Ken Jennings has had his podcast’s YouTube channel temporarily suspended after the video-sharing platform flagged an old episode as “hate speech.”
The Jeopardy! host has co-hosted The Ombinus Project podcast with his longtime friend, John Roderick, since 2017, and the pair also runs the Omnibus Futurelings Facebook page in connection with the show. On Tuesday (March 10), Roderick shared an update on the Facebook page, revealing how YouTube had banned the podcast channel.
“Here’s a nice example of how AI is improving our lives. You see, @youtube has flagged as “hate speech” the episode of The Omnibus Project where @whoiskenjennings and I spent an hour debunking the Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” Roderick explained.
The episode, which was first published on Oct 10, 2019, saw Jennings and Roderick discussing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an antisemitic hoax and forgery claiming to detail a Jewish plot for global domination.
Roderick said YouTube offered them the chance to “appeal,” which was rejected within six hours without explanation. “Now they have locked our account from posting anything until June 6th,” he added.
“The most charitable excuse is that YouTube is using AI for content moderation (having fired all the kids who used to do it half-manually), and the “appeal” runs through the AI a second time,” Roderick continued. “A less charitable explanation is that somewhere in the chain of custody was one Gen Z intern fielding fifty appeals a second using AI to make all the decisions and that kid did not know what the words ‘protocol’ or ‘Zion’ mean.”
Roderick said YouTube “should be embarrassed” and encouraged them to resolve it. “This kind of thing makes the world ACTIVELY STUPIDER by making UNAPOLOGETIC STUPIDITY company policy,” he stated. “Somewhere up the executive chain there is a vice-president who put AI in charge of this and I hope AI makes the decisions regarding their medical care when they get old.”
Fans reacted to the news, with one Reddit user writing, “Just another example of how Google (YouTube’s parent company) really doesn’t care about anyone or anything except making the most money for itself.”
“I am so sorry to hear this John. It’s been a while since I’ve listened to that episode. But without a doubt it was not antisemitic. Just because you discussed antisemitism does not mean it’s an endorsement,” added one Facebook poster.
“Sorry to hear, Ai is not the answer to everything, let us know how we can help,” said another.
Another wrote, “We really need an alternative to youtube. I mean a viable one.”
“Ah yes the platform where people have had to learn to say stuff like “unalived” thinks it can tell the difference between antisemitism and a discussion about antisemitism,” said one commenter.
“Well I’m going to go subscribe to the podcast now, so there’s that,” added another.
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