Proud Boys Founder Gavin McInnes Banned From YouTube, The Latest Alt-Right Social Media Banning
Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes has been banned from YouTube, the latest in an ongoing series of alt-right figures to find themselves without a social media platform.
As the San Francisco Chronicle reports, McGavin learned on Monday that his YouTube account is no more “after multiple third-party claims of copyright infringement.” As of this writing, Google, which owns YouTube, has not indicated which videos of McGavin’s supposedly violated copyright rules. And since they are all now inaccessible, it’s impossible to say which ones they were.
That leaves the Proud Boys founder’s 200,000 YouTube followers without a way to access his content. What’s more, McInnes is now without any presence on any major social media platform as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have all banned him for various reasons over the past few months. Further, as the Hill reports, he’s been fired from The Blaze, and he can no longer send or receive money via PayPal, which has banned him as well.
And though it has nothing to do with social media, McInnes is also banned from entering Australia, whose immigration authorities deemed him a “person of bad character.”
McInnes, 48, founded the Proud Boys in or around 2008 after he left his previous job at Vice. What the Proud Boys are actually about depends on who you ask.
YouTube bans Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes, latest tech giant to kick him off https://t.co/bo5ZryTJLI pic.twitter.com/70qGIzS94H
— CNET (@CNET) December 10, 2018
According to the organization’s own statements, they are a “fraternal organization” whose members “refuse to apologize for creating the modern world; aka Western Chauvinists.” However, the Southern Poverty Law Center deems them a hate group; and indeed, Proud Boys members have been arrested for violence before, including in October at a street brawl in New York City.
McInnes, for his part, has disavowed the group; however, he continues to insist that they are not a hate group.
Meanwhile, McInnes is only the latest person and/or group associated with the so-called “alt-right” to find themselves unwelcome on social media.
For example, the Proud Boys organization (rather than McInnes) was banned from Facebook following the October brawl, as the Hill reported at the time.
“We ban [hate] organizations and individuals from our platforms and also remove all praise and support when we become aware of it.”
Similarly, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and all entities and organizations associated with him were banned from Twitter earlier this year. He’s also been banned from YouTube, iTunes, Vimeo, Facebook, and Spotify, among other platforms, all because of his reported hate-based views, according to an August Newsweek report.
