p2pnet - rss feed: With YouTube and Scientology, money talks
p2pnet news | P2P:- With YouTube, Money Talks.
Everything else goes by the board.
“My friend Mark Bunker (right) created XenuTV,” says Maggie in an email, going on >>>
He had a YouTube site for like ever. YouTube TOS-ed him over a segment of Stephen Colbert show that wasn’t his. Didn’t allow him to create another channel.
Scientology, Inc. had a YouTube site that was being used to broadcast personal information about its critics, so it was shut down.
But now Scientology, Inc. has a shiny new report button-less site with all its promo vids up on it.
And Mark, the church’s biggest video enemy, has none.
What’s with the double standard, SueTube?
What, Maggie? You didn’t know it’s an Us and Them world?
She includes a url to a post in The Register over yonder in the UK which kicks off with, “It seems that YouTube has one set of rules for The Church of Scientology and another set for Scientology’s critics,” going on >>>
Two weeks ago, YouTube vaporized a 10,000-subscriber-strong channel run by well-known Scientology critic Mark Bunker. His “Xenutv1″ deserved to die, the YouTubers said, because they had already axed an earlier account, “Xenutv,” where Bunker infringed a few copyrights.
As the story points out, YouTube’s terms of service clearly say “A user whose account has been terminated is prohibited from accessing, possessing or creating any other YouTube accounts.”
But, it goes on, YouTube (owned by Google, lest we forget) “hasn’t applied this rule to the brand new channel launched by Scientology itself - and trumpeted with an official Scientology press release. Like Bunker, Scientology had an earlier account erased after it violated site policy.”
Embarrassing (for cultists)
When the Anonymous group first started up, it was slagged as a crew of no-hopers with big mouths and little else.
But it quickly proved the nay-sayers dead wrong, setting up a series of embarrassing (for cultists) and ongoing demonstrations which continue to tightly focus world attention on the international evil that’s Scientology.
Quoting the New York Post, Scientology launched a YouTube channel in an attempt to discredit members of Anonymous, identifying individual members of the group and describing them as “terrorists,” says The Register, continuing >>>
YouTube doesn’t allow videos that broadcast personal information. And the account was soon destroyed.
In a conversation with The Post, a Church spokesperson confirmed the organization was behind the channel. “We absolutely made the videos,” they said. “We have researchers that have found these men. When you get death threats and bomb threats directly going after the church, we don’t take it lightly.”
A similar statement was made by a church minister speaking to The Battle Creek Enquirer after an alleged Anonymous bomb threat.
And yet , as Maggie points out, Scientology is back full frontal on YouTube.
But, as we noted earlier, Money Talks and YouTube listens and, thanks to its many and various nefarious activities, Scientology has plenty of hard cash.
So this time, it’s paying for the account, as well as cult advertisements.
GooTube didn’t respond to requests for comment, “But Scientology did,” says The Register, adding >>>
First, we received a phone call from a woman with an otherworldly French accent. “This is the Church,” she said. “We may be able to answer your questions. But first we want your email address.”
A few minutes later, we received this: “The Church of Scientology has never had YouTube cancel an account, nor made any such request.” Which does not answer our questions.
Meanwhile, Mark Bunker is annoyed. “I hope YouTube does the right thing,” he told us.
“It certainly looks like there’s a double standard at work.
“Scientology will say the first account wasn’t theirs. But you bet the order came from the top.”
‘People will find them, I know’
“I don’t blame either YouTube or Viacom for this. Both are within their rights,” says Bunker on his site, “But I’m asking Viacom to retract the complaints because I think my channel is worth keeping on YouTube.
“In the past few months, it has been an important factor in this whole ongoing story of Anonymous. It’s a story widely reported around the world. YouTube is in the very DNA of the story and my channel was a part of that.
“I can post my videos on any number of other sites and they will continue to be seen. People will find them, I know. But I’d miss YouTube and Id like to think that maybe in a small way they might miss me too.”
Earlier, Bunker says >>>
Here’s what I’ve learned so far. My first account was canceled in early Feb. when the Tom Cruise tape was zipping around the world. Scientology found it on a private YouTube account and I got a takedown notice for it about at the same time I got a takedown notice from Viacom for a Stephen Colbert clip in which he goofed on Scientology. Before I could act on the takedown notices and remove the offending clips, the accounts were canceled.
I lost the xenutv account and all my uploaded clips about Scientology. I started over on xenutv1 and uploaded only my own self produced clips, making sure to not have any copyrighted material on the account.
About a week later, the Anonymous movement started in response to YouTube’s removal of the Tom Cruise tape. I started getting contacted by people asking me about this so I made a video about Anonymous urging them to not break the law and to instead use legal and peaceful means to protest Scientology. I thought they would ignore or attack me but instead they heard my message and understood what I was saying.
My first channel had about 3000 subscribers when it was yanked. In about two months, the new channel had reached 10,000 subscribers thanks to Anonymous. Many of my videos received high honors on YouTube and a lot of media attention was drawn to them and to me. The media wanted to know about Anonymous and I became the wise bearded face the media could go to get some answers about the group.
While my website xenutv.com has been very successful over the past years, YouTube brought in a new set of viewers and a new way to interact with those viewers. It was very exciting to be a part of it.
Last weekend I released the tease for my interview with Jason Beghe. That became my most successful clip yet, reaching over 595,000 views before my channel was canceled on Thursday afternoon.
My friend Tory Christman let me put a video on her channel about the takedown. At that point I hadn’t heard anything from YouTube as to why it had happened. Just two days prior, Tory’s account has been suspended and she hadn’t been told why. People complained to YouTube and her account was put back up. But not before someone bragged on alt.religion.scientology that they had gotten Tory’s channel removed and they were coming after mine next.
Then mine was gone. The obvious assumption is that Scientology was behind it.
People complained to YouTube about my account. YouTube got so much pressure that they called me to explain the situation. They told me because my first account was canceled I am not supposed to have had a second account. When it was brought to their attention that I had the second account, they took it down. They say the timing was a coincindence.
YouTube refused to tell me who complained about my second account. They said it wasn’t Scientology but they wouldn’t say who it was which I find odd. They told me who complained about my first account but not the second account.
They told me if Viacom would retract two DMCA complaints at my first account, they would happily reinstate both my YouTube channels.
“Scientology: Is Will Smith a Scientologist?” (Colbert Clip )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMghKAiwWJM Submitted January 15, 2008, no notice ID.
“Scientology: Wag of the Finger” (Colbert clip on Scientology)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnYtsQ5yaEg Submitted February 2, 2007, BayTSP notice ID: 158-8236
I never saw the January 15th notice which has no notice ID.
If Bunker had a few mil stashed away, there’d be no problem.
Double standards? Try quadruple.
Stay tuned.
Jon Newton - p2pnet
.
.Stumble It!
The Register - YouTube rolls out Scientology double standard, May, 2008
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy!
Subscribe
to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile - http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.phpNet access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details. Download here.
May 2nd, 2008 at 11:28 am
Since the scientology scam rely on secrecy, and since with internet they could not be any secrecy scientology is screwed just like the curent music industry.
Good ridance for both of that. We don’t need parasites in our societies.
May 2nd, 2008 at 6:37 pm
I didn’t believe it for a long time, but scientology really is like an international mafia that relies on threats, censorship, and abuse of the court system.
May 2nd, 2008 at 8:54 pm
I don’t have a problem with Scientology, provided they are not abusing parishioners.
With the secrecy of their group being peeled away like an onion, it seems to shed light on exactly that, abuse and corruption.
No religious group should hold secrecy like that, it only makes them much more suspicious. To those interested in Scientology, I strongly urge you to make a complete investigation of the testimonies of former members before deciding to join them.
May 3rd, 2008 at 5:17 am
Thanks, Jon…what I’d really like to see here is Stephen Colbert stepping up (as it was a clip from his show that got Mark booted off BooTube in the first place) and making so much fun that they give Mark back his account and make Scn, Inc. at least install a comments button on their site.
“A walk down the path of history is crunchy with the crispy corpses of those who pooh-poohed or ignored the clown car of ridicule when it pulled-up to the curb” - Stephen Jones
May 3rd, 2008 at 7:24 am
Wasn’t the PirateBay supposed to start a video site? We need it!