YouTube claims that the censorship of Giorgia Meloni's speech was a "mistake". The video platform, owned by Google, removed a video of the winner of the Italian election after it went viral despite being hosted without problems on YouTube since 2019.
In the video, which was taken at the World Congress of Families held in Italy in 2019, Meloni defended the family and the nation while criticizing the new gender ideologies and the policies of international elites that seek to do away with individual identities. This content was removed by YouTube on the grounds that the video violated its community guidelines.
A day after the video was taken down, YouTube admitted it made a mistake and restored the video. "After careful review, we have determined that this video does not violate our community guidelines and have reinstated it," said a spokeswoman for the platform.
Upon careful review, we determined this video is not violative of our Community Guidelines and have reinstated it (...) We enforce our policies regardless of the speaker's political views and when it's brought to our attention that a video has been mistakenly removed, we review the content and take appropriate action, including restoring the relevant videos or channels—as we have done with this video.
YouTube did not clarify the reasons for the removal of the video or why the video allegedly violated its community guidelines. The truth is that Meloni's speech reflects a conservative vision of politics and got thousands of views after the electoral victory of Meloni's Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d'Italia) party.
Meloni's speech and censure of conservative politicians
Meloni's speech defended the natural family, motherhood, procreation and Christian identity. In addition, she criticized the prevailing political, social and economic order:
Why is the family so threatening? There is an answer: Because it defines our identity; because everything that defines us in this time is an enemy to those who would like us not to have an identity anymore those who wish we were only perfect consumer-slaves. Therefore, identity is under attack. National identity is under attack religious identity is under attack, gender identity is under attack, family identity is under attack. I must not be able to define myself as Italian, Christian, female, mother. No. I must be “Citizen X”, Parent 1, Parent 2. I must be a number, because when I’m only one number, when I no longer have an identity, when I have no more roots, well then, I will be the perfect slave, at the mercy of the great financial speculators; the perfect consumer.
Giorgia Meloni, who after her electoral victory is shaping up to become Italian Prime Minister, directly addressed several controversial issues, such as surrogacy, abortion and gender ideology.
Above all, I say that “unpresentable” are those which advocate practices such as the uterus-for-rent, the abortion in the ninth month and the attempt to block the development of boys with drugs at 11.
These are messages that seem to displease YouTube as they caused the removal of the video. Finally, the platform had to rectify the situation and the content is now available to users. In any case, it seems clear that the big companies owned by Big Tech do not seem to feel comfortable with certain speeches of conservative politicians. Recall that the social network Twitter deleted several messages from Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro for questioning the confinements during the covid pandemic and permanently closed the account of former President Donald Trump after the events of January 6, 2021 on Capitol Hill.
After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.https://t.co/CBpE1I6j8Y
- Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) January 8, 2021
