YouTube Staff Doing Pro-Sealing Lobby’s Work for Them
The video banned from YouTube thanks to pro-sealing false-flaggers
I received an admonition from YouTube the other day, advising me that one of my videos had been disabled due to a complaint that it was “shocking and disturbing.” That’s funny, I thought it was educational - you know, people might actually want to know the Nova Scotia government under premier Darrell Dexter allows fishermen to bludgeon to death defenceless baby seals in nature reserves.
The video in question, created by me last year, is comprised of a collection of images set to music. The photos were taken by Humane Society International in 2008 when Rebecca Aldworth of HSI and I documented the slaughter of 1,261 baby grey seals on Hay Island, part of the Scaterie Island Protected Wilderness Area. On Hay Island, fishermen herded seals together into a large group – including nursing whitecoats and their frantic mothers – and bludgeoned to death the moulted pups with wooden bats and sliced them open with box cutters mere inches from each other. It was a bloodbath in every sense of the word, with terrified whitecoats slithering through the blood of the butchered pups, and traumatized pups trying to cuddle into dead seals for comfort. The fishermen were laughing and joking as they bludgeoned the screaming pups to death and discussed where they would go for their supper that night. The video was meant to be educational in nature and served as a memorial to the baby seals who met a terrifying and excruciatingly painful death that day.
I wrote to YouTube pointing out the purpose of the video was to educate. As for the “shocking” allegation, I pointed out at the beginning of the video there was an explanation of what the viewer was about to see. That – together with the title of the video – made it obvious the images would be disturbing, so the viewer should not be surprised or shocked by what they saw. As for the “disgusting” allegation – yes, grown men bludgeoning screaming baby seals to death with baseball bats is decidedly disgusting – it’s a disgusting practice we aim to stop and the video is one of the tools we are using to stop it. It’s a no-brainer, as they say.
I mentioned this on my Facebook page and through a series of conversations found out this is not an uncommon occurrence. Apparently there are sealing supporters who spend their time trawling YouTube, looking for effective anti-sealing videos. They then “false-flag” them for YouTube to remove as “shocking” or “disgusting” or whatever reason they choose. YouTube dutifully disables the offending video and its effects are neutralized as far as the pro-sealing camp is concerned. Apparently this has been going on for over a year, with YouTube staff doing the pro-sealing movement’s dirty work for them.
My question is: who are these people who trawl YouTube, false-flagging videos containing anti-sealing messages? Are they just lonely saddos who have no life, or are they paid by the government? That may sound like a wacky conspiracy theory but as we’ve seen, the government will resort to just about anything to silence critics of the commercial seal slaughter.
The offending video in question will make a re-appearance on YouTube, make no mistake. The video is obviously considered a real threat, particularly at this time when fishermen are poised to bludgeon to death over 2,000 defenceless baby seals on Hay Island for the third year in a row. And that’s why I plan to plaster it online wherever I can put it.
Maybe it’s people like these two who have a group called Iceflow Creations on facebook. They are a mother & daughter, the mother makes sealskin mittens, slippers, etc., and they advertise through the facebook group regardless of the fact that facebook is a US based company and selling Canadian sealskin is illegal in the US for decades now… They ask for emails (their address is also a US based company) requesting any item you’d like, so are actually selling Canadian seal online! I wasn’t the first to discover them, saw it in my news feed and don’t think it was posted by you but I can’t remember who posted it, so I have reported the group to facebook over a week ago, asked others to do the same, and I also reported them the the IC3 (Internet Crime agency in the US). You’ll see on their page that there are some “Protect the Seal Hunt” type links there too, and their fans boast about how they love how soft the slippers they just received are! So far no action that I can see has been taken against criminals like these.