Despite its ongoing censorship and banning of prominent conservatives from its platform, the CEO of Google-owned YouTube collected an award for “free expression” last week.
The nonprofit Freedom Forum, which describes itself as “celebrating the world’s champions of free expression,” decided that Susan Wojcicki met that high bar.
“Every day, YouTube gives people the opportunity to express themselves, and the freedom to feel like they have somewhere that they belong,” a host said on YouTube, while presenting the award.
YouTube is a “signature sponsor” of the Freedom Fund, which presented YouTube’s CEO with the award.
YouTube, a Silicon Valley titan, has become infamous for banning conservatives from its platform.
It has banned former President Donald J. Trump, along with conservative personalities like Stefan Molyneux, Alex Jones, and Sebastian Gorka. Recently, it suspended and demonetized One America News Network (OANN), a new, right-leaning conservative television station. It has also repeatedly suspended conservative personality Steven Crowder, and demonetized his channel.
Further, its parent company Google has been repeatedly accused of suppressing news links from conservative outlets like Breitbart in its search algorithm, essentially stifling traffic to any news websites except corporate-owned mainstream media.
Wojcicki said while accepting the award that freedom of expression was important to her because both of her parents had been persecuted. Her father, she said, was a political dissident in Poland after World War II, and her mother’s side of her family was religiously persecuted. Both of her parents immigrated to the United States.
“I’ve just seen the real benefits that freedom of speech has, as well as representing people of all different backgrounds and all different perspectives, and that the freedoms we have, we really can’t take for granted,” she said. “We really have to make sure we’re protecting them in every way possible, and I feel because of my family history, a deep connection to those freedoms, and I’m very thankful for the freedoms that I have.”
Watch the award ceremony:
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Pete D’Abrosca is a contributor at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Freedom Expression Awards & Festival by Freedom Forum and photo “Susan Wojcicki” by Female Founders Fund.
