Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Did Google Censor Alan Dershowitz Videos?

A lawsuit filed in U.S. district court in California alleges that YouTube has unfairly restricted access to videos produced by Prager University, a group founded by conservative pundit Dennis Prager.

Among the videos YouTube had censored, according to Prager’s lawsuit, is a five-minute clip in which Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz explains the legal basis for the founding of the state of Israel. “How can this worldwide attack on Israel alone be explained?” Dershowitz asks in the video. “It is pure bigotry. And there’s a word for this bigotry: anti-Semitism.”

YouTube, which is owned by Google, explained that some of Prager’s videos were given restricted access because they were inappropriate for a younger audience.

Banned videos included also the titles: “The Ten Commandments: Do Not Murder,” and “The World’s Most Persecuted Minority: Christians.”

In the lawsuit, Prager claimed that “Google/YouTube censorship is entirely ideologically driven” and described the decision to restrict access to his videos as “arbitrary and capricious.”

Contact Nathan Guttman at [email protected] or on Twitter @nathanguttman

A message from our editor-in-chief Jodi Rudoren

We're building on 127 years of independent journalism to help you develop deeper connections to what it means to be Jewish today.

With so much at stake for the Jewish people right now — war, rising antisemitism, a high-stakes U.S. presidential election — American Jews depend on the Forward's perspective, integrity and courage.

—  Jodi Rudoren, Editor-in-Chief 

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.