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Ridiculous! YouTube censors Christian videos because content describes and supports values of Russian Faith

David Curry
Russia Insider
Mon, 20 Nov 2017 00:00 UTC

Really YouTube?

Two weeks ago, I was summarily informed in a brief email from YouTube that our Russian Faith channel-on which we had spent hundreds of hours of hard work and which complements the Russian Faith website, which I own, had been 'terminated.' No reason was given other than a very general one which could mean anything.

Russian Faith is a new media project I started in September: a website, YouTube channel (now banned), Facebook, and Twitter - to cover Christian issues in general, and the huge story of the renaissance of Christianity in Russia.

This dramatic turn by both government and society in Russia is very important not just for Christians, but for the whole world, regardless of their religious views, because it has so many ramifications important to us Americans.

It should affect our foreign policy, and it contrasts with the hostility to Christian values in our own Western societies. It is a fact that Russia has emerged as the leading defender of world Christianity, and it is a disgrace that liberal forces in the US elites and the government are among Christianity's most hostile foes - both at home and abroad.

Millions of Russians now routinely march for Christianity

Observing the Christian renaissance in Russia first hand while living there, I realized that this story is being badly misunderstood, misrepresented, and under-reported - another massive fail by the mainstream media. No surprises here.

When we launched, we received glowing reviews, enthusiastic support and encouragement from the public, and raised over $10,000 from hundreds of small donors in an initial crowdfund.

The videos which were banned were of the most positive character - videos about love, sacrifice and charity, about honor and respect. YouTube banned them ALL - and most incredibly - refuses to explain why!

You can view all of the videos in question below. See for yourself, they are admirable, to say the least.

A deliberate attack on free speech

I have started and managed successful YouTube channels and understand the environment very well, and it is obvious to me that this is deliberate censorship. Blocking monetization, suppression of views, and manipulation of statistics, is a huge, persistent problem, and there has been a dramatic increase over the past two months across all the big tech platforms.

I have been monitoring this with increasing alarm. If you think this is un-American, then please sign our petition below, and follow my personal pages on Facebook or Twitter. I will be talking more about these encroachments on our rights in the coming weeks and months.

I and the Russian Faith team feel violated - our constitutional rights have been trampled on, our hard work trashed. Our ability to fund this site, which we started on a shoestring thanks to hundreds of small donations from people all across America and the world, has been attacked.

Russian Faith is a labor of love - everyone involved has given and sacrificed to share good things with the world. Here is our initial crowdfund video explaining why we started this (and yes, this one was banned by YouTube too):

We've decided to fight back - and have started a petition (sign below) and other measures. If you agree that it is time for Christians of all denominations to speak up against the hostility coming from the elites who control our media and big tech platforms, please join us (see below).

Our views are socially conservative, reflecting the views of the Russian Orthodox Christian Church, which includes being critical of the LGBT movement - and I suspect that is where the problem lies (see below).

The facts:

Here is the Orwellian email:

Here is what our readers see when they visit our YouTube channel:

The censorship wreaked havoc on our website because we had embedded the videos in dozens of articles, all of which were now showing empty grey boxes where videos used to be. Many of those articles were about the videos, rendering the articles meaningless.

In many cases, we had spent hundreds of hours painstakingly translating videos which were in Russian into English, embedding the subtitles. All this was swept away with a keystroke from a nameless YouTube censor who won't even condescend to explain what his reasons were.

We will have to spend hundreds of hours fixing it all at considerable expense.

A Russian 'face blessing' with Holy Water

Most importantly, we had our crowdfunding video on that channel, and it had been embedded on many websites across the internet - all of this was also crippled by YouTube's arbitrary decision. And we depend on the crowdfunding to survive.

Currently, we are still unable to publish our usual volume of content because our small team has to repair all this gratuitous and unnecessary damage.

This is deliberate censorship

I am very familiar with YouTube's rules and guidelines, and I can say with absolute certainty that they discriminated against us, and treated us unfairly as if they were deliberately looking for a reason to shut us down.

The way it usually works is that if you do make a mistake, YouTube gives you a warning, which you can dispute - and only if you accumulate a certain number of these 'strikes', and are unable to disprove them, and refuse to take the videos down, does YouTube take the drastic measure of banning your channel.

We got no such warning and had not been notified of any 'strikes'. The ban came out of the blue.

If there were some violations on any of the videos, why didn't YouTube notify us? Why did they not give us a chance to take down the videos? Why didn't they give us a chance to dispute any complaints, if there were any? Why do they refuse to answer questions about this? Obviously, they wanted to ban the whole channel, and to stop it altogether. But why?

The banned videos:

Here are four videos which are entirely typical of everything that was banned. Links, titles, and descriptions of ALL the other videos that were on the channel are listed at the end of this article.

What is remarkable is not just that there was nothing offensive in these videos, rather that they were overwhelmingly positive - promoting ideas and values that one could only describe as admirable, regardless of your religious beliefs.

That YouTube would so zealously seek to ban them is beyond strange.

The importance of paying special attention to Jesus' words in the Bible:

How strong marriages require sacrifice:

How Russian priests during the revolution preferred death rather than renounce their faith:

Were we banned for criticism of LGBT?

The only video which I guess might have triggered YouTube was this one, an excerpt on 'gay theology' from a Russian documentary film critical of the LGBT movement. In my opinion, it is fair and balanced.

The leftist social activism of YouTube and their pushing of the LGBT agenda on Americans who want nothing of it is notorious. But if it was that clip that upset them, why didn't they just ban that individual video? And why didn't they ask us to take it down first? And why do they refuse to answer our queries?

The hypocrisy of YouTube is appalling - while pouncing on videos like these, they allow an enormous amount of moral filth. Type in any term related to the human anatomy in YouTube search, and you will get an avalanche of what is essentially pornography. Obscenity, obscene lyrics and bizarre calls to violence in songs are all over YouTube. Here is an excellent article describing YouTube's weird double-standard.

A Christian procession in honor of a popular saint (Alexander Nevsky) in St. Petersburg

Regulate the big tech companies - it's time

There are now thousands of reports of similar heavy-handed censorship coming from the major tech platforms in what appears to be a crack-down on dissent in any form, on the left and the right, but more on the right, including some big names, like Roger Stone, Paul Joseph Watson, Syrian Girl, Alex Jones, SouthFront, Gab, much of the Alt-Right, and now even the Russian channels RT and Sputnik.

The big tech companies tipped the scales in favor of Hillary Clinton in 2016, and now they are becoming even more blatant in their meddling.

Here is Tucker Carlson in August demanding that Google (which owns YouTube) be regulated, because it cannot be trusted. I completely agree with him.

There is talk that Trump is planning to push for regulation of the tech giants before the midterm election campaigns get underway in mid 2018. If so, it comes none-too-soon.

My message to the elites who own Youtube:

Dear Sergey Brin and Larry Page (founders and owners of Google, and controlling shareholders of YouTube), you are immigrants from the USSR. You should have more respect for the freedoms and morals of the country that took you in.

Eric Schmidt and YouTube shareholders - I hope you are reading this.

This is the digital equivalent of tyranny. It is the same as breaking and entering, and smashing equipment and property that represents hundreds of hours of hard work by honest, hard-working Americans - all to push your left-wing so-called 'values' on people who reject them.

You have failed in your obligation to America to provide free and fair access to the views of all Americans.

You have failed in your obligation to keep smut and lechery away from our children.

It is you who have meddled in our democracy. Your behavior is un-American and harmful to our values and beliefs.

Break-up the big tech companies:

For these reasons, I call upon Washington to bring you to heel, to:

nationalize you and break up your companies with antitrust legislation,
prosecute you for violating the constitution, and
sue you for damages - which for me and the hundreds of people who sacrificed and donated to make Russian Faith happen are now all too real.

Trust me, this will happen. You curtail our freedom of speech at your own peril!

We're fighting back - join us!

I am still thinking about how to respond to all this. One thing is for sure, I would go to war for my country (I did - I am a vet), and the right that keeps us all free - the right to say openly what we believe to be true - so you better believe I'm going to fight back.

I've already begun: I've started a petition, a Facebook group, and a financial support page on a platform which supports content creators (Patreon), to help fund the creation of more and better videos and articles about Christianity in general, and the Christian revolution in Russia.

If you want to support my fight against anti-Christian censorship, then please sign the petition right here and now, join the Facebook group, and if possible make a small contribution.

Comment: The petition can be signed on this page.

The best way to get others to join us is to share this article with your friends and family by email and on social media.

If we get a good response with this initial petition sign-up, we will launch similar ones on the major online petition sites, like Change.org, Stand United, and CitizenGo.

Please also follow my personal pages on Facebook and Twitter for updates.

Other things I am doing:

I'm looking into legal action, reaching out to Christian activist groups across the country, and considering doing a crowdfund to raise money to create more and better videos and articles about Christianity.

What I do depends very much on how you, the readers, respond. If you think I'm on the right track - or not, please let me know.

If you can help with any of these initiatives, for example, with legal advice, or how to launch successful online petitions, please contact me directly. We have to raise the alarm about what is happening to our country and our values.

Please speak up in the comments section below. Let's get a serious discussion going right here about what we can do to push back against this thuggish behavior.

By far, the most effective way to help: share this article and encourage friends and family to sign up.

Because we are the 99%.

Sincerely,

David Curry
Founder, publisher and owner
Russian Faith
david@russian-faith.com

David & Elizabeth Curry

Here is a list of ALL the other videos which were on the channel - ALL of them banned along with the whole channel:

(I put them on my channel because I think they are wonderful videos, I think you might find them fun to watch. I've either reloaded them onto my personal YouTube account or found them elsewhere on YouTube.)

How the horrors of war led a man to faith: From Afghan veteran to Christian priest - WATCH
The story of a beautiful 500 year old monastery in the Russian far North (Solovki) - WATCH
Political correctness is a tool of Western Godless elites to persecute Christians - Head of Russian Church - WATCH
Addicted to your Smartphone? What if you felt the same way about your Bible? - WATCH
Putin talks about his baptism - WATCH
Putin: 'It is impossible to imagine Russia without Christianity' - WATCH
Russian priest explains why westerners are converting to Orthodox Christianity - WATCH
'Russian Amish', Old Believers, return from South America to Russia - WATCH
Russian priest debunks 'Why I Never Go to Church' excuses - WATCH
Man builds snow church in Siberian village that didn't have one - WATCH
Why Russian women cover their heads in church - WATCH
Why Russians pray in front of icons - WATCH

Comment: How symbolic that a website named Russian Faith has been so needlessly and egregiously attacked in this way. But it also fits the 'Big Picture'. And that 'Big Picture' is to drag down, demonize and undermine anything and anyone who would seek to have Russia succeed as a nation and as a people - on nearly every level - and in whatever way it can.

But here's the thing: Every time we see one of these attacks, more and more people get to see and know for themselves just how biased, irrational and pathological this impetus towards Russia's destabilization actually is.

See:

Reader Comments

Baybars · 2017-11-20T22:59:32Z

I can't say that I've ever gone looking for the meaning of life on Utube. I suggest anyone who really cares about Christianity, Orthodox or otherwise is also not looking for anything of truth on Utube.

Alan Reid · 2017-11-21T02:31:27Z

I wonder what was expected from a Satanic company? That they would just do as you wish and post just anything? We can see the greed driving the whole idea of Youtube. If you need another more sure sign if the alignment of these vermin look no further than how they treat Christianity.

There is reason they use RED for everything the do.

mythoughts · 2017-11-21T08:41:23Z

Alan Reid I agree wholeheartedly .

Lemuel Gulliver · 2017-11-21T04:23:00Z

@Baybars : No, you are mistaken. YouTube is loaded with many fine video-articles on spirituality, belief systems, and all sorts of religious information, of every denomination and persuasion. I have watched dozens of them. There are way too many schools of belief promoted on YouTube to even begin to mention them all - probably fifty or more. The only reason I can imagine why they would take exception to this channel is because it promotes a positive view of Russia. Since Sergey Brin and Larry Page are both Russian Jewish emigres, no doubt they despise the Russian Orthodox Faith with extreme hatred, as all Zionist Jews in the world do.

On the other hand, it may be sheer ignorance by a low-level asshole employee of Google. I have a friend in the CIA, who told me about a young woman, blond, perky, and personable, about 25-27 years old, a University graduate, American-born, who was going to be posted to the Turkey station in Ankara. He mentioned to her the Ottoman Empire in conversation, and she had no idea what he was talking about. NONE. Never heard of it.

Another millenial woman was going to be posted to India, and as he was speaking with her he discovered she had never heard of Mahatma Gandhi. Truly. I swear this on my mother's grave.

This is the utter and profound ignorance of the American public. University graduates no less, who know nothing about the most fundamental aspects of the world, science, politics, the economy, or anything besides Dancing With The Stars. Supposed to go abroad and analyze intelligence about other countries for the CIA. As dumb as shit, and - I kid you not, this is what he told me - PROUD of it. They have enormous self-confidence and are proud of the fact that they love America and do not care to know anything about other countries.

So it is possible, Baybars and David Curry, that this stupidity is just the result of utter and profound ignorance. Even Vladimir Putin recently said at Valdai to an audience of 2,000 people that it is impossible to deal with the American Government. He said, and I quote: "They don't know the difference between Austria and Australia. How can you talk to them?" And there he was referring to the government. Our leaders. The cream of our intelligentsia. What then can you expect of some pea-brained Google employee with a Delete switch under his/her thumb who probably does not even speak proper English, not knowing the difference between their, there, and they're?

I know someone else who interviews prospective employees for a tech company. He quizzes them on their general knowledge. 90% of them could not tell you what continent Brazil is in, or what religion Iran follows, or what language is spoken in Japan. I kid you not - some of them suggest "English" or "Spanish." They do not know that Japanese is a language - they probably think it is a word to describe slant-eyed people.

The Empire is finished, and the Emperor is stark naked. I apologize to all Russians (and in fact to the whole world,) on behalf of my compatriots, who have shit for brains.

DactivateD · 2017-11-21T10:13:45Z

You weren't kidding.

I 👍 your comment

LindaMay ·

I 💪your comment.

· 2017-11-21T17:15:46Z

Zs Garden ·

Indeed!💒

· 2017-11-23T22:58:40Z

system · 2017-12-02T01:18:30Z

Lemuel Gulliver Outstanding comment and true, sadly.

Lemuel Gulliver · 2017-11-21T06:04:52Z

Russia is a great country, and the Russian people are what makes it so. God bless Russia, and keep it safe from the Satanic monsters ruling the Western world.

Baybars · 2017-11-21T07:49:52Z

Lemuel Gulliver , thanks for the excellent response. This internet has the ability to enlighten the world but it is a medium so easily hijacked as to make it untrustworthy and bereft of its potential for good.

mythoughts ·

God Bless Russia!

· 2017-11-21T08:44:04Z

LindaMay ·

· 2017-11-21T17:15:01Z

doktor1360 · 2017-11-22T16:39:36Z

What a complete load of ecclesiastic bullshit... the abrahamic 'book' religions have their origin in hindu-ism... collected and stolen, and summarily bastardized... more trinity bullshit (3 'entities') for the (m)asses... Jesuit lies to subjugate the planet...

Highland Fleet Lute · 2017-11-22T17:48:19Z

"What a complete load of ecclesiastic bullshit."

Given the last 100 years of Russian history, so-called Russian Orthodoxy is probably a reasonable enough survive-and-thrive strategy.

"more trinity bullshit (3 'entities') for the (m)asses" .....[Link]

Zs Garden · 2017-11-23T22:53:26Z

It appears the "order" is behind schedule. I can only assume they are relieved that the USA doesn't have leadership as impressive as the Russian Republic.

Tony Conrad · 2017-11-25T12:36:29Z

It is an eye opener to watch Russians turning to Jesus. However Putin has said that the only legitimate church is The Russian Orthodox Church. Are we going to see a new popery with resultant persecution? Does this mean that he persecutes the rest as the Church of England did forcing the puritans to emigrate to America? I really hope that this turning to God is real and not just religion. If they read the bible more than their own literature that will be a big plus. If it is genuine then it appears that Satanic Russia is the new saint swapping places with so called Christian America.

It is sad why Youtube banned this very interesting site. Perhaps Russia can start their own and let the world know what is going on? At the moment one can get good christian talks on Youtube as well as the pornography. One has to choose, but it is a mystery why they ban this amazing site. My heart is warmed by it just watching the few on here. The Russian Communists said there was no God and proceeded to murder millions of Christians and others. What a wonderful turnaround. May God bless them.

Lemuel Gulliver · 2017-11-26T19:31:34Z

It is also possible the deletion of this YouTube account was because of the rigid anti-homosexual attitude of the Russian Orthodox Church, which is openly portrayed in some of these videos.That is a very politically incorrect attitude today in the West.

Unfortunately a pendulum always swings to extremes, and never rests in the middle. The West used to violently persecute gays, which was wrong for reasons discussed below, and today the pendulum has swung so far to the other side that "anything goes," which is also wrong. Legislating the need for six bathrooms in every restaurant to accommodate all the variant sexual divergences is taking tolerance too far, to where it becomes an imposition on the rest of the majority of society. And promoting homosexual experimentation to young people, whose orientation is primarily heterosexual, is also wrong and confusing for therm. There is a need, in fact an obligation, if our species is to reproduce, to promote heterosexual behavior and marriage to those children who are predisposed in that direction, and not to confuse them with alternatives to which they have no natural inclination. This is the position in Russia, and so long as they stop actively murdering, beating up and persecuting gays, as the West used to do, and allow them to exist in peace, the Russian Church has a right to their position.

The reasons for homosexuality, which exists in every species of higher mammal - sheep, goats, dogs, primates - are well known but not talked about. It is a combination of factors: (a) Genetic predisposition, and (b) Changes in the hormonal environment of the womb during pregnancy.

In the case of humans, all fetuses have initially both sets of embryonic physical sex organs. During the first trimester, due to the mother's hormonal signals to the fetus, one set of sex organs develops and the other becomes vestigial. This determines the physical sex of the baby. However, during the third trimester, the brain becomes hard-wired for one sexual orientation or the other. If the womb's hormonal environment has changed in the meantime, the brain wiring can be discongruous with the physical characteristics, and you have a homosexual baby.

Homosexual behavior has been deliberately created in the laboratory in a whole range of animals by injecting male or female sex hormones into the brain of the fetus - a range of effects can be produced depending on which hormone is used and which hemisphere of the brain it is injected into. Humans cannot be experimented upon in this way, but in the case of primates, the sexual orientation is also affected by socialization - if the [homosexual] baby monkey is well socialized, it is less likely to exhibit homosexual behavior, but if it is isolated from social contact with its family and tribe, it is more likely to succumb to those instincts.

If the reader studies the above carefully, the correct moral position becomes clear. Society and its authority figures should accept that sexual orientation is variable and inherent, and if society takes exception to homosexuality, it should eliminate the prenatal conditions which create it. This would mean ensuring that a pregnant woman does not experience stress, which releases a flood pf fight-or-flight hormones into her system, and is protected from ingesting PCBs, PVC, Glyphosate, and thousands of organic chemicals found in household products, which are endocrine disruptors and mimic sexual hormones. When these chemicals get into her system in the third trimester, it can affect the sexual wiring of the baby's brain - IF IT IS GENETICALLY PREDISPOSED AND HAS A SUSCEPTIBILITY TO THOSE CHANGES - and voila - out pops a gay baby.

Homosexuality is not a choice. It is a physical condition just as much as the color of the skin, the height, or the susceptibility to weight gain, and to violently persecute gays because of their physical (brain) condition is vicious, immoral, wrong, and cruel.

But it is highly unlikely that the vast majority of Christians, of whatever persuasion, who are prepared to believe patently ridiculous myths and legends (Jonah lived three days in the belly of a whale!) just because they are written in a human-composed ancient book which is ascribed to some disembodied divine hand, it is most unlikely these people will credit or believe almost a century of scientific study and experimentation into the subject of sexual orientation.

In fact, there are only three exhortations in the entire Bible specifically against homosexual behavior, and four hundred and thirty-six exhortations and cautions regarding heterosexual behavior. This can only mean that the Christian God believes heterosexuals need more regulation than homosexuals.

In fact, in the course of polling every woman of my acquaintance with whom I have a relationship that allows such a question, I have so far found NOT ONE SINGLE WOMAN who has NOT been sexually harassed and assaulted physically by some man in her lifetime, usually on multiple occasions by different men. Almost without exception, these events are not reported, as society always - always! - blames the woman, and fathers, husbands, male bosses, and male police invariably ascribe the event to the woman's enticement of the man, and blame her, not him. I do not know if the situation is different in Russia, I can only speak about America, and so I cannot judge the Russian Church for its attitudes, but I believe they should inform themselves, (as the Roman Catholic Church has done) and cease to condemn homosexuality as a "perverse choice."

SOTT EDITORS: Please keep this article up as long as you can. I hope these comments and the article itself, are read by as many people as possible.

Joe · 2017-11-26T20:37:33Z

Lemuel Gulliver I'm of the opinion that homosexuality occurs during early child development, during an 'imprint window' rather than pre-birth.

As for you story about "every woman you know being sexually harassed AND assaulted", I'm not sure where you or they live, but I'd either move or get more details from them and try and look at the likely complexities in the real story of their accounts.

Lemuel Gulliver · 2017-11-26T21:09:46Z

Joe I'm going to re-post this comment, or most of it, to Pierre Lescaudron's current article, with more references and elaborations, which will answer your observations.

Pugsta · 2017-11-30T19:39:08Z

Lemuel Gulliver i could make some elaborate response.

but overall, im very glad you posted this.

I understand the premise of the article was pointing out the censorship of religious free speech. I agree that, if this was the case, it was wrong. We must also remember that YouTube is not a government regulated network, and has the right to make whatever information they want public. It not an attack on personal ownership if they delete your video/account. They own the rights to what they post.

Also, I think there is a lot of moral confusion in human societies, which in turn leads people of particular faiths to feel as though they can legislate against something like LGBT. In a nation like America, where we are essentially free from religious law by our original founding. In the middle east,they aren't so nice.

Lets not forget that part of Hitler's strategy was a manipulation of religious faiths to turn against Jews. Which lead to one of the largest atrocities in human history.

I believe that most religious are bogus on some level, and am therefore a humanist that takes the positives that I see in religious teachings, but not the ignorant prejudices

And I have the right to say that.

Pugsta · 2017-11-30T19:44:21Z

Lemuel Gulliver may I also point out that your comment was articulate in such a good way.

you obviously have some background in science. Biochemistry perhaps?

Pugsta · 2017-11-30T19:46:29Z

Lemuel Gulliver i could make some elaborate response.

but overall, im very glad you posted this.

I understand the premise of the article was pointing out the censorship of religious free speech. I agree that, if this was the case, it was wrong. We must also remember that YouTube is not a government regulated network, and has the right to make whatever information they want public. It not an attack on personal ownership if they delete your video/account. They own the rights to what they post.

Also, I think there is a lot of moral confusion in human societies, which in turn leads people of particular faiths to feel as though they can legislate against something like LGBT. In a nation like America, where we are essentially free from religious law by our original founding this shouldn't work. In the middle east,they aren't so nice.

Lets not forget that part of Hitler's strategy was a manipulation of religious faiths to turn against Jews. Which lead to one of the largest atrocities in human history.

I believe that most religions are bogus on some level, and am therefore a humanist that takes the positives that I see in religious teachings, but not the ignorant prejudices

And I have the right to say that.

Solare · 2017-11-27T16:22:57Z

The issue of the day is freedom of speech...and of the press, which in our times includes electronic media. I recently saw a quote that states, "Without the Second, there is no first amendment." Pretty apt, I'd say.

President Trump's battle with fake news has lead him to suggest government involvement in the form of an investigation. Freedom of speech and of the press was never intended to sanction bearing false witness...outright lies. Any investigation of the media would revolve around libel and slander over which the courts already have jurisdiction. Lawyers should be clamoring for the business which in these times would make them richer than Croesus!

Furthermore, any attempt by popular media under FCC regulation or interstate commerce is prohibited from interfering with free speech no matter how offensive as long a it is not an outright falsehood which the the courts have the right to adjudicate.

Case closed.

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Ridiculous! YouTube censors Christian videos because content describes and supports values of Russian Faith

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