Conservative Christian commentator and bestselling author Eric Metaxas’ radio show was terminated from YouTube this week after receiving multiple strikes for violating the video platform’s guidelines due to videos on vaccine passports and the 2020 election.
“In regards to YouTube terminating my radio show channel, it’s been clear to us for some time that they wanted to wipe us out,” Metaxas said in a Facebook post.
A YouTube spokesperson told The Christian Post the show’s channel was terminated under the “longstanding three strikes system.”
“Specifically, we removed content that violated our policies on COVID-19 medical misinformation and presidential election integrity,” a YouTube spokesperson said in the email.
Although the radio show’s channel was removed from Youtube, Metaxas’ other YouTube channel sharing his media appearances is still active.
In his statement, Metaxas said that he and his team had done their “very best to comply” with what he called “creepy Marxist ‘community standards.” Still, the administrators of the Google-owned video platform “seem to have been digging into some of our older videos to find things they could use against us.”
“As their uncredited hero Stalin infamously said, ‘Show me the man and I will find you the crime,'” Metaxas wrote. “The loss to us financially is devastating, but when you are speaking truth at a time such as this you cannot be daunted by such things. None of my heroes ever were and by God’s grace I never will be.”
Metaxas, who authored If You Can Keep It and biographies on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, William Wilberforce and Martin Luther, vowed that the “The Eric Metaxas Show” “will not be silenced.”
The last strike for the radio show was about two months ago over an episode with controversial feminist author Naomi Wolf warning about the dangers of “vaccine passports” and a “social credit system.” Wolf, who wrote The End Of America in 2007, has been a critic of COVID-19 lockdowns.
YouTube removed the video for violating “medical misinformation policy.”
The email informing them that the video was removed explained, “We know that this might be disappointing, but it’s important to us that YouTube is a safe place for all. If content breaks our rules, we remove it.”
Some of the other strikes were from posts related to the 2020 election.
The first video removed was an interview called “Mike Lindell On What He Shared With The President & What Is Ultimately At Stake For Our Country” with the Trump-supporting founder of My Pillow.
The email detailing this video’s removal, which resulted in an initial warning, said the content “advances false claims that widespread fraud, errors, or glitches changed the outcome of the U.S. 2020 presidential election is not allowed on YouTube.”
