18 Jun 2019 YouTube Removes FEP Video at Left’s Request

Back in 2014, Free Enterprise Project Director Justin Danhof “destroyed liberal radio host over genetically modified foods.” That’s how the headline read on YouTube. But not even the headline is left anymore. YouTube pulled the Danhof video appearance down.

When conservatives gained prowess in talk radio, liberals tried to stop them by demanding “equal time.” As the Fox News Channel dominates cable, the left seeks to silence it by attacking its hosts, advertisers and guests. Now the left is actively trying to pull conservative content off of social media.

When it’s a fair debate, the left loses. So the solution these days appears to be to just shut down the opposition.  Free speech for me, but not for thee.

In this case, liberal talk radio host Thom Hartmann petitioned YouTube – a subsidiary of Google – to remove the old interview he did with Justin from the National Center’s YouTube page. Hartmann posts his shows on YouTube. And, in that particular case, Justin was live in the studio with him. Hartmann apparently didn’t want to share the show when the results didn’t serve his purposes.

This is the blog post that went along with the now-removed YouTube video:

Watch as Justin Danhof, director of the National Center’s Free Enterprise Project, takes on and soundly defeats liberal talk radio host Thom Hartmann on the issue of labeling genetically modified foods.

Justin cited settled science and the obvious intent of the organic food industry lobby to demonize GM foods, while Hartmann said he thinks groups such as the American Medical Association that find no harm in genetically modified products are corrupt.

Justin recently attended the annual shareholder meeting of General Mills, where the Free Enterprise Project helped decisively defeat a shareholder proposal to mandate the removal of all genetically modified products from its inventory.

Posting the clip should not have been considered a copyright violation. National Center media clips always contain an explanation of our legal use of the video. Here is how it reads on our most recently posted media appearance:

This short excerpt from the Fox News Channel program “The Ingraham Angle,” broadcast on 6/7/19 and featuring Project 21 Co-Chairman and National Center for Public Policy Research legal fellow Horace Cooper, has been posted under fair use guidelines for the purpose of non-profit, educational public debate by the National Center for Public Policy Research, a 501(c)(3) educational foundation under the Internal Revenue Code.

These video descriptions also contain links to the National Center’s web and social media sites to provide outlets for “more discussion” on the issues. But more discussion doesn’t seem to be what Hartmann and the left wants.

After all, Justin really did soundly destroy Hartmann in that interview!

Tomorrow happens to be the annual shareholder meeting of Alphabet – Google’s parent company. YouTube censorship should be a big issue; this past year has seen the platform demonetize, remove and set up strange new rules for content.

What happened to FEP is just one more example of the ongoing leftist campaign to squelch debate.