Corporate ownership of human genes controversy declared “commercially deceptive content”
Steve Watson
Infowars.com
May 17, 2013
A video produced by Infowars contributor and radio host Mike Adams, covering facts surrounding the patenting of human genes by huge corporations, has been censored by YouTube on the grounds that it is “commercially deceptive”.
The Natural News video, posted on Infowars this morning, was prompted by the publicity surrounding Hollywood movie star Angelina Jolie’s double mastectomy. Countless reports on the topic have made reference to the BRCA genes for breast cancer.
In the video, Adams noted that the BRCA1 gene is patented by a corporation called Myriad Genetics.
“All patents are government-enforced monopolies over intellectual property, and they thus prevent anyone else from conducting research or testing on the BRCA1 gene without paying huge royalties to Myriad. This is why the BRCA detection tests cost $3,000 – $4,000 each.” Adams wrote in his accompanying article.
Following Jolie’s announcement, Myriad’s stock rose to a three-year high of $34.70 during trading on the NASDAQ before closing at $34.10. The trading volume, with 2.6 million shares exchanged, was more than double the three-month daily average of 1.1 million shares. Thus, Jolie is directly responsible for feeding into the profits of the trillion dollar genetic patenting industry.
In his video, Adams called for Angelina Jolie in her position as a public figure now intimately associated with breast cancer research to denounce such corporate ownership over human genes.
Adams also encouraged viewers to go to Jolie’s Facebook pages and post messages asking her to publicly denounce “genetic enslavement”.
Within an hour of it going live on Infowars, the video was quickly taken down by YouTube. Viewers now clicking on the play button are presented with a static filled screen informing them that the video “has been removed as a violation of YouTube’s policy against spam, scams and commercially deceptive content.”
This justification is being increasingly employed by YouTube as a way of censoring material it does not wish to be associated with. Last month, YouTube used the same justification to remove a video produced by Infowars concerning a now memory-holed Family Guy episode that had disturbing parallels with the bombings in Boston. YouTube also placed a strike against our channel and threatened to delete it.
Infowars appealed the decision, pointing out that the video was in no way “commercially deceptive”, and it was later reinstalled, and the strike against the account was rescinded.*
Mike Adams’ video does not contain any “commercially deceptive content”. He is not selling anything in the video, nor is he engaging in any form of scam. Indeed, one can argue the exact opposite, that he is EXPOSING a scam perpetrated on the American people, and all of free humanity by several huge biotech companies.
Nevertheless, YouTube continues to decide what is deceptive content, policing thought crime and removing content that anyone, including trolls and detractors, can flag and report as spam.
Mike Adams is scheduled to appear on the Alex Jones show to discuss the matter, and we will update this article accordingly.
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* The Family Guy commentary video was later removed after a copyright claim by MGM, despite the fact that it only contained 10 seconds of footage from the show. Infowars was then issued TWO copyright strikes against our channel by YouTube.
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Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.com, and Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham, and a Bachelor Of Arts Degree in Literature and Creative Writing from Nottingham Trent University.
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