Sen. Rand Paul has been suspended from YouTube.
The Kentucky Republican also was forced to remove the offending video, which YouTube said broke its rules against what it deems medical misinformation.
The one-week suspension began Monday over a video in which Mr. Paul said that “cloth masks don’t work” and most over-the-counter masks “don’t prevent infection,” YouTube told reporters.
Mr. Paul took to Twitter to call the suspension “a badge of honor.”
A badge of honor … leftwing cretins at Youtube banning me for 7 days for a video that quotes 2 peer reviewed articles saying cloth masks don’t work.
If you want to see the banned video go to Liberty Tree https://t.co/gsTUwuLZGL
— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) August 10, 2021
He characterized the suspension as “leftwing cretins at Youtube banning me for 7 days for a video that quotes 2 peer reviewed articles saying cloth masks don’t work.
“If you want to see the banned video go to Liberty Tree,” he told his Twitter followers.
In a further statement Tuesday, Mr. Paul noted that censorship is itself anti-scientific.
“I think this kind of censorship is very dangerous, incredibly anti-free speech, and truly anti-progress of science, which involves skepticism and argumentation to arrive at the truth,” he said.
In a statement to Forbes magazine, a YouTube spokesperson denied engaging in political censorship.
“We apply our policies consistently across the platform, regardless of speaker or political views, and we make exceptions for videos that have additional context such as countervailing views from local health authorities,” the spokesperson said.
Mr. Paul’s YouTube account is still up and the content visible to users, but he can’t post any new content while under suspension.
This suspension is his account’s first strike. The second could result in a two-week hiatus and the third a permanent expulsion.
