Creationists can't take critisism

I know, many of you who read the title are probably thinking "no sh*t" because anyone you has ever read an article about evolution or the creation of life as told in the Book of Genesis that the comments section of said article will often times degrade into a flame war of Biblical Creationists vs. everyone else with ultimately the creationists trying to drown out or force off anyone who say they are wrong... and brings evidence that shows them they are wrong.

Then there are ofcourse videos on Youtube that either explains how evolution works and why it's true, or why the Biblical story of Creation is false. Such videos will usually invoke the same reactions as I stated above, but it will invoke another type of reaction: trying to get video removed.

Most of the time a creationist will try to get a video removed that criticizes creationism or promotes evolution by false flagging said video, but sometimes they will go one step further and issue a DMCA takedown notice against the video (which is illegal).

There are two Atheist vloggers on Youtube by the names of EssenceOfThought and The Fantastic Skeptic who made videos criticizing the trailer for the movie A Matter of Faith (the movie itself is not out yet), which has been described by critics as a creationist propaganda film (which I agree), and used footage from the trailer in their videos, which is perfectly legal so long as they name the original owner of the footage either in the video itself, or in the description of the video, and link to the creator of the video and the original trailer itself, which both did.

So everything they did was perfectly legal. This did not matter to the creators of the film, who issued DMCA takedown notices against both vloggers videos that criticized the trailer of the film.

Now both vloggers have responded to their respective takedown notices:




And both videos criticizing the trailer has since been mirrored on The Atheist Hub as well as other Youtube channels:




Now I'm not sure what The Fantastic Skeptic is planning to do about this illegal DMCA takedown notice, but I do know that EssenceOfThought has filled a counter claim, which I'm glad he did, but the fact remains is that he shouldn't even have had to have done this in the first place because these takedown notices should never have been issued.

I suppose if the creators of this movie are just like every other hardcore creationist: unable to deal with criticism and counter arguments, and do what they can to get rid of them.

And now... Part Six of Debunking House of Numbers

Finally, after over a month of fighting illegal DMCA takedown notices, threats of having his Youtube channel being taken down, threats of lawsuits (as well as other types of threats), having his personnel information shared by a bunch of AIDS denialists, as well as some of those same AIDS denialists trying to silence him in one of the most blatant examples of censorship abuse in internet history in what was a clear attempt by the creators of the "documentary" House of Number to silence any criticism of their so called film, and to hide the truth about their blatant deceptiveness and lying, Myles Power has finally released Part 6 of his Debunking of House of Numbers series.

In this part Myles's friend James Gurney from History of Infection talks about HIV replication and the evidence of it's existence.

Please enjoy!

Myles Power and his DMCA Situation

A very messed up situation has been going on for the past few days concerning a series of videos by one of my favorite science promoters and debunkers on Youtube, Myles Power.

His videos in which he debunks the AIDS denialist movie House of Numbers are being sent illegal DMCA takedown notices by Martin Penny and Knowledge Matters, the creators of House of Numbers, and this is after he got sent a takedown notice by a conspiracy theorist by the name of Liam Scheff (which he later retracted), who was interviewed in the film and presented as an investigative journalist, but as you can see in this screen shot you can tell just what type of person he really is:

So, why is it that these people do not want you to see these videos? Could it be that they do not wish for you to not know the truth about their film, and how deceptive it is? Could it be that they don't want you to find out the truth about HIV/AIDS denialism, and how dangerous and deadly it is?

Well, I think that you do deserve to know the truth!

So please watch the fifth part of Myles's debunking of House of Numbers and see what Liam and the creators of that movie do not want you to see:



Also, please listen to Myles's statement on this whole situation as well:



If you wish to read his statement on this situation please go to his Facebook page and his blog.

Help stop DMCA abuse and homophobia at the same time

Today I found out that former U.S. Navy chaplain turned far right fundamentalist Christian and notorious homophobic, Gordon "Dr. Chaps" Klingenschmitt, manged to get Right Wing Watch's Youtube account suspended after filing a series of bogus copyright claims (I.E. a DMCA attack) because the page hosted several one to two minute video clips showcasing his blatant bigotry.

This is the second time this has happen in the past two weeks (read about it here, here, here, and here) and despite already having restored it once after RWW filed a counter claim that clearly demonstrated that they do infact have every right to use those video clips under the FAIR USE Act (not to mention the 1st Amendment, which also allows Mr. Klingenschmitt to continue to spread his hate speech, as well as allows me and RWW to call it hate speech), Youtube decided to side with "Dr. Chaps" and took down the page again.

Youtube is ofcourse notorious for taking down both videos and entire pages after someone files a false DMCA claim, and not even doing any investigation into the claim to see if there is any validity to the claim (as is the case here). The way that Youtube handles these DMCA claims basically allows most people to get away with suppressing information about a group, or a single person, or themselves, that puts them in a bad light (again, as in the case here). That, or it's used as a form of information gathering because Youtube requires a user to send a certain amount of personnel information that would be made available to the person filing the DMCA claim to begin the counter claim process.

This type of abusive behavior needs to stopped, and it can be stopped, and here are a couple of ways you can do that:

First, you can go to Youtube's Twitter page and tell them to restore Right Wing Watch's account and to revise there takedown policy to keep abuse like this from happening (go here to ask them).

Second (and the one that I most recommend), you can sign a petition started by Right Wing Watch and it's parent group, People For the American Way, asking Youtube to restore RWW's account, and to stop abuse of it's own takedown policies (go here to sign the petition).

This in my opinion is just another example of why the DMCA needs either a heavy overhaul, or needs to be repelled entirely and replaced with something much better, and also what lengths that a homophobic bigot will go to (or really anyone with a extremist and/or harmful agenda) inorder to suppress criticism not only of themselves, but also what they claim to believe in.

7 Reasons why Conspiracy Theorists get their videos and pages removed from Youtube

There are lots and lots of conspiracy theory videos on Youtube (and I mean a lot of them). These videos can range from being interesting to disturbing on multiple levels (being either because of the content in it, or the kind of conspiracy theory that is being talked about, or the fact that people can believe something so utterly ridiculous) and sometimes these videos end up getting deleted (and even whole pages).

Usually when a conspiracy theorist's video or page gets deleted they'll claim that (insert group here) are the ones whom either deleted the video or their page.

The reality is that this is never really the case, and that in fact there is usually some real, legitimate reasons why conspiracy theorists actually get their videos and pages removed from Youtube:

7. It contains copyrighted materials.

Probably one of the most common reasons why a video (or an entire page) gets removed from Youtube (and not just for conspiracy theorists, but anyone really, including skeptics) is because it contains a certain amount, or a certain type of copyrighted material that does not fall under the fair use laws, and thus is subjected to a DMCA complaint by either a single individual, or an entire group or business.

The recipient of the DMCA complaint does have a chance to get whatever material that was removed restored [example], but more often times then not they won't do this, either because it makes them look like the victim of some dark forces trying to hide the "truth", or out real of fear that if they do so then they might "disappear" after they give out the contact information that Youtube requires to begin the process of whether or not the video or page gets restored.

Of course there are those that say "screw these people, I'm putting that video back up."

6. The video contains hate speech.

Because many conspiracy theories have antisemitic undertones to them (or are blatantly antisemitic) it should be no surprise that some conspiracy theorists are antisemitic themselves, and are bigoted towards other groups as well. It should also come as no surprise that sometimes conspiracy theorists post videos that are blatantly bigoted and targets specific groups of people as well (Jewish people mainly, but other groups such as African Americans and Homosexuals as well) and contains language that can be best described as hate speech.

While hate speech is not actually illegal in the United States (although some kinds is legally questionable) Youtube does have a anti-hate speech policy, and will remove a video if enough complaints are launched (although sometimes this doesn't always happen).

5. The video encourages violence and/or other illegal activity.

Because certain conspiracy theorists believe that the government is preparing to throw certain citizens into concentration camps (or kill them) some conspiracy theorists may create videos encouraging their viewers to violently resist anyone who tries to arrest them. Other times these videos might even encourage the viewers to go out and commit acts of anti-government violence, or show you how to make something illegal, like a bomb.

Other videos might also encourage other types of destructive crimes as well, like vandalism. An example of this would be someone in the anti-GMO movement encouraging people to burn farm fields containing GMO crops.

4. The user is harassing people.

Sometimes when a person is removed from Youtube it has nothing to do with the videos they are posting, but rather it is their behavior and treatment towards others on the site.

While harassing and even threatening people isn't something that just conspiracy theorists do, it is something that conspiracy theorists do sometimes do in order to try to scare a skeptic away from Youtube. Sometimes it works, most of the time it just gets them in trouble with Youtube (and law enforcement).

3. The videos contain graphic images.

Sometimes Youtube takes down a video not because it's actually encouraging violence, or has had a DMCA complaint was launched against it. No, sometimes it's because the content in the video was simply to graphic to be allowed on Youtube, even under an age restriction.

2. They get hacked.

Many times when a conspiracy theorist's page on Youtube goes down they'll claim that their page got hacked by the government, and sometimes they are right (at least about the hacked part, not about the government part).

The truth is that conspiracy theorists do sometimes end up angering the wrong person, and said person might feel that Youtube is taking to long to take down a video or someones page (or they don't even bother to try to let Youtube handle it) and if they have enough skills and know how, they hack the page and get rid of whatever they don't like (an action in which I neither encourage nor endorse).

1. The user does it themselves.

Sometimes conspiracy theorists actually take down their own videos and then claim that Youtube told them to take the videos down, which Youtube does not do (Youtube would just take down the videos and then send a warning).

While there are probably multiple reasons why a conspiracy theorist takes down their own video, the most likely reason is that they want you to think that the government has something to hide, and thus it gets their own page more attention from other conspiracy theorists.

Ten threats to the 1st Amendment

There have been and always will be threats to the Constitution, most especially the 1st Amendment, be it is usually because a person doesn't know, or doesn't care, what is and is not protected by the 1st Amendment.

Here are what I consider to be ten threats to the 1st Amendment:

Anti-Obscenity Groups

There are some groups of people who take it amongst themselves to try to force us to not use any type of language, or dress in certain ways that many of them consider obscene, even going so far as to trying to force (sometimes with success) local governments to create ordinances and laws banning the use of language in public and the wearing of clothing that they feel is obscene.

These groups are also partially responsible the creation of the rating system on television, parental advisory stickers on music CDs, and the anti-pornography laws.

DMCA

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA for short, was originally intended to keep people from using copyrighted materials. The problem with this law is that often times it is also abused, usually by people (or businesses and corporations) wanting to get certain content that might be critical of them removed, regardless of the fair use laws, and regardless if it contains any copyrighted materials at all. These are usually called DMCA attacks, and happen quite a bit on controversial Vlogs Youtube.

Sometimes people will send out DMCA reports on certain Youtube sites simply because they don't like the content, or because they're trying to find out the true identity of a certain user.

Defamation, Libel, and Slander

While defamation, libel, and slander laws can great laws and force a person to stop lying about you in which the only intent is to hurt you, unfortunately these laws are also some abused.

Normally when these laws are abused it's usually someone or some group who want to hide something, or to try to force someone to stop being critical of them. Even the threat of a defamation lawsuit can sometimes be enough to back someone down, even if what they're is the truth.

Trollz

There are a lot of people on the internet who's only purpose is to cause trouble. Sometimes these people take what they do to far and they get booted off the site they're trolling on. Sometimes this also results in sites changing their policies and becoming more and more restrictive, such as lessening what is considered acceptable speech and behavior, to ending anonymity. Some states are even creating laws to try stop people from being trollz, but these laws are highly questionable and possible illegal due to the 1st Amendment.

Flagging

Most free blogs, user uploaded video sites, online forums, and social media sites have ways to report inappropriate or possibly illegal content.

While some sites actually require you to email them, most sites have special icons under each person's posts and all that you're just require to do is that you click on that icon and tell the site why you did that. This may sound good and all to some people, but the problem is that this is often times overly used and abused by others concerning content that they feel is offensive just to them.

Other Countries

With the increase of people making their views known on the internet, these views can sometimes conflict with the laws of other countries.

While most of the time these laws wouldn't effect us at all, sometimes it does, because usually the law enforcement agencies in those countries will contact the host websites to get the content removed. While most of the time this doesn't happen because the content doesn't actually violate the Terms of Standards agreement that the user accepted, sometimes they can get the content removed.

Schools

We all know that teachers tend to tell students to be quiet when they are trying to teach something, some schools are becoming more and more restrictive about not only what students can say while on school grounds, but also what they can say off school grounds as well.

Many schools now have rules for students about what a student can and cannot post on the internet. Most of the time what students are restricted from posting is criticism of their school and the school system itself. Also, many schools not only try to restrict in school speech, but also the right to protest as well, often times threatening to punish any students who take part in a protest that happens near their school, or during school time.

Hate Groups

While most hate groups tend to be just a bunch of annoying people at best, sometimes they will use threats and even violence as a way to try to silence their critics, or just something they don't like.

Other less hostile hate groups try to use other forms of intimidation (such as boycotts) to try to get companies to stop certain advertisement campaigns, or sponsorship of certain groups. While these boycotts were sometimes effective in the past (especially when it concerned homosexuality), these boycotts have been proven to be less and less ineffective as most people tend to ignore the calls for boycott (the American Family Association's largely forgotten boycott of Disney proves this).

Hackers

While some hackers destroy and/or disrupt content on the internet simply because they can, sometimes they do this to remove content that they don't like (regardless if the content is offensive or not) or they will send that person a virus to disrupt that person's ability to post new content.

Sometimes people who don't actually have the hacking skills needed to disrupt and/or destroy content on the internet that they disagree with will actually either try to get other hackers to do their dirty work, even hiring them sometimes, or they'll just learn new hacking skills and try to do it themselves.

Oversensitive People

Sometimes we ourselves can be the biggest threat to the 1st Amendment. If an oversensitive person sees something that they do not like, they sometimes do whatever it takes to get that which has offended them removed, be it flagging attacks, false DMCA attacks, hacking attacks, and whatever else they can think of.

Other times it's trying to get new laws created to in order to place restrictions on things that they find offensive.

Regardless of what they do, oversensitive people are often the biggest threat to the 1st Amendment, because they tend to believe that their senses are more important then the Constitution.