Pat Condell’s Latest Video Removed from YouTube

Atheist Pat Condell‘s latest video — a criticism of Saudi Arabia and Sharia Courts — has been removed from YouTube due to “Terms of Use Violation.”

The message he received said:

The following video(s) from your account have been disabled for violating the YouTube Community Guidelines:

Welcome to Saudi Britain – (patcondell)

Your account has received one Community Guidelines warning sanction, which will expire in six months. Additional violations may result in the temporary disabling of your ability to post content to YouTube and/or the termination of your account.

Condell responds (in angry upper-case form):

THE VIDEO HAD OVER 40,000 HITS IN THE 24 HOURS IT WAS UP, AND IT WAS THE TOP RATED VIDEO ON THE WHOLE OF YOUTUBE. YOU CAN STILL SEE IT AT MY WEBSITE:
http://www.patcondell.net

Condell is now in danger of losing his YouTube channel.

The website EuropeNews says:

Apparently YouTube, who has had some challenges with Turkey and Pakistan, have decided that it is easier to block ‘problematic’ content themselves than standing up for freedom and have Pakistani Internet operators wreck havoc on them.

We are still waiting for the day when big media realizes they have a responsibility to stand up for freedom of expression.

Here is the banned video:

And here is a link to the petition he speaks of… there’s still time to sign it if you’re a British citizen.

(via Little Green Footballs. Thanks to Jason for the link!)

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Hitek

Great, so I end up having a priest from El Salvador pray for me before I can stop him, and now my favorite Youtube channel is about to be taken down? I might as well go jump off a bridge now. Tonight has been absolute sh!te.

Is there anything at all that I can do to reverse this icky feeling I have for being prayed for in two separate languages? I don’t think a simple shower will cut it.
jonathan

Does reason still have a voice? I don’t know. We’ll see. I’m going to write an email to YouTube. This is something I really want to protest.
Einmaliger

When YouTube gets a complain about any video, it removes it. I don’t see any political motivation here. Maybe we should request the removal of some christian videos? Could be fun. But then again, we as atheists are fair and support free speech.
ollie

I think that some were turned off by the title (e. g., UK was becoming like Saudi Arabia). In fact, the video made an excellent point that deserved airing.

Besides, I’ve had neo-nazis (real ones) denounce me on youtube and these are still up (as far as I know).

So it isn’t as if they censor hate stuff.
Felicia Gilljam

This was one of Pat’s less offensive videos. I mean he hardly swore at all and I think he only said “idiot” like once or twice. Some people have such thin skins that you can see their insides if you shine a torch through them.
cipher

I’m going to write an email to YouTube. This is something I really want to protest.

Jonathan, ask them why they don’t censure or suspend the accounts of Muslims who post incoherent rants about Israel and the Jews. I’d love to hear the rationale behind that.
stogoe

First they pull down videos of people crumbling crackers because rabid catholic nutjobs complain en masse, and now they pull down Pat Condell because rabid muslim nutjobs complain. YouTube is looking pretty dickish at the moment.

Note: The phrase “rabid X nutjobs” refers to “nutjobs who are X”, and not “X who are all nutjobs”.
recorderjoe

HA! I just went to youtube and found two other postings of the banned video from some other subscribers.

Go freedom of speech!
mikespeir

See how we atheists pick on the Christian religion and give, oh, say, Islam a pass? That’s because, deep down, we know it’s the truth.
BB401

In my humble opinion, there’s no reason to ban such a video unless the speaker is directly inciting violence against others. Pat Condell was not. He was merely voicing an opinion, and opinions about others’ religion are often vitriolic or scathing. Cry me a river, build me a bridge and get over it.

I’d like to see YouTube explain why they banned his video under the terms of use. That’ll be good for a larf.
Axegrrl

HA! I just went to youtube and found two other postings of the banned video from some other subscribers.

Go freedom of speech!

Well, do a search for “Saudi Britain” right now and you’ll see that 17 of the 20 videos on the first page ARE the banned video!

See, that’s how to respond! rather than adopting the ‘ban this because it offends me’ approach 🙂 Beautiful 🙂
PrimeNumbers

Just signed the petition. Pat is right that it’s not arbitration in how it’s meant to be because it’s stacked against women, and many Muslims, if Sharia courts are available in England, probably not know they access to the full UK justice system.

We need to stop pandering to Muslims. They’re not special.

And Dear Youtube – give Pat a shrine on your site for him to speak as he wishes.
Siamang

Philip Pullman, author of The Golden Compass, offers some appropriate thoughts from last-weeks “Banned Books Week.”

Because they never learn. The inevitable result of trying to ban something – book, film, play, pop song, whatever – is that far more people want to get hold of it than would ever have done if it were left alone. Why don’t the censors realise this?…

In fact, when it comes to banning books, religion is the worst reason of the lot. Religion, uncontaminated by power, can be the source of a great deal of private solace, artistic inspiration, and moral wisdom. But when it gets its hands on the levers of political or social authority, it goes rotten very quickly indeed. The rank stench of oppression wafts from every authoritarian church, chapel, temple, mosque, or synagogue – from every place of worship where the priests have the power to meddle in the social and intellectual lives of their flocks, from every presidential palace or prime ministerial office where civil leaders have to pander to religious ones…

My basic objection to religion is not that it isn’t true; I like plenty of things that aren’t true. It’s that religion grants its adherents malign, intoxicating and morally corrosive sensations. Destroying intellectual freedom is always evil, but only religion makes doing evil feel quite so good.
David D.G.

Siamang, that is one heck of a fine bit of writing from Pullman. That deserves to be spread far and wide.

~David D.G.
Spurs Fan

This video reminded that Pat Condell is kind of an asshole.

I agree with most of the man’s reasoning and logic and I definitely don’t see why that was banned from YouTube.

Still, he’s kind of a dick. Anyone else here buy things, not because the want to consume or use them, but rather, because they just want to piss people off?
J Myers

So youtube is blocking problematic content? Why don’t they instead block problematic countries?
Diane G.

Einmaliger Says:

October 2nd, 2008 at 3:12 am
When YouTube gets a complain about any video, it removes it. I don’t see any political motivation here. Maybe we should request the removal of some christian videos? Could be fun. But then again, we as atheists are fair and support free speech.

That was the first thing that occurred to me–registering complaints about religious propaganda. Maybe it could still be done, under the rationale of seeing just how far such knee-jerk censorship could be taken…Heck, just randomly objecting to any annoying vid would work–not just the religious ones..

And then I could see a popular site springing up: “BannedOnYouTube!”