Popular YouTuber Ethan Klein says one of his channels was penalized Friday for discussing Alex Jones and the recent ban across social media of Infowars content.
Klein and his wife Hila, who run several prominent channels with millions of followers, reportedly had their podcast’s livestream shut down in the middle of discussing the issue.
A tweet by Klein states that not only was the stream interrupted, but that the channel received a strike in the process.
Wow @TeamYouTube just shut down our @theh3podcast live stream and gave us a strike for talking about Alex Jones??… What.
— Ethan Klein (@h3h3productions) August 10, 2018
In a subsequent remark Klein said their streaming ability had also been removed, forcing them to finish the show offline.
Our ability to Livestream @theh3podcast has been revoked so we’ll have to continue filming it offline and upload it later. Nice one @TeamYouTube
— Ethan Klein (@h3h3productions) August 10, 2018
The H3 Podcast channel, which currently holds more than 1.6 million subscribers, features prominent guests and regularly focuses on current events.
YouTube said in a response to Klein that it was “looking into what happened” and would respond in due time.
Thanks for letting us know, we're looking into what happened and will keep you posted.
— Team YouTube (@TeamYouTube) August 10, 2018
The issue comes amid a widespread ban of Infowars content by some of the world’s largest social media companies.
Without providing specific examples of policy violations, Infowars has been banned by companies such as Facebook, YouTube, Apple, Google Podcast, Spotify, TuneIn, Spreaker, iHeartRadio, Audioboom, Pinterest, MailChimp, Stitcher, Disqus, Sprout Social, LinkedIn and Flickr.
The incident has raised questions on both the power held by large tech companies and free speech in the digital age.
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Mark Zuckerberg says I wanted to be band! He is wrong. This is my message to him and Facebook. https://t.co/7X0kxV4R8O
— Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) August 11, 2018
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