Alan Dershowitz
(Getty Images/Lior Mizrahi)
“This show will make news. I challenge YouTube to take this show off your site, off your platform,” iconic civil rights lawyer and Constitutional Scholar Alan Dershowitz says in the latest episode of The Dershow on his YouTube channel.
In his video, Dershowitz dares YouTube to enforce its new policy of removing video and audio of those who express opinions denying the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election:
“Because on this show, you’re going to hear a very distinguished person violate your standards by saying and suggesting that, quote, ‘Widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome of the 2020 election.’
“You’re going to hear somebody say that – and you’re going to hear me challenge YouTube to take my channel off the air – because YouTube has announced that anybody who makes that statement will be censored and denied the opportunity to reach the YouTube audience. So, listen to The Dershow for this challenge.
“Today’s Dershow is going to make news. We are going to challenge YouTube to take this show down.”
“Can you imagine anything more inconsistent with the spirit and culture of the First Amendment than to stop a debate about a presidential election?” Dershowitz asks:
“YouTube yesterday announced, outrageously, that it will take down any videos, any audios, anything on its on its platform that, quote, ‘Misleads people by alleging that widespread fraud or errors’ – errors! errors! – ‘changed the outcome of the 2020 U.S. presidential election.’
“Can you imagine anything more inconsistent with the spirit and culture of the First Amendment than to stop a debate about a presidential election?
“There are tens of millions of people out there who, whether correctly or incorrectly, honestly believe that this election was changed by ‘errors.’ At least, errors. Some believe fraud, some believe systematic fraud, some believe just errors, some the believe misuse of a machine. There are all kinds of arguments out there. There are cases now pending.
“There is a case now pending where a United States state, the state of Texas, is suing other states, with the support of a handful of other states, claiming this – and YouTube will take it down, won’t even let us debate it and discuss it?
“Well, YouTube: we’re going to debate it and discuss it today on The Dershow.”
Dershowitz then introduced his guest: Breitbart’s Joel B. Pollak, author of “Neither Free Nor Fair – The 2020 Presidential Election.”
“I want to ask him to state, categorically, the criteria that YouTube said it would take down, that would require the taking down of a video or a audio,” Dershowitz said.
“If you do there will be a response,” the famed lawyer and Constitutional scholar warned, saying that YouTube will have forfeited its legal protects as a platform by making and enforcing editorial judgements:
“So, YouTube, I challenge you: take down this show. I challenge you: take down this channel. I challenge you: do not allow Joel Pollak to express his views on my show,” Dershowitz dared at the end of his interview.
“So, YouTube, here’s my message to you: you just heard an extremely distinguished journalist, a man who has enormous credibility, a man who has enormous influence over tens of millions of Americans who reasonably believe him – you just heard him fit the criteria that you have set out for taking down channels.
…
“So, YouTube, I challenge you: take down this show. I challenge you: take down this channel. I challenge you: do not allow Joel Pollak to express his views on my show.
“And, if you do, there will be a response. There will be a response because you will have lost your exemptions under Section 230. You are not longer, at that point, a platform. You are making editorial judgements. Why are you being treated more favorably that The New York Times or The Washington Post or Breitbart?”
As an example, Dershowitz said that YouTube has not censored from its platform some opinions accusing Israel of apartheid and genocide. As an editor and self-proclaimed arbiter of fact, YouTube has thus legitimized the claims against Israel, he argued.
