10 Banned YouTube Creators

Top 10 Banned YouTube Creators

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the Top 10 Banned YouTube Creators.

For this list, we’ll be ranking the YouTube accounts that have been terminated at the time of this writing. The reasoning behind these terminations could vary, but all of these accounts saw their YouTube channels forcibly deleted.

Were you aware of these? Let us know in the comments!

#10: Varg Vikernes

He was one of the most infamous musicians associated with Norway’s Black Metal scene when he went under the moniker of Count Grishnackh. His name is Varg Vikernes: convicted murderer, white supremacist and former YouTuber. Vikernes’s channel, Thulean Perspective, was removed from YouTube in June of 2019 after the platform aggressively ramped up their crackdown on content that, in their words, “alleg[es] that a group is superior in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion.” Thulean Perspective had a quarter million subscribers at the time, while Vikernes himself continued to publish on Twitter and a personal blog.

#9: Owen Benjamin

Our next personality hasn’t just been banned from YouTube, but also Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Owen Benjamin is a comedian by trade, and actually started out acting in movies like “The House Bunny.” But eventually his outspoken political views got his social media accounts in a heap of trouble. Benjamin’s stand-up was largely directed towards a conservative base, but eventually his commentary leaned into anti-Semitic and transphobic content. This got Benjamin’s YouTube channel removed in December of 2019, although the comedian would claim that he took the ban as a “badge of honor.”

#8: LifeSiteNews

The COVID-19 pandemic saw a number of YouTube accounts removed from the platform due to the dangerous spreading of misinformation on various channels. LifeSiteNews was one example of this, although this far-right Catholic conservative group was already controversial prior to the ban. LifeSiteNews’s presence on YouTube was removed in February of 2021 after the channel repeatedly espoused anti-vaccine content, as well as denials of COVID’s severity and danger to the public. The pro-life group was also temporarily suspended from Twitter and permanently banned from Facebook in May 2021. However, the group’s founder, John-Henry Westen, retains a YouTube channel at the time of this writing.

#7: Uriminzokkiri

It isn’t all that often that a state-run news site sees permanent removal from a public platform such as YouTube, but Uriminzokkiri isn’t an average news site. Indeed, this North Korean site often takes material gleaned from the official Korean Central News Agency and syndicates it to its own audience. The site was already banned in South Korea, but 2010 saw Uriminzokkiri increase its social media presence in an attempt to change the perception of North Korean culture around the world. YouTube decided to terminate its channel in 2017 due to legal issues.

#6: Dan Bongino

The résum´ of Dan Bongino, on the surface, is certainly impressive, as the New York City native spent nearly five years with the NYPD, and even worked as a Secret Service agent for over a decade. Bongino also enjoyed a successful career as a conservative personality and multimedia host, working for outlets such as Fox News. One of Bongino’s YouTube channels was temporarily suspended after uploading videos that repeatedly cast doubt on mask effectiveness during the pandemic. Then, in January of 2022, Bongino was permanently banned from the platform after he used a second channel to espouse the same views.

#5: Stefan Molyneux

He’s one of the most controversial, polarizing and visible figureheads of the alt-right political movement, and he’s been banned from a LOT of social media platforms. Stefan Molyneux’s content tends to discuss various conspiracy theories, and his Freedomain website has been linked to the proliferation of racist, sexist and Islamophobic views in the past. Molyneux and Freedomain have even been labeled as a cult by some, including noted mental health counselor Steven Hassan. YouTube permanently banned Molyneux from their platform in January 2020, joining the laundry list of other organizations deciding to do the same, including SoundCloud, PayPal and even Mailchimp.

#4: Fantastic Adventures

It isn’t only political views that can get a YouTube channel permanently banned. The personal channel FamilyOFive was removed multiple times from YouTube on account of its content violating the platform’s policies on child endangerment. The Fantastic Adventures channel had an even more serious scandal on its hands when it was revealed that creator Machelle Hobson had been mistreating her adopted children. The whistle was actually blown on Hobson by her biological daughter, who contacted police long after the Department of Child Safety had reportedly visited the home over a dozen times. Fantastic Adventures was terminated by YouTube, while Hobson died in a hospital in November, 2019 after being found unfit to stand trial for her crimes.

#3: Richard B. Spencer

Sometimes, a creator might attempt to distance themselves from accusations against their content in the hopes it might all go away and they’ll be allowed to continue. Richard Spencer, for his part, goes all-in with his hateful rhetoric and unrepentant racism, regardless of whether or not it gets him banned. Naturally, this DID occur with Spencer’s YouTube channel, right around the same time the platform eliminated the channels of Stefan Molyneux and one-time presidential candidate David Duke. Spencer continues to speak today with lectures and personal appearances, but he also faces pushback and protest every step of the way.

#2: Gavin McInnes

If you weren’t aware of Gavin McInnes when he co-founded Vice back in 1994, then the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol Building almost certainly brought the man’s past affiliations back into the public eye. This was due to an organization called the Proud Boys, a group also founded by McInnes, which has been labeled by its critics as neo-fascist, and even designated in Canada as a terrorist group. McInnes’s YouTube channel was initially banned in 2018 on account of copyright infringement, but was later reinstated, before a June 2020 ban for hate speech hit McInnes once again. The podcast host and writer was also banned from Amazon, PayPal, Twitter and Facebook.
McInnes = https://forvo.com/search/McInnes/sco/ (Please use the last name for the pronunciation)

#1: Alex Jones

There’s arguably no brand that’s been as successful at commercializing (and mobilizing) the far-right political movement more than Alex Jones’s InfoWars. This is despite the near-constant criticism of Jones’s espousing debunked news and false conspiracy theories. YouTube seemed to recognize the danger of Jones’s message, but moved slowly at first, removing four of Jones’s InfoWars videos for “child endangerment and hate speech.” It wasn’t long after, however, that YouTube joined many other platforms in banning Jones’s profile entirely. Jones attempted to go around the ban by reuploading InfoWars content on a different channel, Resistance News, but this was also banned. Jones’s fact-checked appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” however, was successfully uploaded to the site.