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WASHINGTON – The author of a soon-to-be-released book on Christian apologetics, “The Magic Man in the Sky: Effectively Defending the Christian Faith,” is questioning the motives behind the termination of the immensely popular PPSimmons Ministry account on YouTube.
Where once one of the more popular God and Country YouTube Channels – with more than 23,000 subscribers, 530-plus videos and 21 million views – could be accessed, now a barren page is found, save for a message. The message reads: “This account has been terminated due to repeated or severe violations of our Community Guidelines and/or claims of copyright infringement.”
For Pastor Carl Gallups, one of the people behind the popular PPSimmons YouTube Ministry, seeing a channel disabled he has worked tirelessly to build and promote since 2009 was devastating.
“It was as if you have a thriving business and you came to work one day and the building was burnt down and everything you had created was gone. Instantly,” he told WND.
Gallups, whose “The Magic Man in the Sky: Effectively Defending the Christian Faith,” will be released May 15, was one of the original founders of the PPSimmons Ministry on YouTube.
Through his involvement with producing and recording more than 530 videos, Gallups was once named “Worst People in the World” by Keith Olbermann on his now-defunct MSNBC show. Videos from the PPSimmons YouTube channel were featured on CNN, “The Rachel Maddow Show” and Fox News.
The PPSimmons site was known for producing videos on biblical commentary, startling biblical revelations and, perhaps most controversially, political revelations concerning Barack Obama and his birth certificate.
The PPSimmons Ministry Channel was in excellent standing with YouTube before it was pulled last week, according to Gallups.
Of more than 530 videos released over a three-year time span, with a number of them having more than a million views, only three had come to the attention of YouTube and been “flagged” for potentially inappropriate content.
“When we first got started in 2009, we did a video on abortion that was flagged by YouTube for being too graphic,” said Gallups.
Immediately, he said, the video was pulled and PPSimmons was placed on probation for a period of time before it was completely restored to a “Good Standing” rating with YouTube.
“Since then, we haven’t had any problems with YouTube and have been grateful for having a platform to grow our ministry to the point that it became viral sensation that touched the lives of tens of thousands of people,” said Gallups.
It was only three weeks ago that PPSimmons came to the attention of YouTube again, with the posting of George Zimmerman’s 911 call.
“The media wasn’t doing their job in covering the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman affair,” said Gallups, who before becoming a minister spent 10 years in law enforcement. “Truth has since vindicated Zimmerman after the initial media onslaught.”
The recording was in the headlines because NBC famously quote Zimmerman saying, “This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black.”
But NBC had edited out critical parts of the conversation. In reality, Zimmerman said, “This guy looks like he’s up to no good. Or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about.”
The operator then asked: “OK, and this guy – is he black, white or Hispanic?
Zimmerman said, “He looks black.”
Gallups explained that the posting was the complete four-minute version of the call.
“That same video is all over YouTube, but they flagged the video,” he said. “We appealed the decision, and in a few days YouTube responded and admitted that they were wrong, and the video was restored, and so was our Good Standing status.”
The temporary victory was short-lived, as Gallups tried to log on to the PPSimmons account a few days later only to find the “terminated” notice.
“Though YouTube restored the Zimmerman 911 call video, we received notice that the channel was terminated because another video was flagged, and we had received too many warnings to continue to allow our channel to operate,” he said.
The video that YouTube flagged and used to closed down the PPSimmons channel was titled “A Call to Prayer” and remains on Gallups’ site.
“It was a simple video, in my voice, urging our subscribers to pray for YouTube users who were asking for our prayers and because of spiritual battles that they were experiencing in their life,” said Gallups.
It calls for prayer for those who are caught in the “demonic grip” of homosexuality, masturbation and pot smoking, “and they don’t even know it.”
It explains drug and sexual addictions are “not the way of a true believer.”
“We are not here to help people feel good about their sins,” the video explains.
Gallups said one can see videos on YouTube that attack Christianity, demonize and bully proponents of traditional marriage and call Muslims to prayer, “but to make a video calling for Christians to pray is ostensibly grounds for having your channel terminated.”
“To make matters worse, the termination of the YouTube channel occurred two weeks prior to the release of my book, ‘The Magic Man in the Sky,’ and at the same time I was doing interviews across the nation on talk radio concerning the Sheriff Joe Arpaio investigation into President Obama’s birth certificate ordeal,” said Gallups.
“This is unfairly impugning the character of anyone who is involved with PPSimmons and, worse, we have no chance to appeal this decision nor any reason to suspect why it was pulled,” said Gallups.
WND sent an email request for comment to YouTube but got not response.
In the meantime, Gallups has started the Carl Gallups YouTube Channel and is uploading many of the videos that were featured on the terminated PPSimmons channel.
“If this channel gets terminated, we’ll have a better idea of why,” said Gallups.
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Lou Buren of TWAU BLOG: How sad it is that youTube saw fit to delete this preachers video work. I know the Christian haters out there love to flag Christian video's left and right for youtube review. Just to make problems for the person uploading the videos. I like how the preacher stated he wasn't looking to make anyone feel good about their sin. Because that's what many secularized preachers do today.
If you truly want to help people with their sin, tell them the true consequences and that you must repent from your sins! Walk away from sin! It's hard, I know I have struggled with sin for a very long time. But it can be overcome with the help of Jesus. If YouTube is going to start deleting Christian content I would suggest to video uploaders to switch to GodTube.
If all of the Christian video uploaders went to Godtube it would certainly hurt YouTube's profits.
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