YouTube has terminated a handful of prominent YouTube channels that featured content promoting white nationalism. The move came as a shock to the white nationalist community, and now racist content creators are panicking.
Yesterday, Right Wing Watch learned that a small group of prominent far-right channels were no longer available on YouTube after white nationalist James Allsup—once one of the loudest voices peddling white supremacy on YouTube—was reported to have been permanently suspended.
James Allsup's channel wasn't the only one that was nuked. TRSRadio (the channel for The Daily Shoah) was terminated. So were the channels for VDARE and the American Identity Movement (formerly Identity Evropa).
— Andy Ngo Job (@EyesOnTheRight) August 26, 2019
Four of the recently banned channels were identified by the Anti-Defamation League earlier in August as notable examples of platforms that were spreading anti-Semitism and white supremacist ideology and rhetoric on YouTube despite the social media site’s crackdown on hate speech in June.
“As ADL documented, following YouTube’s June 2019 announcement of changes to their platform to reduce extremist content, significant anti-Semitic and white supremacist material continues to be accessible on the platform,” an ADL spokesperson told Right Wing Watch. “With the wave of bans yesterday, it appears YouTube is beginning to step up their efforts to clean up the site.”
“It’s a start that we hope they will continue in the days, weeks and months ahead,” the spokesperson added. “We will continue to work with tech companies, like YouTube, to aggressively counter hate and anti-Semitism on their platforms.”
James Allsup
Allsup is a white nationalist activist who was documented attending the 2017 Unite the Right white supremacist gathering in Charlottesville, Virginia, and has been a featured speaker at white nationalist conferences hosted by American Renaissance and Identity Evropa, and has appeared on multiple white supremacist podcasts. With hundreds of thousands of subscribers on YouTube, Allsup encouraged people who shared his racist worldview to infiltrate local GOP organizations where they lived. In Washington state, Allsup had quietly obtained a position in his local GOP but was ousted after his worldview and white nationalist connections were exposed to an audience beyond his county Republican Party organization.
On Monday it was learned that Allsup’s YouTube account was suspended. Allsup was recently hit with permanent bans from Facebook and Instagram, and his YouTube account had been demonetized. Uber and Twitter have also reportedly banned Allsup.
Since Allsup is banned from Twitter, he posted a message on Gab, a social media platform that often serves as a refuge for right-wing extremists who have been banned from other social networking sites, that read: “my livelihood, my means to exercise my political voice, my business I'd built over almost three years, was taken away from me.” Allsup asked his viewers to contact YouTube to demand that his channel be reinstated.
VDARE TV
Since Peter Brimelow launched VDARE in 1999, the outlet has been a publisher of racist, white nationalist and anti-immigrant screeds. Despite its well-known status as a clearinghouse for racist literature and ideas in America, VDARE has been welcomed into mainstream Republican circles with concerning frequency. Last week, BuzzFeed News reported that federal agencies had been sending links to VDARE articles to employees in news bulletins. Last year, a White House speechwriter was fired after it was revealed that he had spoken at a conference on a panel with Brimelow. White House advisor Larry Kudlow also hosted Brimelow as a guest at his birthday party, then went on to disavow Brimelow after his presence made headlines.
Although small, VDARE had a YouTube channel it called “VDARE TV” with a few thousand subscribers. In a tweet this morning, VDARE confirmed that its YouTube channel had been “purged from YouTube.”
American Identity Movement (Formerly Named 'Identity Evropa')
American Identity Movement, which was formerly called Identity Evropa, is the name of the white nationalist group led by activist Patrick Casey. The group rebranded after the organization’s chat logs were unearthed by the independent media outlet Unicorn Riot, leading researchers to identify several members and organizers within the group. Members of Identity Evropa attended the Unite the Right 2017 rally and have been convicted of criminal activity.
On YouTube, American Identity Movement uploaded and distributed propaganda videos advertising their group to thousands of subscribers. Identity Evropa was terminated from YouTube in 2018 for violating rules against hate speech but was later reinstated.
In a Telegram chat room, Casey confirmed yesterday that American Identity Movement’s YouTube channel had been deleted.
TRS Radio
The Right Stuff is a podcasting outlet home to several alt-right audio programs with names like “The Daily Shoah,” “Fash the Nation,” and “The Europa Report.” Founded by Michael “Enoch” Peinovich, The Right Stuff began publishing content in 2013 and eventually became a staple media product in the “alt-right” era of the white supremacist movement. The Right Stuff also sought to build an on-the-ground movement in the United States and attracted notables to the cause, including a U.S. Department of State employee and a former journalist for mainstream publications.
On YouTube, Peinovich and his peers uploaded clips from The Right Stuff shows in which producers replaced mentions of Jews with sound effects in an attempt to skirt YouTube’s rules against hate speech. Peinovich posted yesterday on Twitter that the YouTube channel used for The Right Stuff clips was “totally deleted.” He added, “YouTube is basically dead as far as political content goes.”
