A brilliant method has been discovered to get massive PR for your documentary: Carve out a compelling 25-minute clip; Encourage everyone to upload it everywhere on the Internet, for free; Warn that Big Tech media companies (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) will almost certainly take it down – and then watch them remove it!
That counterintuitive approach worked magnificently with a segment of “Plandemic,” a documentary scheduled for full release this summer, produced by filmmaker Mikki Willis through his small company called Elevate.
The portion of the feature that Willis made available for upload consisted (in entirety) of an interview with virologist Judy Mikovits, a PhD scientist who – among other things – claims that patent incentives are a conflict of interest, and that Dr. Anthony Fauci – director of National Institutes of Allergy and Infectiousness Diseases at the National Institutes for Health – has ulterior financial motives in spreading fear about COVID-19. She also claimed he delayed HIV research in the 1980s, allowing the virus to spread, among other claims.
The website for “Plandemic” teases its subject matter:
They named it COVID19. Our leaders of world health predicted millions would die. The National Guard was deployed. Makeshift hospitals were erected to care for a massive overflow of patients. Mass graves were dug. Terrifying news reports had people everywhere seeking shelter to avoid contact. The plan was unfolding with diabolical precision, but the masters of the Pandemic underestimated one thing… the people. Medical professionals and every-day citizens are sharing critical information online. The overlords of big tech have ordered all dissenting voices to be silenced and banned, but they are too late. The slumbering masses are awake and aware that something is not right. Quarantine has provided the missing element: time. Suddenly, our overworked citizenry has ample time to research and investigate for themselves. Once you see, you can’t unsee.
The real surprise was that Google-owned YouTube left the Mikovits segment up as long as it did – seemingly about 24 hours. In that amount of time it went viral and reportedly had 1.6 million views. Because Willis invited widespread sharing of the video, it popped up all over the Internet, generating millions more views. Now it’s a little more difficult to find, as Facebook and Twitter have also found ways to delete and/or down-rank posts of the “Plandemic” segment.
The purpose here is not to delve into the merits or falsehoods of Mikovits’s claims, many which seem far-fetched and have little or no verification in the “Plandemic” vignette. Because of the video’s spread, dozens of commentators have posted critiques around the web. Here’s one of the early reactions posted by a detractor who goes by “ZDoggMD”:
Amusingly, YouTube is filled with unfavorable response videos to “Plandemic” – without allowing the original target of the criticism herself — Mikovits — on the platform! Therefore viewers are not allowed to see Mikovits explain herself in the original’s context. Instead, everyone who discusses or criticizes her claims gets to pick and choose fragments of her case and contextualize them with their own views and biases.
By putting all the voices on its site to mostly criticize Mikovits, but not tolerating her voice, YouTube is not inviting free speech, discourse and debate. Instead it is exercising censorship and one-sided favoritism.
It’s not like it’s up to YouTube to protect Fauci or any other of Mikovits’s objects of criticism. If she is making false accusations, there are libel and defamation remedies through the courts to address that. Meanwhile YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are protected from such litigation under the Communications Decency Act, because they are considered delivery mechanisms (like utilities) through which others convey information.
But now it’s not even deniable (try though they may) that the Big Tech social media companies are biased against conservatives (which Willis and Mikovits do not appear to be) and those who challenge liberal big government orthodoxy and proclamations deemed “harmful.” Similar to its “Plandemic” censorship, YouTube also took down a widely circulated TV station interview with two credible Bakersfield, Calif. doctors who challenged “mainstream” government-issued data and recommendations with regard to COVID-19. To say the Big Tech companies are simple non-biased pass-throughs of others’ communications is simply not true.
Birds fly, fish swim, water is wet, and Google/YouTube, Facebook and Twitter censor.
But Mikki Willis capitalized on their inherent tendencies beautifully, and now will likely see a much larger audience for his documentary this summer than he otherwise would have.
And he may have unearthed a new way to defeat, or at least undermine, the censorship of the liberal giants in Silicon Valley, because “Plandemic” has truly gone viral.