Antisemitic hate preacher Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam YouTube channel is finally deleted
The online video-sharing site YouTube has finally deleted the account of the Nation of Islam (NOI), which is led by the antisemitic hate preacher Louis Farrakhan.
According to the platform, the NOI channel was removed on 2nd October for content in violation of the site’s policies against hate speech, specifically the widespread circulation of ideas that target members of a protected group as being part of evil conspiracies. Mr Farrakhan has made several claims that the Jewish people orchestrated the slave trade and the 9/11 terrorist attacks and that the Jewish community conspires to control the country’s media, economy and foreign and domestic legislation. These are all antisemitic conspiracy theories.
During a speech on 4th July, Mr Farrakhan referred to Jews collectively as “Satan” and “the enemy of God”, claiming Jews had “broken their covenant relationship with God.” He encouraged listeners to actively fight “the imposter Jews who are worthy of chastisement of God”. The controversial speech has been viewed over 1.2 million times on numerous YouTube channels, one of which is a digital cable network founded by Sean “P Diddy” Combs. The video has since been removed from the platform.
In an online lecture series between 2013 and 2014, which had an average of around 40,000 views per sermon, the NOI leader made claims that the “Jewish media”, referencing Hollywood, was responsible for “normalised sexual degeneracy, profanity and all kinds of sin.”
A spokesperson for YouTube reportedly said: “We have strict policies prohibiting hate speech on YouTube, and terminate any channel that repeatedly or egregiously violates those policies.”
The site has reportedly updated guidelines to tackle content that spreads hateful or discriminatory conspiracy theories, leading to five times more videos being removed and over 25,000 channels terminated for directly violating the revised hate speech policies.
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