We can’t afford to show you this
Or this
Because YouTube doesn’t want us to.
Welcome to China...Censored.
Because censorship seems to be what YouTube wants.
If you’re watching this show, I assume you’re interested in what’s happening in China—the
kind of stuff the Chinese regime wants to cover up.
The analysis you won’t get from any other media.
The jokes you find mildly amusing.
But YouTube, which is owned by Google, does not want us to talk about certain “sensitive”
China topics.
In fact, they punish us when we do.
Most of the time, YouTube is not outright censoring China Uncensored.
Instead, they demonetize content that violates their vague “community guidelines.”
A demonetized video means it gets no ads or so-called “limited ads”, which is pretty
close to no ads.
And after a video has been demonetized, generally YouTube won’t recommend it as much, so the
number of people who see it is limited.
For example, a few days ago we put out an episode about how Chinese police are stealing
ordinary people’s motorcycles, right out from under them.
Demonetized.
Can’t have people seeing how Chinese police abuse people.
You see, over the years I’ve found a distinct pattern to what gets demonetized—any footage
from China that makes the Communist Party look bad.
Take for instance the coronavirus.
The Communist Party’s initial response to the coronavirus was a coverup followed by
brutal suppression of Chinese people.
We showed you what the Party was doing in this episode, the Coronavirus Cure isn’t
Authoritarianism.
So let’s take a look at what the People’s Republic of China did to deal with the Coronavirus.
Starting with how Chinese officials rounded people up and threw them into mass quarantine
camps.
And if people went outside without a mask, they did this.
And this.
And this.This guy didn’t wear a mask, so they tied him to a pillar.
Still without a mask.
These ethnic Uyghurs weren’t supposed to go outside.
So officials hung signs from their necks calling them dogs.”
The Chinese Communist Party’s coronavirus response was horrific.
But at the time, people were praising the Communist Party’s response.
Some Western media even suggested you might be better off sheltering in China.
The New York Times suggested that open societies were a problem.
So we figured it was important to show you how bad it really was in China.
And when we did that, YouTube hit us hard.
First this episode was demonetized...
...then YouTube flat out deleted the video without explanation.
Completely censored.
We made a huge stink about it on social media, so they put it back up, again without explanation,
but now it was ineligible for monetization.
Plus, it was now age restricted.
You had to be over 18 to see the video, and you’d see this message before you could
watch it.
Oh, our video was “inappropriate or offensive”?!
I think YouTube’s censorship was “inappropriate and offensive”.
And this was far from an isolated incident.
Most of our coronavirus coverage in the early days of the pandemic got demonetized.
YouTube wasn’t giving any explanation.
But by that point I had noticed a pattern.
It seemed like any time we showed Chinese authorities using violence, we would get demonetized.
Back in 2019, almost all our coverage of the Hong Kong protests were getting demonetized
too.
Here’s a clip from our episode Hong Kong Police Lay Siege to University Students.
Over the weekend, Hong Kong police once again surrounded Polytechnic University of Hong
Kong, known as PolyU.
They began arresting students, and...stomping on their heads?!
Jeez.
Overnight clashes began at PolyU on Sunday evening.
Police fired volleys of tear gas and blocked the exits after protesters set fires on a
bridge.
More than a thousand people were trapped inside the university, including reporters, medics,
and high school and university students.
It’s important for people to see that kind of footage—to know what’s really happening
in Hong Kong.
It was demonetized.
Here’s another Hong Kong episode that YouTube age restricted and labeled ineligible for
monetization.
Clashes between protesters and police in Kong Kong over the weekend turned parts of the
city into a bona fide battlefield.
Complete with plenty of police violence, rubber bullets, and enough tear gas to make Chuck
Norris cry.
Good one 2019 Chris.
But demonetized.
And it wasn’t just the coronavirus and Hong Kong stories getting demonetized.
If we showed footage of Uyghurs shackled and blindfolded, YouTube would demonetize us.
When we covered anti-China protests in Vietnam, YouTube would demonetize us.
Here’s footage of police cracking down on protesters inside China.
Including beating up an old woman.
YouTube demonetized AND age-restricted it.
The crazy thing is, all this was being done without any explanation from YouTube.
Eventually, under pressure, YouTube began to tell creators why something was demonetized
after human review by someone at YouTube.
We’d get notifications like this.
It says our video contains “situations showing hurt, damage, or injury.”
In other words, it exposes what a brutal authoritarian regime is doing—and we can’t have that!
Even though YouTube’s policies supposedly allow you to show this footage when there’s
educational or documentary context.
You know, like the fact that we’re reporting the news.
But even when we didn’t show that kind of footage, we’d still often get demonetized.
This episode, Coronavirus: 2nd Wave Hits Chinawas demonetized for “harmful or dangerous acts”
such as “accidents, pranks or stunts”.
A human reviewer made that claim.
There were no stunts or pranks in that video.
That makes no sense.
Unless you consider China’s coverup of coronavirus infections a stunt.
But I don’t think that’s what YouTube meant.
This episode, Hunter Biden’s China Deals Under Investigation was demonetized for Adult
content such exposed breasts, full nudity or animal mating.
Look, I know there are the Hunter Biden sex tapes floating around out there, but our episode
only talked about Biden’s China deals.
It didn’t show any of the stuff YouTube claims it did.
By the way, that was also one of our weekly news roundup episodes.
So we also talked about alleged Chinese spy Fang Fang targeting US politicians, how China
is using big tech to arrest Uyghurs, and the US sanctioning Chinese officials for the crackdown
on Hong Kong.
Which one of those was “sexual behavior, language, or expressions?”
And in case there’s still any confusion about what YouTube is really doing here, this
episode, China Must Have a Chernobyl Moment () was demonetized for “situations that
may endanger participants”.
That episode—is a 35 minute interview over skype.
It’s just me and the guest talking.
I don’t see how that could possibly be a situation that “endangers participants”...wait,
unless YouTube is making a subtle threat to stop interviewing Chinese dissidents.
OK, I don’t think it was.
But I still can’t imagine the reason it was demonetized.
Especially since that demonetization was confirmed by a human reviewer.
So clearly, people at YouTube don’t want you to know what’s really going on in China.
I’m not sure why, since YouTube is so vague about it.
And since they’re so vague, I’m left to my imagination.
Which goes to places like, I wonder if YouTube is being influenced by Google.
Since Google is working with the Communist Party on Artificial Intelligence Research.
Which might benefit China’s military.
And of course, Google had once tried to launch a censored search app for the China market.
But if Google and YouTube are trying to get us to tone down our message, we’re not going
to do it.
No matter how much they take away our ads, or even delete our videos, we won’t stop
uncensoring China.
But to do this, we need your help.
YouTube ad revenue is unreliable.
It’s up and down and sometimes gone—depending on what topics we cover.
Even in the best of times, it’s never been enough to pay our staff—including writers,
video editors, sound editors, and of course rent on our studio here in New York.
Our main source of support is viewer contributions.
That’s right, you—my amazing viewers...
...fans I call the “50-Cent Army”—the people who help us fight the Chinese Communist
Party’s so-called 50-Cent Army of paid trolls who spread propaganda.
You are the reason we can afford to cover the most sensitive topics—because no matter
what YouTube does, you have our backs.
If you want to help us...
go to Patreon.com/ChinaUncensored.
Each membership level has rewards.
For just a dollar per episode, you can leave questions for me to answer at the end of my
YouTube episodes.
Other rewards include our monthly letter, behind the scenes footage, the music we use
in the show, live Google hangouts with me, and a lot more.
If you don’t have a Patreon account, it’s easy to sign up with just your name and email.
Choose what you want to pledge per video.
We publish about 18 episodes per month.
And you can pledge that amount for “every creation”...or set a monthly limit.
For example, if you only want to pledge 10 dollars a month, you can pledge 1 dollar per
creation, with a monthly limit of 10.
But the more you pledge, the more episodes we can afford to make.
Pay with Apple Pay, credit card, or PayPal—and boom!
You’re now a member of the China Uncensored 50-Cent Army!
If you don’t want a recurring payment through Patreon, you can visit ChinaUncensored.tv/support—and
make a one-time contribution through PayPal, Bitcoin, or old-fashioned mail.
But for us, we prefer to have your ongoing support through Patreon.
No matter what, your contribution goes directly to supporting China Uncensored.
Shelley, Matt, and I produce this show through our own production company.
Our only obligation is to you, our viewers.
So please, support China Uncensored so we can continue to cover the topics YouTube,
Google, and the Chinese Communist Party don’t want you to know about.
The links are in the description below.
I’m Chris Chappell.
Thank you.
You’re awesome.