidelines. Your video has been reinstated and your account is in good standing.This email was sent to the PPSIMMONS ministry Apr 19 - the week before they shut down the channel. Now back to Apr 24. None of the moderators can access the channel. It's dead. No reason was offered by youtube other than that which everyone sees when they try to access it: "This account has been terminated due to repeated or severe violations of our Community Guidelines and/or claims of copyright infringement."... Nice.
So they went through the appeals process as best they could. It was difficult since their account had been shut down. But they managed to squeak out an appeal to the youtube brass. The response they were given was nothing short of jaw-dropping. They cited the most recent video titled "An EMERGENCY Call To PRAYER! From Carl Gallups and PPSIMMONS Ministry". From youtube:
Penalty 2:
"An EMERGENCY Call To PRAYER! From Carl Gallups and PPSIMMONS Ministry"
formerly at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4A33hWaI60
Removed for violating our Terms of Use on 04/24/2012.
Please see http://www.youtube.com/t/terms and
http://www.youtube.com/t/community_guidelines
Notice it says "Penalty 2". Penalty 1 was a video PPSIMMONS did on abortion a couple of years ago with graphic images and which was taken down. Youtube placed the account in "good standing" following that.
Now remember - the account was placed in good standing following the Trayvon video and for which youtube apologized. They shut down the account while it was in good standing! But that's not the strangest aspect of all this - as strange as that seems.
Penalty 2: "An EMERGENCY Call To PRAYER! From Carl Gallups and PPSIMMONS Ministry". What kind of video was this that so enraged youtube that they saw fit, without any warning at all, to terminate one of the most popular "Christian" channels on youtube? Was it full of naked ladies smoking crack? Was it full of blacks and Jews being slaughtered by a group of drunken white supremacists? Here it is - judge for yourself.
Well there you have it. A simple call to prayer. A call to the church to reach out to God for cleansing and holiness. One might be tempted to suspect that youtube was upset at the mentioning of homosexuality as being a "demonic grip" but the video was speaking directly to people who [claim to] believe the Bible and who [claim to] know Jesus as Lord. This video was not directed at the homosexual community at large. It was a "call to prayer". It attacked no one.
According to youtube's own guidelines [here], they claim: "We encourage free speech and defend everyone's right to express unpopular points of view." Now that they have shut down PPSIMMONS can they honestly make that claim? No - they cannot. The same paragraph in youtube's guidelines says "But we don't permit hate speech (speech which attacks or demeans a group based on race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, and sexual orientation/gender identity)." Yet the video is speaking to Christians, not homosexuals.
So it seems like youtube is violating it's own guidelines on this one. They are discriminating against a youtube user based on religious beliefs. Not only is that unconstitutional, it goes against their own rules of conduct.
A simple call to prayer. That's all it took to get PPSIMMONS jettisoned from youtube. Yet the ministry lives on. It lives on with this blog and on facebook. It lives on Dailymotion and yes, on countless other youtube channels where the material was "mirrored". PPSIMMONS lives - it will never be silenced.
UPDATE!... a nationally renowned attorney who was a fan of
PPSIMMONS has offered to take PPSIMMONS' case against YouTube
pro-Bono. Those discussions are underway at this writing.
UPDATE!... youtube has reinstated the PPSIMMONS channel!
Jesus will win! never give up! Praise Jesus for you PPSimmons!
ReplyDeletePlease don't take this lying down. I believe that "LAWFARE" is the term currently in use. I believe ACLJ, Public Advocate, Liberty Counsel, Thomas More Center, and Liberty Legal Foundation might like to chat with you. For all our sakes, please consider this.
ReplyDeleteYou're right - it was a poor analogy. Didn't think it all the way through. How does it look now? Better analogy?
ReplyDeleteI hate to say it PPS...although I agree wholeheartedly with everything you stated in your video, I can understand why YT shut you down. In a liberal's mind, you clearly blasted homosexuality in this video and you should have KNOWN this would cause trouble, no? The way the world is today, we only put a target on our backs when we cross that line the libs and socialists have drawn. This is considered a hate crime by the left and you demonized homosexuality. You did it to yourself with your words. Don't get me wrong here - like I said, I wholeheartedly stand by every single word in this vid, but when we are in the public eye, we are under scrutiny by some of the most insane of the insane. We must recognize the state of world we are in today, and Matthew 10: 16 “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. Blessings to you friend, keep up the ministry :) God will prevail.
ReplyDeleteWe spoke directly to the church on a religious matter. Youtube discriminated against us based on our religious views and that is a violation of their own policy...
Deletedirectly to the church? Hmmm. i GUESS that could be your line of defense and good luck with that. If you haven't already realized, laws and constitutional rights don't matter anymore in this country. Please keep us posted on what transpires.
DeleteI do not believe pot smoking is demonic as suggested in this video. - from born again believer.
ReplyDeleteDo you think it's ok for a "born again" believer to be addicted to pot? (or anything else for that matter)?
DeleteI don't think pot is any more addictive than coffee. Trying tooo hard to demonize pot makes the ministry dishonest. It would be fair to say lost souls may quest for satisfaction in ways that will never get them there, such as pot. But to act like pot = doomed is dishonest at best. BTW, in spite of that I don't think the channel should have been shut down or even flagged - that sort of disagreements would have been better off dialoged in the video comments. Or somewhere like here. (same with the gay issue).
DeleteBut he doesn't say or act like pot = doomed..
DeleteHe says that some are under the demonic grips (addicted) of for example smoking pot.
Now that's not demonizing pot at all, because he doesnt say anything about pot being more addictive than anything else - rather he says pray for those who are addicted to pot, porn etc..
(By Demonic GRIP he means addiction - I think that's what you misunderstood.)
So he doesn't say pot smoking is demonic. He says pot addiction is a demonic grip.
Don't you agree that pot addiction is bad?
"We may be living in the last days"? Fact, we were all born into the last days, according to scripture.. Hbr 1:2 KJV - Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; | So the question isn't are these the 'last days', but rather where in them do we dwell, and obviously latter end? ;-)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, regarding YT shutdown. We both know that as Christians we are a persecuted lot, and this is just an example of fact. Google owns YT, and is of the world. So as believers witnessing, discretion always advised. And attacking the heathen ain't gonna win points. Sorry to be so blunt, but fact is fact, you broke the rules...
We encourage free speech and defend everyone's right to express unpopular points of view. But we don't permit hate speech (speech which attacks or demeans a group based on race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, and sexual orientation/gender identity).
P.S. YT doesn't care whom intended audience is, just what message or content being presented. And as they own the site, it's their option to make and enforce the rules. I agree they are hard, but really is there a better general witness platform.
Quite a dissapointment too, as I had some of your awesome prophecy videos embedded on my sites ;-(
Actually the target audience is EVERYTHING since youtube prohibits targeting groups BASED ON... We were having an in-house discussion with members of our own religion and were targeted by youtube for it. There are liability issues here since youtube is a party to an agreement and violated their own policies by targeting us for our religious beliefs (homosexuality is demonic).
DeleteLawyers are now involved... stay tuned!
Yes I understand what you're saying, but blasting homosexuality on a site that supports it is not a good approach ;-( You say "in-house discussion"? My friend, YT is a public, not private presentation arena. Unless arranged otherwise? Please be aware of this clear fact ;-)
DeleteBtw I myself have been at account risk for mere message spamming, and content was irrelevant, just action or method used. I guess the bots semi-examine things? And what about the Carl Gallups YT page? Is that also being shut down soon?
FYI YT wasn't breaching their policies, you were inadvertently breaching their rules. Yeah I know it's the pits, but expressing Christianity in these evil times ain't easy. We are discriminated by our faith alone, and exactly as Jesus' stated would be. Well good luck with lawyer game ;-)
Actually the target audience is EVERYTHING since youtube prohibits targeting groups BASED ON... We were having an in-house discussion with members of our own religion and were targeted by youtube for it. There are liability issues here since youtube is a party to an agreement and violated their own policies by targeting us for our religious beliefs (homosexuality is demonic).
DeleteLawyers are now involved... stay tuned!
I concur the youtube action is quite dissapointing. I only learned of the video via a blog on abovetopsecret.com - and enjoyed it, as well as the open dialog here. From what I can surmise there are some "offensive" elements to some strong groups such as the gays and Obama fans. As far as gays go - consider that god created hermaphrodites too - and some gay people truly are born cross wired or even ambiguous. Thus a nuanced careful bible reading reveals its not gayness itself that's so bad. Rather its sex-questing outside of a full-commitment and getting lost in that. And I say full-commitment because the idea of marriage is falling apart via prohibitions of DOMA, etc (I'm a book-read non-churched "liberal" type of Christian myself). I hope that helps.
Delete