Google's video-sharing site YouTube began hosting a channel for The Church of Scientology last month. It's a "sponsored" channel, so Scientology pays for the privilege as well as for the Scientology ads YouTube also began serving in April. Now a group of Scientology critics have accused Google of banning users critical of Scientology in order to win the Church's advertising business.

They say that it isn't a coincidence that a week before Scientology began its YouTube campaign, YouTube banned Scientology critic Mark Bunker because, using a previous account, he once posted a copyrighted clip to the site. Perhaps it makes since that banned users shouldn't allowed to rejoin YouTube, these critics say, but then Scientology itself — once banned from the site for posting videos that revealed other users' private information, including[pictures, names and locations — shouldn't be allowed to create a new account either. Bunker, commenting on a Blogoscoped post on the subject, writes:

I don't expect YouTube to turn away the cash cow of Scientology and ban them from their service the way they banned me. YouTube will allow Scientology to say it was a subsidiary or a file clerk who opened the canceled account and not the same corporate entity as the paid channel but that is just crap.

2:00 PM on Fri May 9 2008
By Nicholas Carlson
827 views
10 comments

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scalawag at 02:33 PM on 05/09/08
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Don't be Evil indeedy!
Jackson West at 03:09 PM on 05/09/08
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Guess Sky Dayton really got the hooks into those Google people when Earthlink went in on that San Francisco Wi-Fi plan.
jackparsons at 04:11 PM on 05/09/08
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Compared to framing people for attempted murder and breaking into the offices of the federal government, this is a kinder, gentler sort of bullying.
raincoaster at 11:16 PM on 05/09/08
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May 10th, y'all.

DrupalCamp Vancouver is two blocks away from the Scientology headquarters; there will be a LOT of very good cameras and power Flickrers in a prankster mood tomorrow.
raincoaster at 11:18 PM on 05/09/08
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[raincoaster.com]
and
[drupalcampvancouver.org]
jackparsons at 02:37 AM on 05/10/08
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@raincoaster:

GoddessMined = Win
IRL Raid = Fail by the boatload.
raincoaster at 08:12 PM on 05/11/08
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@jackparsons: Hardly. I used to help Greenpeace organize protests, and do you have any IDEA how hard it is to get people out? This has motivated a lot of people that the social change movement had written off entirely.
camas22 at 05:03 AM on 05/12/08
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the blog post contains google ads that point to scientology's site.
raincoaster at 11:54 AM on 05/12/08
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@camas22: Take it up with Matt; he put those ads on my blog, I certainly didn't.
raincoaster at 11:57 AM on 05/12/08
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@camas22: Comment eating monster strikes again.

I SAID: tell it to Matt. He and Automattic put those ads on my site; I certainly didn't. I haven't even seen them, since regular WP.com bloggers don't see them. A lot don't even know they're there.