Kyle Rittenhouse is seen with his AR-15 patrolling the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin on the night he killed two men and injured a third Yesterday morning, the judge dropped Rittenhouse’s weapons charge after the defense successfully argued that it is illegal for anyone under 18 to carry a 'short-barreled rifle' - a rifle with a barrel shorter than 16 inches - but that the barrel of Rittenhouse's gun was longer and therefore legal to carry in Wisconsin. These were knowledgeable attorneys, many of whom were critical of the obvious weaknesses in the prosecution's case.
One of his main points is that news outlets claimed Rittenhouse illegally had a gun at the time of the shooting, but that charge was dismissed Monday.Īddressing the YouTube suspensions, Carlson wrote, ‘Just minutes after the judge in the case dismissed the gun charge, YouTube, which is owned by Google, censored the video streams of several independent legal experts who were commenting on the trial in real time.
Rekieta Media data analytics show that it lost about 40,000 viewers during the suspensionįox News talk show host Tucker Carlson commented on the incident, titled ‘Media and Big Tech lied about the Kyle Rittenhouse case - here's the truth,’ in which he argued that mainstream media reports were contradicting what was happening in the trial. The Daily Mail reached out to YouTube for comment, but has not heard back. Rekieta Media features multiple lawyers giving their analyses of contentious trials in real time, and yesterday amassed almost 90,000 viewers. Shortly after, Rekieta Media shared another tweet commenting on the incident, which read, ‘Today, is pushing down independent creators in favor of BOGUS copyright from Media Partners YT consistently shows that creators who actually build their platform are disfavored to media. dropped us by FORTY THOUSAND viewers over a BS copyright claim because they are literally paid for by the Media … THERE IS NO COPYRIGHT ISSUE HERE, Youtube is just shutting down independent creators.’ Then, five minutes later, the group tweeted that the issue was resolved and their stream was back up, writing, ‘We're BACK UP. Rekieta Media tweeted at 12:10pm, as the stream was happening, ‘HEY YOU BLOCKED MY STREAM?!? FIX THIS SHIT.’Ībout seven minutes later, the law group tweeted again, writing, ‘hey This is a PUBLIC HEARING and there is no copyright issue. YouTube shut the stream down.’Įventually, they get the stream up and running again, but not before noting that 40,000 viewers left during the technical difficulties.
Several minutes later, the issue is still interrupting their video as ReKieta says, ‘I don’t know how to articulate how angry I am right now. They continue switching between video of the trial, noting that PBS has stayed up the whole time, as the lawyer adds, ‘You can’t copyright public domain.’ They’re saying the court audio is copyrighted audio? This makes no sense.’ The streams appears to cut in and out as Rekieta tries to determine what is happening and alternates between different coverage of the trial before one lawyer in the chat says, ‘This is not making any sense.
In a livestream featuring eight lawyers, Nick Rekieta, the group’s founder, says, ‘I got a warning that says, heads up, we’ve detected copyrighted audio in your stream, your stream might be temporarily blocked.’
The company claimed the channels were using 'copyrighted audio,' despite footage from the trial being public domain All channels are either conservative-leaning or centrist, however liberal channels like CBS and PBS appeared to have no issues with their streams of the trial. In addition to Rekieta Media, news group Law and Crime, video-streaming platform Odysee and right-of-center political commentator The Amazing Lucas had their streams suspended. However, it's not clear what the company thought was copyrighted in the livestreams that it suspended or why it only cut out, intermittently, for about 20 minutes. It is against YouTube's terms and conditions to use copyrighted content, meaning the site could suspend videos and streams that do. But law group, Rekieta Media, lost about 40,000 viewers - nearly half the people watching their video. Once the company determined the videos were not in violation of copyright law, they were all back up and running. The tech giant intermittently suspended at least four different channels for a 20-minute period during the trial’s closing arguments, over what the company called 'policy violations' for using copyrighted audio – despite trial footage being in the public domain. YouTube censored the livestreams of a number of independent law groups who were streaming the Kyle Rittenhouse trial Monday with commentary, briefly suspending their videos after Judge Bruce Schroeder dropped the Kenosha shooter’s charge of illegal possession of a firearm.