Gavin McInnes, a man you may know for having co-founded Vice magazine, creating the “Proud Boys” — a far-right hate group who were in attendance at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville — and generally being a type of human so shitty the nation of Australia deemed him unworthy of entry, has been banned from YouTube. According to a report from the Daily Beast, McInnes had over 220,000 followers on the platform before his account was removed for “third-party claims of copyright infringement.” Earlier this week, McInnes parted ways with Blaze Media, which hosted his talk show, Get Off My Lawn. Blaze Media would not comment on the ousting, saying only, “Blaze Media no longer has a relationship with Gavin McInnes.”
Earlier this year, McInnes was banned from Twitter in anticipation of a redux of the Unite the Right rally, Unite the Right 2. (Unite the Right 1.0 rally organizer and white nationalist Jason Kessler was previously a Proud Boy, but was later kicked out of the group following the violent outcome of the event.) Twitter said his account violated its policies “prohibiting violent extremist groups.” He’s also been banned from Amazon, PayPal, Facebook, and Instagram after several members of the Proud Boys attacked Antifa protesters outside of a Republican club in Manhattan where McInnes was speaking. The Southern Poverty Law Center classifies the Proud Boys as an extremist hate group known for being anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic, and anti-woman. But I’m glad YouTube has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to copyright infringement — the really important thing here! It’s not like a hate-mongering racist — oh wait, that’s right, the Proud Boys say they aren’t racist — should be de-platformed just for being a hate-mongering racist.
