Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro revealed on Monday night an effort by The New York Times to deplatform conservative podcasters on YouTube using information provided to them by a highly-partisan liberal activist group.
Shapiro posted a text message he received earlier in the day from a reporter at The New York Times about a report that was about to be published on “how political commentators have discussed the upcoming election on YouTube.”
The reporter disclosed that the newspaper relied on research provided to them by Media Matters for America, a far-left organization dedicated to destroying conservative media that is funded by Democrat megadonors.
Media Matters claims that they identified 286 alleged instances from May through August of this year of podcasters on YouTube promoting what they claimed was “election misinformation, including narratives that have been debunked or are not supported with credible evidence.”
The reporter said that they are including a clip of Shapiro saying: “… Your party rigged many of the voting rules in advance of the election in order to ensure an extraordinary number of mail-in ballots, ballot harvesting …”
The New York Times asked the following three questions:
- Are you a member of the YouTube Partner Program?
- If so, how frequently does YouTube demonetize your videos?
- Has YouTube sent you messages, emails or notices in the last year that your content contains misinformation?
The quote from Shapiro that Media Matters flagged for The New York Times came from Shapiro’s show on June 21, 2024, titled: “The Debate Is COMING.”
In the portion of the video where Shapiro makes the remarks, he is talking about how former President Donald Trump should have responded to Biden when Biden brings up January 6.
The following is the full context of Shapiro’s remarks:
And what Donald Trump needs to say is: “Listen, Joe, you and I disagree on what happened in the 2020, election. I, for example, think that your party rigged many of the voting rules in advance of the election in order to ensure an extraordinary number of mail-in ballots, ballot harvesting. I think that you worked with the media in order to prevent the dissemination of a story about Hunter Biden’s laptop in the last month of the election, and you and your son knowing that the laptop was real, lied about it to the American people. We can disagree about what happened in 2020 but none of that matters to the American people, because right now the calendar reads 2024. It reads June 27, 2024, no one in America is thinking about January 6. And the only reason you are is because you are a cynical actor attempting to avoid the consequences of your own failed presidency. In other words, January 6 happened three years ago, and the number of Americans who are thinking about January 6 is relegated to Joe Biden and his campaign. Most Americans are concerned about how they put food on the table today, and that’s your fault, because you’re the president. It doesn’t matter who I think won the presidency. You are the president. You’ve been the president since January 2021, and you’ve been terrible at it.” That’s the answer on January 6.
Shapiro posted a lengthy thread on X outlining the message from The New York Times and explained what their agenda was.
“What, precisely, is NYT doing?” he wrote. “It’s perfectly obvious: using research from Media Matters, a radical Left-wing organization whose sole purpose is destroying conservative media (see below), in order to pressure YouTube to demonetize and penalize any and all conservatives ONE WEEK FROM THE ELECTION.”
“That’s the entire game here,” he continued. “Run an article in America’s ‘most trusted newspaper’ that declares pretty much every major conservative a purveyor of ‘misinformation’ on YouTube, thus strong-arming YouTube into taking action against conservatives.
3/ That’s the entire game here. Run an article in America’s “most trusted newspaper” that declares pretty much every major conservative a purveyor of “misinformation” on YouTube, thus strong-arming YouTube into taking action against conservatives.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) October 29, 2024
Shapiro noted that the claim that the report was about “election information” was false considering that he “always acknowledged that Joe Biden won the 2020 election.”
“And if it is ‘election misinformation’ to point out the ‘rigging’ of the voting rules for election 2020, resulting in massive mail-in voting and ballot harvesting, then the NYT might want to talk to…the NYT and CBS News, for starters,” he said in a post that included screenshots from CBS News and ABC News’ FiveThirtyEight.
Shapiro noted that even if someone does believe that President Joe Biden did not win the election, those claims are still protected under the First Amendment.
“But that’s the point: you don’t have to purvey ‘misinformation’ to be the target. You just have to support Trump,” he continued. “This is totally scandalous. In 2020, the legacy media shut down dissemination of the Hunter Biden laptop story and laundered the claim that it was all Russian disinformation, all to get Joe Biden elected.”
He continued, “In 2024, they’re even more brazen: they’re openly trying to intimidate YouTube, one of the most dominant news platforms in America, into shutting down anyone who isn’t pro-Kamala.”
Shapiro posted a graphic from the Pew Research Center that showed more than a quarter of adults in the U.S. get their news from YouTube.
8/ In 2024, they’re even more brazen: they’re openly trying to intimidate YouTube, one of the most dominant news platforms in America, into shutting down anyone who isn’t pro-Kamala. pic.twitter.com/nwbwfRY3zf
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) October 29, 2024
“Again, understand the mission from these supposed guardians of free speech and American liberty: silence the opposition the WEEK BEFORE THE 2024 ELECTION,” he continued. “They can’t get away with it, and they won’t. If ever you doubted that The New York Times is part of the Democrat-Media Human Centipede (see below), doubt no longer.”
Shapiro posted screenshots of headlines by The New York Times Editorial Board and its columnists, and news division during the same time frame that Media Matters conducted its search.
The examples included:
- The newspaper endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris with a headline that stated: “The Only Patriotic Choice for President.”
- A columnist from far-left writer Jamelle Bouie that said: “JD Vance’s Blood-and-Soil Nationalism Finds Its Target.”
- A report titled: “At Mar-a-Lago, Extremism is Good for Business.”
- A headline that consumed the entire front page of the newspaper’s opinion section that said: “DONALD TRUMP SAYS HE WILL PROSECUTE HIS ENEMIES, ORDER MASS DEPORTATIONS, USE SOLDIERS AGAINST CITIZENS, ABANDON ALLIES, PLAY POLITICS WITH DISASTERS. BELIEVE HIM.”
Shapiro concluded the thread by posting: “So, The New York Times wants comment? Here’s my comment: kindly, go f*** yourself.”
X owner Elon Musk responded to Shapiro’s post: “The New York Times is a threat to our democracy.”
The New York Times is a threat to our democracy https://t.co/uF9lMuCh5j
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 29, 2024
Other media figures who posted screenshots of similar messages that they received from The New York Times included Andrew Klavan, host of “The Andrew Klavan Show”, Tucker Carlson, head of the Tucker Carlson Network; and Seth Dillon, the CEO of The Babylon Bee.
