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What Happened to Appropriating Legitimacy?

February 26, 2019 by Grant Hurst 1 Comment

If you’ve been following me on Twitter or my community posts on YouTube than you know that my video on Holocaust Denial has been deleted. If you look elsewhere on the site, you’ll notice that the post for that video is still up, and there is a functioning video still there. I will explain everything you need to know, and some of my thoughts on the matter up to now.

I started work on the video in early December 2018. A pair of friends and myself were going to read Deborah Lipstadt’s Denying the Holocaust and discuss it like some kind of book club. As I read the book I got the feeling that this would make a video, so I began to take notes on what I was reading, and once that book was finished I went and found more books about Holocaust Denial and took notes on those as well. Shortly after the start of the new year I reorganized those notes into an outline for a video, and then turned that outline into a script, which was eventually recorded and edited into the video that was released and then deleted.

Before I even filmed the video, though, I created an intro that serviced as a trailer for the upcoming video, but this trailer wasn’t made public. The original trailer possessed footage the had watermarks from a stock video company called Critical Past. I was waiting to get some footage from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) to replace that watermarked footage. Before I got that footage, however, YouTube responded negatively to the video, which had not been made public, and was only shared with Patrons and a few other creators whom I was seeking feedback from. Not only did they demonetize the video entirely, but they also age restricted it, meaning that the video could not be seen by any user who’s account said they were under 18, or on restricted mode, or at schools. This incident felt ominous.

I eventually got the footage from the USHMM and proceeded to film and record audio for the documentary. On Monday, February 2^nd, 2019, I uploaded the second version of the trailer, which was identical to the first in all ways except the Critical Past watermark was no longer there. It didn’t take long for YouTube to detect the video, but unlike last time the video was just given the yellow dollar sign marker that meant few or no ads would play on the video. That meant it was as good as demonetized, but the fact that it wasn’t age restricted was preferable to what happened to the first version.

On Wednesday, February 6^th, 2019, I uploaded the first version of the video. I avoided putting any reference to the Holocaust in the title or tags of the video in order to avoid it getting caught by the demonetizers. Before it could be caught by a yellow dollar sign it was caught for a copyright dispute filed by Fullscreen on behalf of the Oxford Union. I had used footage from a debate on Holocaust Denial Criminalization that featured Deborah Lipstadt on their channel. I used a fair chunk of the video, so instead of getting caught up in a month long fight over copyrights I decided to go back into Premiere Pro, edit down the amount of their footage I used, and reupload it to YouTube. This, the second version, made it’s way onto YouTube, and was faced with an immediate yellow dollar sign, which I appealed.

While waiting on that appeal I watched the video on YouTube’s player and I heard some sound issues that I wasn’t happy with. So I went back into Premiere Pro, fixed that problem, and uploaded a third version to YouTube. This third version would also be picked up by the yellow dollar sign, and thus I was waiting on both the second and third version’s judgements to come in. I had announced the video’s release for Friday, February 8^th. My plan was to publish the one with better audio if neither had been approved by Friday morning, but as it just so happened, late Thursday night the second version was approved, and so Friday at noon I published that version.

The reception was largely positive. It wasn’t a viral success, but I was satisfied with the final product, and up to this point it is the video I’m most proud of. A couple days later YouTube would decide that the third version, which was exactly the same as the second except for better audio, was deemed not advertiser friendly, and therefore kept its yellow dollar sign. On February 13^th the Associate Press filed a copyright claim for some of the footage I was using in the video. I filed a dispute, claiming that the work I did was substantially transformative. I felt good about the video, and with it I went on to start a tradition I hoped to make a regular thing after uploading a bigger video, a live stream. In that live stream, (streamed on Thursday, February 14^th, 2019) I answered questions about the video, and anything else the viewers asked. Things were looking well, that is, until Monday Morning.

On Monday, February 18^th, 2019, I received an email from YouTube, in which they said, “As you may know, our Community Guidelines describe which content we allow – and don’t allow – on YouTube. Your video ‘Appropriating Legitimacy: The History and Evolution of Holocaust Denial’ was flagged for review. Upon review, we’ve determined that it violates our guidelines. We’ve removed it from YouTube and assigned a Community Guidelines strike, or temporary penalty, to your account.”

This was the first time I had ever had a video deleted by YouTube, or ever had a strike of any kind on my channel. With a single strike in place, I can’t conduct any livestreams. Now, Livestreams hadn’t been a big part of my channel up to that point, but I was planning on making them a bigger part in the near future. So I appealed both the deletion and the community strike, but at this point I have no idea how either are going in the appeals process.

I filed the appeal for the video deletion before I was given the full information about what guideline I had supposedly violated. When I checked, it said I had violated their Community Guidelines on Hate Speech. Their guidelines says I can’t post content that either “Encourage violence against individuals or groups based on the attributes noted above,” which included things like race, gender, sex, orientation, etc, along with forbidding “Dehumanizing individuals or groups by calling them subhuman, comparing them to animals, insects, pests, disease, or any other non-human entity.” Appropriating Legitimacy did neither of these things, but don’t worry, it gets better. Not only does my video not violate any of their hate speech policies, but YouTube actually makes an explicit exception for it on the platform.

Under the subheading of “Educational Content” the Hate Speech policy gives two kinds of exceptions, “a documentary about a hate group: Educational content that isn’t supporting the group or promoting ideas would be allowed” and “A documentary about how theories have changed over time, even if it includes theories about the inferiority or superiority of specific groups, would be allowed because its educational.” Appropriating Legitimacy would have at the very least fallen under the first exception, and arguably under the second. The video was, and is, perfectly suitable for YouTube under its own guidelines.

So why did it happen? Well, at the moment I have three hypotheses. Since YouTube already said the video was advertiser friendly, we know it probably wasn’t an automatic detection by their system that got it flagged. This means that the video must have been flagged by a user. Given this I see two possible options; Option A, someone who didn’t watch the video saw the words Holocaust Denial in the title and decided to flag it, believing that it was actually pro-Holocaust Denial. Option B, someone supportive of Holocaust Denial watched the video, got angry that I mocked them, and decided to falsely flag the video in order to get it taken down. There’s always the possibility of Option C, someone on YouTube dislikes me personally and so they decided to flag the video. Of these three possibilities, Option A seems most likely to me.

I discount option C because I don’t think there’s anyone on the platform that hates me enough to care. Also, I would suspect that if there were people who disliked me personally enough to do this to one video, than they would have done it to other videos. I also discount Option B because I did some snooping around some white supremacist websites, and 4Chan, using incognito mode, and I found nothing referencing my video. A few white supremacists left comments on the video, but not nearly enough to do this. I suspect that the white supremacist community has been rather unaware of my video. This leads me to believe that the most likely answer is that someone who didn’t watch the video assumed that any video that talks about Holocaust Denial is supporting it, and reflexively flagged it. After over a week of the video being deleted, I’m changing tactics in how I engage in the internet content economy. I’m still making videos that will be available for free on YouTube, but I’m gonna be pushing my funding mechanisms more. Patreon, Paypal, Amazon Affiliates, as well as some new comers such as, Merchandise. Unfortunately, that’s all I can really do. However, if you didn’t get to see the video, it’s available here on archive.org.

And do you remember that third version I uploaded with the fixed audio? That version is still up on the channel, and unlisted. I have replaced the second version that had been embedded with the original article with that one, so you can still watch the video here on CasualHistorian.com.

UPDATE: As of March 2nd, 2019, YouTube has lifted the restriction on the YouTube channel hosting live streams, however the Community Guidelines Strike is still in place, and the video is still deleted.

UPDATE: As of May 20th, 2019, the Community Guideline Strike has been removed. The video will be re-uploaded to YouTube with an opening disclaimer about the intent of the video, as well as an addendum to the end in which the situation around the video being deleted will be explained.

Appropriating Legitimacy: The History and Evolution of Holocaust Denial

February 13, 2019 by Grant Hurst Leave a Comment

How does a bad idea start?

Holocaust Denial is one of the most vile forms of historical negationism in the modern world. When we hear about ideas like this, we usually just write it off as anti-Semites being anti-Semitic. And although this may be the case, leaving the story there is unsatisfying, so I decided to do a deep dive into the history of Holocaust Denial, how its arguments have evolved over time, and the development of the international movement. I hope you have some time on your hands, because this isn’t your run of the mill YouTube video. Enjoy.

Book Review: Denying the Holocaust, by Deborah Lipstadt

December 19, 2018 by Grant Hurst 1 Comment

Reading the definitive book on Holocaust Denial 25 Years Later

In 1993 a relatively unknown historian, Deborah Lipstadt, published Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, to little notice outside of the field of Holocaust studies. She initially thought that there wouldn’t be enough material to put together a whole book, and even after successfully doing so she never thought that she would become the public face of the movement to challenge Holocaust Deniers. But this would change after one particular Holocaust Denier, David Irving, discovered her book and her less than flattering portrayal of him, and would eventually sue her for libel in the UK, forcing Lipstadt and Penguin to justify their description of him as a racist, anti-Semitic, holocaust denier. The trial would make both Lipstadt and her book famous, but you don’t hear much about the book itself anymore. The legal drama around it became the focus. Considering the book and legal battle occurred back when I was too young to notice it, and my utter surprise that there hasn’t been a 25^th anniversary edition released, I decided to finally read the book myself, and see what all the hoopla was about.

Ok, so what exactly is the book about? Well, Holocaust Denial, but its not covering what you might assume a book on the subject would be. Most books, articles, and documentaries you find about Holocaust Denial focus on the arguments used by Deniers, and then debunk them. The primary function of these works is to equip people with the necessary information to debate Holocaust Deniers (something that Lipstadt doesn’t do, and advises others not to). Instead, Lipstadt decides to focus on the history and evolution of Denial, all the while warning about the things that inadvertently give Holocaust Deniers more publicity. If you’re looking for something that debunks Holocaust Deniers this isn’t the book you’re looking for. However if it wasn’t for this book and the huge boost in attention that Holocaust Denial received from the trial with David Irving, those other works probably wouldn’t exist. So this book, I believe, is an invaluable piece in your arsenal for debunking Deniers, because even abhorrent ideas have a history of their own. They don’t just come out of the ether.

Lipstadt traces the origins of Holocaust Denial to the WW1 revisionists, those who didn’t agree with the consensus that Germany was solely responsible for the war. They also like to point to allied propaganda during the war that either exaggerated, or outright fabricated atrocities. These pro-German/anti-Allies arguments would form the genesis of the anti-war movement in WW2. The second war saw numerous atrocities publicized, which resulted in numerous revisionists from the previous war questioning the veracity of the reports, considering how many false ones accumulated from the previous war. Even after the war when footage of the concentration camps made it back to the home front many had a hard time believing such a thing could or would have been done. The more extreme revisionists began to justify or minimize the Holocaust, but never denied it. But from the true revisionists, the Deniers would be born, refusing to believe the evidence and the accounts of survivors. From there Lipstadt traces the evolution of Holocaust Deniers through the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s.

The first Deniers were ardently anti-Semitic and openly associated with Neo-Nazis. Their writings are not expansive, and are mostly limited to pamphlets such as Did Six Million Really Die? and The Myth of the Six Million. Even when Holocaust Denial found its way into full length books it was never the main topic, but rather a small part of a bigger attempt to rehabilitate the Nazis and Hitler. The 1970s saw a book with proper scholarly formatting that was fully dedicated to Holocaust Denial in 1976 with The Hoax of the Twentieth Century, by Arthur Butz. It was the first Denial text to go mainstream because it was written by a tenured professor, (he taught electrical engineering, nothing related to history). Holocaust Denial would be openly embraced by some far right historians in the 70s and 80s, among them David Irving, who’s libel suite would make Dr. Lipstadt famous.

While researching the book and afterwards Deborah Lipstadt was asked to debate Holocaust Deniers, but she has always refused. Her primary reason for doing so is as a statement that the Deniers shouldn’t be taken seriously. However, she does believe that the ideas they push forward should be addressed, but they should be addressed with as little attention to the author as possible. This seems like a perfectly reasonable position myself, but something the author kept saying throughout the book would give me pause and force me to rethink her as a scholar. I wasn’t second guessing the historicity of the Holocaust, but every time Lipstadt said that we shouldn’t consider Holocaust Denial as “another side” of the debate had me confused. To me it seemed that it obviously was another side by the sheer fact that it existed.

It took me the entire length of the book to come to an understanding of what she meant by saying that Holocaust Denial wasn’t “another side” of the debate, or at least this is what I think she was getting at. In her mind, she only describes a position as being a genuine side of a debate if the arguments are based on facts and evidence. Because Holocaust Denial doesn’t use actual facts and evidence, it isn’t considered a genuine side of the debate. I personally wouldn’t make that distinction. I prefer making distinctions between well supported sides of a debate, and sides that aren’t supported. But her distinction, it seems, is motivated by ensuring that as few people take Holocaust Denial seriously as possible, and that’s a goal I can sympathize with.

Overall, I would give the book a positive review, and encourage everyone who is interested in both the Holocaust and Holocaust Denial give it a read. Here’s a tip though, if you buy it used on Amazon there’s a fair chance that you will receive an autographed copy.