I Just Completed YouTube's Re-Education Program...
YouTube's gaslighting is endless, and still they can't explain what was "wrong" with our content.
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In 2021 when we branched off from Collective Evolution to create The Pulse, we did so to essentially do transformational & societal change content under CE, and more of a current events discussion under The Pulse.
During this change, we created a new YouTube channel for The Pulse. At the time creating a lot of content around sensemaking the COVID era.
When creating our new YouTube account for The Pulse I took the time to read YouTube’s misinformation guidelines. The last thing I wanted to do was get the channel deleted so early on, and to be honest, all our efforts on alternative platforms like Rumble have been fruitless.
From YouTube’s policies, I knew that making any clear claims or offering medical advice was not allowed, and we never came anywhere near that in our content. I also knew their policy allowed for nuance and journalism… apparently.
Probably unsurprisingly to you, no matter how much we followed their guidelines our account got deleted within months of creating it. The re-education training you’ll see below is an extension of their “make it up as you go” policies.
Here’s What Happened
It took 4 total videos over the course of a few months in 2021.
Censored Video 1: Dr Madhava Setty and I reviewed some data from the CDC and Pfizer clinical trials. We simply showed what the data said. No claims, no recommendations. It’s similar to other videos people have made and that still exist on YouTube. (We got a warning)
Censored Video 2: I had a conversation with Richard Garner about transhumanism. We played a clip from CNN where a government official discusses DARPA technology. It’s a chip that could be inserted into humans as a vaccine and it could be updated remotely as needed. We made no claims and simply discussed that this tech exists in the context of transhumanism. Nowhere in the video did we even mention COVID or relate it to COVID, yet we got a COVID misinformation strike. If CNN’s video could be played on YouTube, why couldn’t ours? (Strike 1)
Censored Video 3: I did a video on the Joe Rogan ‘Horsewormer’/Ivemectin situation. In it, I reported on the possibility that CNN used color correction to make Rogan look sick. I offered my opinion as someone who has been video editing for almost 20 years. I made no claims about ivermectin, and the focus was more os on CNN’s video… medical misinformation apparently. (Strike 2)
Censored Video 4: I made a video showcasing how local media in Detroit covered a story about testimony from Dr. Christina Parks who offered her expert opinion on why it would not be a good idea to mandate vaccines at this moment in time. Her opinion was delivered in a local government hearing. My story simply showed how local media colored her extremely negatively regardless of her grounded position and expert recommendation. (Strike 3, account deleted.)
We had 20,000 followers at the time, a quick growth for an account only a few months old. Each time we got a strike we appealed and gave very clear reasoning why it did not break YouTube’s policy, often citing YouTube’s policy that allowed for what we said.
Within minutes and sometimes an hour, machine algorithms (I think) denied our appeals and that was that.
In November of 2021, I reached out to a number of YouTube execs and local high-ranking YouTube employees telling them our story. None of them responded to me, but months later in Feb of 2022, I got this email from YouTube.
They admitted to making a mistake, however, they never explained anything further. On top of that, they left a “warning” on our account. Why a warning? I have no idea. If we had done nothing wrong, why do we still have a warning?
Having a warning means any video they delete next comes with a minimum 1 week ban. It’s like a piano hanging over your head at all times, you never know when it’s going to drop.
Months later YouTube wrongly deleted another piece of content. We got a 1 week ban as a result. They did this again 2 more times in 2022. Apparently, YouTube didn’t learn from their mistakes. ;)
Fastforward To November 2023
I get a notification on our YouTube channel. (I don’t use our channel much anymore as we don’t have time or staff to produce video content right now.) The notification said that if I take a training, YouTube will remove our warning in 90 days so long as we don’t break their rules again.
Well, sure, I’ll try it. I’ve always wanted to be part of a re-education program. We never broke their rules before and I know their rules inside out so how hard can the training be? Plus, I wanted to see what it would look like inside.
I begin the test. Of course, it’s on “medical misinformation.” Regardless of the fact we never did anything to break this policy, we have to take a re-education training for it.
The first question comes…
Again, all about claims. You can’t make claims. We know that, and never have made claims.
Question 2.
Juan’s a good guy it seems. He documented what worked for him and stuck to mainstream guidelines. This indicates YouTube’s ‘nuance’ of allowing you to say some things but be clear that mainstream medical advice is best.
Question 3.
Tiffany’s mistake was making a claim. Duh.
Question 4.
YouTube explains its nuance there. Again, they claim they allow you to say quite a bit, but for some reason, they actually don’t. We managed to get 4 ‘misinformation strikes’ for following all of their guidelines… even when their guidelines contain the permission space for nuance.
Question 5.
You get the picture…
Question 6.
They throw you a curveball with multiple choice. But again, the answers are so obvious.
To be honest, many alternative creators who said very definitively extreme stuff during the pandemic don’t have much of a leg to stand on in crying for censorship when YouTube’s policies were what they were.
I don’t agree with censorship nor most of YouTube’s policies, but if YouTube sets its house rules and you obviously break them, it’s not the same as all the people who followed the house rules and got kicked.
Question 7.
Same old common sensical stuff…
Certificate of being a genius.
Even though they gave me this wonderful training certificate I’ll now hang on my wall, they tell me: “If you violate the Medical Misinformation policy again you’ll get a strike.” But we never violated it to begin with. Yet here I am, a graduate of their re-education program. :)
Final Thoughts
YouTube is pretending they didn’t spend years making shit up as they went along. They made me take training about their policies that I was already well aware of as if they shouldn’t be paying me thousands in lost income and time wasted trying to point out their mistakes.
I get they have a hard time trying to navigate millions of uploaded videos per day, but the policy should be innocent until guilty… not shoot first and ask questions whenever you feel like it.
Censorship like this via YouTube, Google, and Facebook, including from fact-checkers, has cost my company gravely. We’ve gone from a solid team of 14 employees to just one and a couple of freelancers. It costs you your time, energy, well-being and livelihood, all for doing nothing wrong to begin with.
That’s the power of censorship and demonization.
If I wasn’t 15 years into this already I may still put more time into video these days, but it’s tough constantly trying to pivot, never knowing when you’re going to get in trouble for doing nothing wrong.
Now, I just focus on what I can control and the impact I know I can make. Instead of reaching 10’s of millions of people each month, we reach a couple million but focus on driving DEEPER with portions of our audience who are really engaged in growing and developing skills to navigate the chaotic waters we’re in with capacity and resilience.
I do miss having a team though. The collaboration, the synergy, the field that a group of people creates… I trust one day it will emerge again. But for now, it is what it is.
Joe,
First, I really can feel and understand your frustration and sadness about how much these types of policies have impacted the work you and your team have been doing for these past several years. In a more perfect, more just world, you'd have a large media presence, with accolades from across the spectrum, and the financial rewards that come with such a project.
Instead, you're giving the rest of us a lesson in integrity and perseverance and now...well...doing it with humor. You see, I have to say much as I do, ahem, "feel your pain" on this one, I also found your presentation of this story rather amusing (in a good way). I often feel one of my core messages is how much humor is a wonderful weapon in this odd war we find ourselves in.
Now, I'm at the risk of turning my comment into a post itself, but before I finish, I want to compliment this post for how you utilized this Substack site/app, in particular, how you had screenshots of all of the asinine questions and comments from YouTube to make it easy for readers like me to follow the story (and feel some of the Kafka-esque frustration! Shiver me timbers!).
As content creators, I believe it's important for us to SHOW the (mis)behavior of the tech companies who host our content, to hold them accountable, and, by doing that, maybe we'll get something better.
And last, as a teacher, congrats on your new degree---you can now teach the world about the wonders of YouTube Re-Education! LOL
Keep up the good work, man!!
It is sad that we have thrown away our "thinking caps" and allowed ourselves to fall into where we are, in grave danger of being so completely controlled by the Cabal. However, I do believe that the Universe (God) is wise intelligent mindfulness, and wisdom does control reality. By God first allowing us to have what the majority need/want: allowing the Cabal to do all thinking for us so we don't have to do any thinking on our own, after a few millennium we get tired of being slaves to other's wishes and begin to grow up, painfully begin to realize that having allowing ourselves to become slaves—allowing others to control our thoughts— isn't really that cool after all. We begin to develop self realization and self realization is the foundation for self thinking. In due course, all of us will mature and become mindful citizens of the Universe.
Like everything else in this universe, time is duel in nature. Time can allow us 'time' to get an important job done, or it can manifest as a frustration in that, what we percieve should happen, is taking its own sweet 'time' in happening. Positive and negative aspects of creation or, patience and impatience.
I feel that our problem is, because of our own evolutionary imaturity, we fail—or are still unable to understand the Mind of God. Why would any intelligence—like universal intelligence—allow itself to be nagatgively destroyed: allow the Cabal to ultimately rule? Just like a weightlifter needs to lift weights (negativity) in order to gain strength, so do we need the Cabal to 'push' us into becoming spiritually stronger.
Joe, you are doing a fantastic job in how you have pushed both Collective Evolution and The Pulse into the giants that they have become. Please keep in mind that it's not just you, it also is all of your subscribers to both podcasts that have made you into the powerhouse that ALL of us have become! The reason YouTube is giving you so much trouble is because they know, and have felt your strength. They're actually afraid of you and what podcasts lilke yours will do to them.
There isn't a hope in hell that they can stop you (and us)!