Conservative media outlet The Daily Wire moved their Tuesday roundtable discussion show Backstage behind their streaming service’s paywall after podcast host Candace Owens was banned from YouTube.
The outlet released a video featuring author and fellow podcast host Michael Knowles detailing their decision to remove the latest episode of Backstage from YouTube and stream it exclusively on DailyWire+.
Knowles introduced the video by noting the outlet’s latest release and first true crime documentary series Convicting a Murderer, hosted by Owens, was one of the biggest releases for the outlet’s streaming service.
Convicting a Murderer has received over 8 million views, according to Knowles, and is currently the second most popular television documentary series on Rotten Tomatoes.
“YouTube, you see, hates us,” Knowles said, referencing the video streaming service’s “vague … tyrannical guidelines” and “proclivity to censor conservative voices.
“[YouTube] has once again banned my friend Candace, prohibiting her from posting or appearing on any of The Daily Wire’s YouTube channels.”
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Knowles said Owens’ ban shouldn’t be a “shock” for viewers. He noted other Daily Wire hosts had previously been in “YouTube jail” and referenced his week-long ban from the platform in June for allegedly violating YouTube’s “hate speech” policy. The Daily Wire host joked he may be re-banned on the platform for mentioning Owens’ name.
“If you wanna see the show tonight, you’re gonna have to head on over to dailywire.com” — the “exclusive destination” for Tuesday’s Backstage.
Owens’ Convicting a Murderer documents the controversial case of Steven Avery’s murder of Teresa Halback. The documentary series rivals streaming service Netflix’s 2015 documentary series Making a Murderer which also covered Avery’s case.
“We’re kind of in this spell right now in American society where they are pursuing this plot line everywhere that the villains are actually the heroes,” Owens said, referencing Netflix’s sympathetic framing of Avery’s case. “When it trips over into real life, it gets quite dangerous.”
The documentary host noted a theory that Halback was still alive had been speculated following Netflix’s coverage of the case.
“You had the majority of people willing to believe it because of a documentary,” she said, questioning why people trusted documentaries more than feature-length fictional movies. “Netflix does this over and over again. They love a ‘villain is actually the hero’ story.”
Fellow podcast host and co-founder of The Daily Wire Ben Shapiro referred to his experience with litigation.
“If you spin reasonable doubt to mean literally any doubt, you can construct any story you could possibly want to construct,” Shapiro said. “You can go through the evidence and you can find the most crazy explanations for things and then hook those together.”
Owens’ Convicting a Murderer attempts to correct Netflix’s framing of Avery’s case.
During a Wednesday appearance on comedian Russel Brand’s podcast, Owens commented on her recent YouTube ban.
“I think all of my strikes I’ve gotten on YouTube are all pertaining to the topic of pedophilia,” she said. “As a parent, this is my hill to die on.”
.@RealCandaceO to @rustyrockets on YouTube censorship: "I think all of my strikes I've gotten on YouTube are all pertaining to the topic of pedophilia… And as a parent, this is my hill to die on." pic.twitter.com/OTDh7qMxrw
— Candace Owens Podcast (@CandaceOwensPod) September 13, 2023
“The YouTube censorship surrounding that topic makes me very uncomfortable,” she said.
