Where did they go? Last month, nine PragerU videos either disappeared from Facebook or did not appear in the feeds of PragerU’s three million Facebook followers.
PragerU – founded almost a decade ago by popular radio talk show host Dennis Prager – produces a five-minute video every week featuring a prominent personality discussing an important cultural, political, or historical topic. This year alone, PragerU videos will have been seen a billion times if current viewing trends continue.
Facebook claimed PragerU’s videos were deleted or blocked by mistake and apologized. But Prager has faced tech censorship before. YouTube, for example, has classified several dozen of PragerU videos as “restricted,” which means children can’t see them without parental approval.
Other right-wing personalities have been “suspended” or expelled from social media sites altogether. To discuss this topic in greater depth, The Jewish Press recently spoke with Prager.
The Jewish Press: Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter have increasingly been silencing conservative voices. This behavior seems odd considering that free speech and the free exchange of ideas are basic American values. How do they justify this behavior?
Prager: They justify it by using the term “hate speech.” Leftists – unlike liberals – do not believe in free speech for speech they differ with.
Leftism has nothing in common with liberalism, except for belief in big government. Leftism also seeks to undermine the religious basis of Western civilization, and until people understand [these two facts], there is no hope for the West. Barack Obama said in 2008 right before the election, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” That’s what the left aims to do – fundamentally transform the United States of America.
You currently are suing YouTube for restricting PragerU videos – including videos on such topics as the Korean War, e-cigarettes, and gun control. Why would YouTube restrict these videos?
There is little rhyme or reason as to why those specific videos were restricted. To the extent that there is any logic, YouTube seems to target: a) videos that defend America; b) videos that defend Israel; c) videos that criticize the Islamic world; and d) videos that make the case for God and religion.
Conservatives often criticize liberals for their knee-jerk tendency to sue anyone and everyone who harms them in some way. Assuming you agree with this criticism, why are you suing YouTube? After all, it’s a private company – can’t it do what it wants?
If Google, the owner of YouTube, would announce it is a left-wing advocacy group, that would make a lawsuit harder to defend. But it claims to be an open forum. So, it is misleading the public.
But even then there would be reason to sue Google. Here is a helpful analogy: If Delta Airlines prohibited every passenger carrying the Wall Street Journal from boarding one of its airplanes, would that be allowed? The answer is no. Public service providers have certain obligations even if they are privately owned.
Many free market enthusiasts would disagree.
I would be interested in knowing their names. I am a huge believer in the free market, as is the Wall Street Journal, which has written numerous editorials against what Google/YouTube is doing to PragerU.
Several alternatives to Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter exist. They’re fairly small, but do you think conservatives en masse may join them one day and abandon the main social media sites if these sites continue shutting down conservative voices? In other words, is Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter playing with fire – from a business standpoint – by silencing conservative voices?
Even if conservatives did abandon these sites, PragerU has no desire to reach only [one demographic]. We are known as the most effective conservative voice in terms of changing minds – especially the minds of young people. This year we will have one billion views, and 65 percent of them are people under the age of 35.
Some PragerU videos advance opinions that your average American – even your average conservative – probably has never heard before. One video, for example, defends the British Empire, which most people today regard as an example of evil colonialism. Why is this mainstream view wrong?
The professor giving that course – H.W. Crocker III – does not defend colonialism as such. But not all moral issues are purely good or evil. He wants people to understand the good that came from British colonialism. America is one obvious example. But the most dramatic example is India.
Thanks to British colonialism, India became a democracy, all Indians were able communicate with one another (because of English) for the first time in Indian history, and the Indian practice of sati – by which widows were burned on their husband’s funeral pyres – was abolished.
Another video claims that – contrary to everything we’ve been taught to believe – self-esteem is bad, not good, for you. Can you explain why?
The self-esteem movement is one of the worst things to come out of the 1970s. First of all, self-esteem must be earned, not given. Unearned self-esteem has a name: narcissism. When kids are given medals and trophies even though they or their team actually won nothing, they think they’re wonderful for no reason.
Second, children with high self-esteem are rarely good people – and rarely grow up to be good people. Ask the kindest adults you know if they had high self-esteem as children. The answer will almost always be no.
How would you explain such a correlation?
Few children have earned self-esteem, and unearned self-esteem creates an inflated view of oneself. So children who have it think they are the center of the world. Equally important: Children with self-esteem do not believe they have to earn self-esteem, and will not, therefore, act in ways to earn it.
Yet another video argues that men should be more masculine while secular society usually calls on men to acquire more feminine traits. Why are they wrong?
God created men and women. They are not the same. Men should embody masculine traits and women feminine traits.
The movement to abolish male-female distinctions is, in my opinion, one of the most destructive of the many destructive movements of our time. It is leading to the (inevitable) denial that there even is such a thing as male and female.
Why shouldn’t men perhaps be more like women – nicer, more docile, more compassionate, able to find greater satisfaction in staying at home rather than working, etc.?
Forgive me, but I do not believe women are nicer, more compassionate, etc. I think there are as many awful women as there are awful men and as many kind men as there are kind women.
Regarding men who stay at home: Where it is economically necessary, I completely understand it. But few women are attracted to men “who find greater satisfaction in staying at home rather than working.” Ask women who are looking to marry how they would react to a man who writes that he wants to stay at home after marriage on his dating site profile.
You were not a strong supporter of Donald Trump during the campaign but are today. What changed?
While I strongly opposed Trump’s getting the Republican nomination, I never doubted for a moment whether I would support him if he were nominated. And, indeed, from the day he was nominated until today, I have passionately supported him.
So, the question “What changed?” does not apply to me. It does apply to the president, however. In terms of accomplishments – not rhetoric – Donald Trump has become, as of this moment (anything can happen in the future), a great president.
For those who love America and its distinctive value system and, most important, for those who understand that everything the left destroys it ruins – the universities, the high schools, art and music, Judaism, Christianity, the economy of every country whose economy it has shaped, free speech, male-female relations, the family, the Boy Scouts, the military, support for Israel – this president may have saved this country and much of the world (at least, for the time being) from left-wing nihilism.
You host a three-hour radio show every day. How long does it take you to prepare and do you ever find it overwhelming?
It takes hours a day. To be aware of what is happening in America and the world, I generally read newspapers and other websites until about midnight. I am a night person, and because the show begins at 9:00 a.m. Pacific time and I live in California, I have to do my news reading at night. When I broadcast from the East Coast, I do more preparation in the morning since the show starts at noon Eastern time.
However, the good news for me and, apparently, many listeners, is that I do not talk only about the news. I broadcast at least three hours a week that have nothing to do with the news: the “Ultimate Issues Hour” on Tuesdays, the “Male-Female Hour” on Wednesdays, and the “Happiness Hour” on Fridays.
What’s next for you?
I am the president of one of the largest video sites – and the largest conservative video site – in the world, PragerU, and we are deeply influencing millions of young people around the world.
My biggest personal current project is finishing my five-volume commentary on the Torah for people of every background – Orthodox and secular Jews, Christians, members of every other faith, agnostics, and atheists. Volume one came out this year and became the number one non-fiction best-selling book in America – something unprecedented for a Bible commentary. Genesis comes out early next year.
I believe the Torah is from God, but I make the case for that belief and for the Torah’s greatness solely on rational grounds. Since I was in yeshiva in high school, my dream was to help bring the Torah to the world.
Of course, I also hope to continue broadcasting my national radio show and lecturing to more and more and people. Beyond all that and writing my autobiography – tentatively titled A Man, A Jew, An American, – “what’s next” is time with my wife, children, grandchildren, and friends.