YouTube Deletes Popular Journalist’s Video Criticizing the Media Over Falling for 4Chan Florida Shooter Hoax

YouTube has removed a video by Tim Pool, a popular and award winning journalist, that criticized the mainstream media for falling for a 4Chan hoax that claimed the Florida school shooter was part of a white nationalist group.

https://twitter.com/Timcast/status/964865110123556864

On Thursday afternoon,  the Anti-Defamation League reported that the white supremacist group Republic of Florida (ROF) had claimed the shooter, Nikolas Cruz, as one of their members. Countless news outlets and personalities ran with this story based on their assertion.

It was soon revealed, however, that the report was part of an elaborate 4Chan hoax to feed the media fake news. Still, many outlets continued to report on this story as factual despite denials from law enforcement that he had ties to the group.

https://twitter.com/Timcast/status/964286127204065280

Several outlets, including the Associated Press, have had to issue corrections following the widespread false reporting.

In a video commenting about the debacle, Pool asserted that it was a “major media failure.

Though Pool was critical of the sloppy mistake, he did concede that mistakes happen and that all this means is people should fact check their news, even if it is coming from an outlet like the Associated Press that is generally reputable.

“This is a seriously stupid mistake, somebody jumped the gun. This should not have happened and it shouldn’t happen again, but I know it will,” Pool said in the video. “Let me just say before I close this out that there are a lot of journalists who do good work and simply because we see these big screw ups doesn’t mean that the bulk of journalism coming from the AP and other news organizations is bad.”

Pool added, “it’s impossible for a news organization to be 100% accurate all of the time.”

Pool’s video can still be viewed on BitChute.

https://twitter.com/Timcast/status/964873985044316160

The video sharing platform claimed that Pool’s video was flagged by other users for review, and “upon review” they determined that it violated their guidelines. In addition to removing the video, YouTube gave Pool a temporary strike to his account, which will prevent him from being able to livestream, for three months.

“I think this is a case of people mass flagging my video and then YouTube not actually reviewing it just removing it. I highly doubt YouTube was protecting a white nationalist who presumably lied to the press from harassment. But to be clear, nothing I said in that video constitutes a violation of the community guidelines or harassment and anyway,” Pool told the Gateway Pundit.

Pool, who has previously worked for Fusion and Vice, has never received any strikes on his account in the past.

“I have never had a strike on any video I have ever made at any company I have ever worked for,” Pool told Gateway. “The video is not necessarily deleted, it’s blocked. Hopefully they will review my appeal and reinstate the video.”

Pool has reached out to YouTube to attempt to get the video reinstated and the strike removed.

 

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