Anti-abortion group decries censorship

From http://www.nvdaily.com/news/308214370390157.bsp


Anti-abortion group decries censorship

Colin Mason, Director of media productions, and Steve Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute, explain their stance on a YouTube-censored video. Dennis Grundman/Daily (Purchase photo)



By Ben Orcutt -- Daily Staff Writer






FRONT ROYAL — A local anti-abortion group is crying foul over a video that was pulled from the popular Web site YouTube.




What has Steven W. Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute, located in the Happy Creek Industrial Park on Progress Drive in Front Royal, speaking out is the recent removal of a video posted on the site by the Catholic News Agency.




The video features PRI representative Carlos Polo, of Lima, Peru, in a conversation with Eve Reinhardt, who requested to interview Polo, saying she was making a documentary.




During the interview, Polo challenges Reinhardt on her credentials, claiming she is affiliated with a project called The Decency Gap, which he says is pro-abortion and associated with groups who do sanction abortion. Polo claims that Reinhardt misrepresented herself, and that she was not the unbiased journalist she claimed to be.




Mosher, 60, said Thursday that he is appalled that YouTube, which is now owned by Google, would pull the video.




"Google has sold out to censors in China," Mosher said. "We know the Chinese government censors people. Is censorship coming back here? Is this another Chinese import? They've been raked over the coals in China. Here there's no pressure."




Mosher said PRI is a human rights organization that is concerned about governments trying to tell couples how many children they should have.




"We think that the overpopulation scare of 1961 should be assigned to the dustbin of history," Mosher said, adding that human beings are the world's most valuable resource.




He and his wife, Vera, live in White Post and have eight children.




"The material was put up, and then it was taken down," Mosher said of the CNA video. "We've never had this happen before."




Mosher said PRI has had many similar videos posted on YouTube and they were not taken down. He said Google is used by millions, and is expected to be an unbiased search engine.




"This is censorship," Mosher said. "There's nothing on the video that violates the terms of use."




In several e-mail exchanges Thursday, Google representative Victoria Katsarou said she is trying to get a more detailed response as to why the video was pulled.




CNA reposted the video under the title "The Decency Gap/Eve Reinhardt Censored Version," which was also taken down on Thursday. The explanation on YouTube's Web site is that, "This video has been removed due to terms of use violation."




David Uebbing, editor for Denver-based CNA, said in a Thursday e-mail that his company published the original story on June 20.




"We did not see how our video in any way violated YouTube's terms of posting," Uebbing said. "YouTube's policy guidelines forbid posting videos that are violent, pornographic or violate copyright or privacy laws. However, none of these rules were violated by our video."




Uebbing said he has not been able to get a response from YouTube as to why the video was pulled.




"On our YouTube account, we have not been flagged or warned, and our account is listed as 'in good standing,'" Uebbing said. "Unfortunately, we suspect that Planned Parenthood — one of the Decency Gap's supporters — was able to sway YouTube to pull the video. This is based off the fact that the American Life League (ALL) recently had one of their videos pulled by YouTube due to the complaints of Planned Parenthood."




Uebbing said he's "baffled" as to why both versions of the video were pulled without explanation, especially since Reinhardt was aware the interview was being filmed.




"If there is any sort of copyright violation, I would like for YouTube to point it out to us," Uebbing adds. "What seems to be more of the case to me is that someone associated with the project was able to influence YouTube to pull the video down."




* Contact Ben Orcutt at borcutt@nvdaily.com