My Podcast was Censored

Trigger Warning Censorship, imperialism, racism, patriarchy

I launched my long awaited anti-imperialist podcast this last Saturday Oct 29, 2022. It’s called “Shmashup”, referring to smashing both the patriarchy and the empire. The name also refers to the process of making a podcast — combining different thoughts / people / voices and editing it all together. “Shmashup” is me creating something out of the destruction of imperialism.

I published the announcement video on YouTube and other platforms and Shmashup was finally live!

The next thing I knew, Substack was censoring me. They said I "potentially" violated their terms of use.

Screenshot. Image description: Orange font on a yellow background that reads: “We’ve limited your publishing abilities due to a potential violation of Substack’s terms of use. If this was a mistake, please contact our Trust and Safety team here.” The “here” is underlined to show a link.

They didn't say what the "violation" was except vague language about my email list. Except that everyone on my Substack list subscribed themselves. I didn’t add anyone.

But it doesn't matter what I did or didn't do. It never does.

I have years of experience being censored. That's what happens to Indigenous Hindu women like me. Currently I'm being censored on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Substack.

Screenshot. Image description: Black font on a white background says “Notifications” at the top. Then below that next to a Facebook icon, it reads: “You ahve been restricted from accessing some Facebook features. Go to your Support…” Beneath that is a time notification in blue that says “about an hour ago”.

I'm not just restricted on Facebook. I'm blocked from even logging in. No matter what I do or how long I wait for the log in page to load, it doesn’t.

Screenshot. Image description: The log in page of Facebook showing a top bar in dark blue with “Facebook” on the left and the log in email box on the right. Beneath that on a white background there is a text box that reads: “Something Went Wrong”. Beneath that reads: “Please try closing and re-opening your browser window.”

It's been like this for over 9 months now. Facebook has never given me a reason. They won't even tell me I'm blocked. What reason would they give anyway? There is none other than I'm an Indigenous Hindu woman and I won't be quiet about imperialism.

So I tried starting an Instagram account. The moment I did, this happened:

Screenshot. Image description: Black font on a white background. At the top left reads “Instagram”. Beneath on the right is a text box that reads: “We suspended your account on October 8, 2022”. Beneath that reads: “There are 30 days remaining to disagree with this decision.” Beneath that is a list of what this means that reads: “Your account doesn’t follow our Community Guidelines.” Next reads: “If we can’t confirm your account, it will be permanently disabled.” Next reads: “This account isn’t visible to people on Instagram right now, and you can’t use it.” Beneath reads: “What can I do?” And beneath reads: You still have 30 days left to disagree with this decision. We’ll take you through some steps to request a review.” And below that is a button in blue that says “Disagree with decision”.

I didn't even get a chance to post anything on Instagram and I was suspended. So how could I have violated their Community Guidelines? By existing?

Meanwhile, I also tried Twitter. I tweeted just once and this happened:

Screenshot. Image description: A white background with black, grey and blue font combined. The top is a twitter account with a blue button that says “Tweet” in white font on the right." Beneath that reads in black font: “Your account is permanently suspended”. Beneath that reads in grey font: “After careful review, we determined that your account broke the Twitter Rules. Your account is permanently in read-only mode, which means you can’t Tweet, Retweet, or Like content. You won’t be able to create new accounts. If you think we got this wrong, you can submit an appeal.” “Submit an appeal” is in blue font to show a link.

It was a tweet about imperialism. This was the tweet:

Screenshot Image description: Tweet of black font on a white background that reads: “If we look at the last 2,000 years of history, we start to see a history of Roman imperialism that led to modern day racism and US empire.” Below is this link to an article. Tweet is dated April 20, 2021.

Did you know that there have been people impersonating me on Twitter? They’ve spread lies and slander about me for years by pretending to be me. Twitter let it happen. None of those people were suspended immediately. I didn't even know about it until I tried starting a Twitter account and found myself suspended for no reason.

There have also been impersonating accounts of me on Facebook and YouTube. They probably also exist on Instagram and who knows where else. I can't keep up. It's exhausting to try.

It's only a matter of time before YouTube censors me. The fact that I don't monetize my videos helps because they can't use money as a weapon the way YouCaring did to me (yes I was also censored by YouCaring who took down my fundraiser).

However, not monetizing my videos on YouTube also means that I can't make money from my labor in producing these videos. I have well over a million views on my channel and I've not received one penny from them while others on YouTube have made money on millions of views by making videos slandering me. I'm their clickbait.

See how the entire system is set up to silence and censor and impoverish and disempower brown Hindu women like me?

I started Shmashup because we must build a movement to end the imperialist war machine. If we don't, there is no hope of defending Mother Earth from mass extinction, either from climate change or nuclear holocaust. This movement is vital for our survival as a species and as a planet.

So why am I censored?

Because I'm effective.

There are a lot of people ranting out there. They don't get censored because they're not effective at changing anyone's mind.

I'm effective, though. I can make people who hate me think completely differently about an issue if they just listen for a few minutes. If they listen once, they keep listening because they know in their gut I'm speaking truth. Even when they scream and shout and send me death threats, it's because they want to protect their privilege from the facts.

I'm good at what I do and that's why I'm censored.

This is why it's important that you follow me on as many platforms as possible. Following on lots of platforms lessens the chances that I'll be totally censored.

I've listed the platforms below. As time goes by, I'll add more once I can figure them out. This is all, of course, extra labor for me.

Some of these platforms are right wing. Yes, right wing. I don't have the luxury of left wing snobbery. I'm not on these platforms because I give a damn about the artificial left/right paradigm. I'm there because these platforms say they don't censor. It's likely they'll censor me anyway once I say something about white supremacy (which will be immediately). We'll see.

Please subscribe to resist the censorship I'm constantly subjected to.

Subscribe on YouTube

Subscribe on Rumble

Subscribe on Locals

Subscribe on Substack

Subscribe on Bitchute

Add me on Twitter

Substack finally resolved the issue and lifted the block. They said "one of our platform safety detection mechanisms erroneously flagged your publication as spam". Twitter hasn't responded yet. Try to add me there for now and we'll see what happens.

By the way, check that you're actually subscribed after you subscribe. YouTube is known for deleting subscribers to anti-imperialist channels.

And please share the podcast with your friends and family. If you care about human rights, racism, climate change, Indigenous rights, gender justice, economic justice, and more, the war machine is the biggest obstacle to our collective liberation.

For now check out and share Episode 1: Who was Smedley Butler? It premiere's today at 12noon PST.

Contribute

PS: Your ability to use social media without a second thought is a privilege most people don't even realize they have.