Removed For What? Initiations Into Digital Censorship

It’s Rainmaking Time!™
Removed for What? Initiations into Digital Censorship — with Sarah Westall
Host & Interviewer: Kim Greenhouse

Kim: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to It’s Rainmaking Time!™ I’m Kim Greenhouse and I wish we were not doing this particular segment today. It’s called “Removed for What? Initiations into Digital Censorship.” And you would think that it’s not such a big deal today. It’s something that happened in the past. It’s something that happened in other countries around the world. But the US platforms for digital commerce and communication have been serious, serious violators of free speech, of communication. They have taken down businesses, taken down shows, people that invested all their money in their shows, people that developed trust and creativity and felt that these platforms are really there to help us promote ourselves, our work, our contributions, to speak about the things that are of utmost import.

And many of us have found out for many years now that that’s not the case. You forget when you’re producing content for a place like YouTube or Facebook or any other platform that it’s not yours and it’s run by AI. And when you think about it, for example, in 2023, I came back from a trip and in the Charlotte airport recognized that my tribute to my great late doctor, James Privatera, was taken down — and it was taken down going back 12 years retroactively. I could not believe it. And when I looked at what happened, the platform said “medical misinformation.” Now, how can medical misinformation be transmitted on a tribute to your doctor who has passed on? I was furious. And so what I did is I very angrily, but then calmly, came up with an appeal. They said you can appeal this.

I appealed it in 24 hours. I want to read you the appeal, tell you what happened very briefly, and then I want to introduce our guest.

One: this was a tribute to my late doctor who was so loved and appreciated by his California patients. Two: no medical misinformation exists here. Three: we shared what happened legally and his challenges, which is based in facts. Four: this was a commentary about how profound his work was and the medical help he provided to his patients. Five: this was a tribute to Dr. James Privatera after the short opening of the segment with his own voice. Six: it was not prescriptive in any way. There was no medical prescribing, but only the sharing of what happened. Seven: I feel that AI got ahold of this tribute and due to the words that were mentioned, flagged this account. And eight: I’d like this tribute to my late doctor to be reinstated. YouTube should professionally review it minute by minute. Thank you, Kim Greenhouse.

In 24 hours, the appeal was denied. Done. Removed from the internet. Over 50 shows of mine were removed from that platform. And at first I thought it was like over 25. This morning I started to count. It was almost 70. And so what I want to introduce to all of you is that there’s being canceled — like completely ripped off that platform that you’ve invested all this time, energy, money, and dedication in — and then there’s the incremental chipping, chipping, chipping, chipping, going back retroactively and setting the algorithms so that you are not relevant today.

So I want you to listen on behalf of communication. I want you to listen to our guest’s experience because if you think censorship is only certain people — that they have to be bad people, that they have to have done something terrible, that they have to be criminal — you’re completely delusional if you think that. Also, I want you to know that the EU is preparing to go into all European Union emails, to read them first, and then decide whether they can be communicated and transmitted to the people. So this is part of a larger global thing that’s happening. Pay attention like your life depends on it because this is what happens in authoritarian countries. We’re riding a very tight edge here.

Our guest is a remarkable communicator, podcaster, and business owner who’s had a successful podcast since around 2012, 2013 named Sarah Westall. She produces and hosts a show called Business Game Changers. The story and the details and the facts that you’re going to hear from her are so important. I want you to never forget what’s happened to Sarah Westall and what is happening as well to other people. Welcome, Sarah Westall, to It’s Rainmaking Time!™ Thanks so much for being here.

Sarah: Thank you. What a great intro. What a good job.

Kim: Ah, you like that introduction. Thank you very much. I’m glad you liked it. It’s a gift from God — it’s one of them. And it’s a pleasure and honor to have you on the show. Thank you so much for being here. And what happened to you? Tell us what happened to you. Why were you deplatformed? Why were you taken off the net, in effect?

Sarah: I wouldn’t say that I’m off the internet because I have quite a decent — I still have 250,000 plus subscribers on various platforms that follow me. So I’m not off the internet. I’m just not on the mainstream. I’d probably have millions of followers if I was still on YouTube.

Kim: But wait a minute. You think the internet is not just YouTube? People look at YouTube like if you don’t have X number of hits on YouTube, or you’re not there, you are not relevant. You are not worth listening to.

Sarah: Well, I think that’s what they’re trying to do and that’s what they’re trying to bully people into. And it’s very serious because if people care about freedom, they wouldn’t allow one company to bully people like this and allow our culture to be shaped this way. They want you to think that it’s Ku Klux Klan members and terrorists that they’re kicking off. I asked them to give me some indication — tell me, show me.

Kim: Wait, we’ve got to go to the detail. What happened? First of all, what happened on YouTube?

Sarah: I wrote an article called “Unpersoned in America.” We sued — a group of 15 of us were kicked off YouTube in 2020. It was a concerted effort across all of media. It was very orchestrated and planned with the federal government to take people like me down because we challenged the political narrative of whoever wants to take over this country. And they still have entrenched power. So those people who have the ability to communicate and can reach people — when they can’t control them, they want to take them down. I am not a Ku Klux Klan member. I’m not a terrorist. I’ve never committed a federal crime. I am, in a lot of circles, a middle America soccer mom type of person. That scares the hell out of them. So in 2020, we were taken down — a group of us. There were a lot of people taken down right before the election. We and a group of us ended up suing. Just our group had more listeners than all mainstream media combined at that time.

Kim: Wow!

Sarah: They had to take us down.

Kim: You were dangerous.

Sarah: Since then, they brought in people who were kicked out of mainstream media and they pumped them up. So I mean, come on, we have to be less naive. If we really want to make a difference and we don’t want to be controlled globally, we have to be less naive. That’s the problem — we have a lot of naive people. They claim they want freedom, but they can’t leave YouTube. If you really want freedom, you have to embrace the areas where you have freedom. And I have a lot of followers because there are a lot of people that get that concept. They know that I’m not just going to toe the line. You know, they’re like, “God, you’re just telling the truth.” But my point is, there are a lot of people seeing this because a lot of people have experienced it. But you’ve got to act on it. You can’t be stupid. Stop giving them the ability to control you by supporting the people that support you — the free speech platforms.

Kim: It’s interesting because where I learned that it was an impossible place — it was inhospitable for anybody that was really dedicated to communicating any kind of truth, new findings, ancient and new knowledge and discovery. When I did about 37 shows on climate and weather, I went wild from 2009 on. And little did I know — I was just doing podcasting when it was audio, but I said, “Oh, just pop it on YouTube anyway.” At that time they were saying all the WordPress people, “Oh, don’t bother with YouTube, just do the audio part.” I popped it on there, but I didn’t realize that I sealed my fate in a sense on YouTube. Because who knew? I mean, I did not know the level of a global agenda. I didn’t even know that YouTube was run by AI.

Sarah: Yeah, it’s basically they don’t have the time to look at every piece of content, so they’ve written software to do it for them. The problem is that it’s tyrannical.

Kim: It’s the way it’s written.

Sarah: Even their former CEO — before she died or whatever happened to her — she came on and said, “We took censorship too far.” And she realized that this was not a good thing for humanity. I think that’s why she was sidelined. They are taking it further. People think that it’s getting cleaned up.

Kim: No way.

Sarah: It’s not. I keep hearing stories like yours. The people that I know who are trying to get information out there are suppressed. What they’re doing too is they’re playing mind games with people. Somebody that has 250,000 subscribers gets a thousand views. These things are very insidious. It gives people the idea that they are still on a platform, that they still have their YouTube channel, but they’re suppressed into a corner. Since you’re not reaching anybody, you might as well not have your channel. And then they’re allowing the communication that either A, isn’t going to challenge them — people who are really not serious, who aren’t going to make a difference — or B, the people that they can control. And those people they pump the crap out of.

Kim: I was thinking a lot about this since I first spoke with you. And one of the crazy-making parts of this is it’s not always as obvious as a cut. So I’ve had 10,000 subscribers since 2014 when I went to live in Europe. And I stopped producing for a couple of years. And then I came back and YouTube is telling me that since that time I’ve only had 200 subscribers. That doesn’t even show up on my website. Like I even put different metrics — that’s what they’re telling me. I mean, with my track record. I am an example of the chip away, chip away, chip away. I also did a piece with Dr. Edwin Vieira called “Calling in the Constitution” in 2020. Oh my God. What happened to me was horrendous on Twitter. I watched it literally — 30-second clips, 40-second clips, shadowbanned. I literally watched the whole thing happen there too.

Sarah: When was that?

Kim: 2020.

Sarah: But how about now? Are you seeing the same thing on X?

Kim: No, no, no. X has been cleaned up. X has been great for me. YouTube has been terrible, but X has been fantastic.

Sarah: Well, why are you still only on YouTube?

Kim: I have a Rumble channel, but I don’t understand the interface. I cannot find someone to explain the interface. It is set up quite differently. The interface is confusing for me, which is why I haven’t uploaded more stuff.

Sarah: If YouTube is your source, you can also use YouTube to upload to many different places.

Kim: Yeah, good to know. But even other ones — BitChute and what else?

Sarah: Well, I’m all over the place. Substack is turning into a pretty good platform for me. I’m close to 60,000 people who follow me on Substack. And so people are finding me — people are looking for this information there. I get people over and over telling me, “I follow you because I know that you’re going to give me the truth, to the best of your ability.” And I’m not there to sell out. I’m there really to do my best to give people information.

Kim: I would believe it. I’ve seen your channel.

Sarah: It’s overwhelming — the people who come to me wanting to get on my channel. But I still am not — like some big names won’t come on my channel because I don’t have 500,000 subscribers, which I easily would have had by now if I wasn’t kicked off YouTube and wasn’t suppressed. You know what I mean? So it is working. There’s a tactic, and these people are allowing it to work. If we want to be enslaved, then just keep doing what we’re doing. If we want to have freedom, then knock it off. Start supporting the people that support you.

Kim: Tell the audience what Substack is. Not everybody knows what it is.

Sarah: Well, Substack is becoming a much richer environment as far as doing videos and audio. But it was started off as a writer’s platform because so many people needed a place to be able to reach their audience. Really, truly, what they claim it is — it’s a newsletter, and you own your own newsletter. But this newsletter has been broadened to include not only written material but video and audio. And it really allows me to get past the censorship and actually reach the people who want my information.

Kim: So let me ask you this — let’s say some very powerful people go to the founders of Substack. It’s a centralized platform. And say, “You can either do what we tell you or we’re taking the whole thing down.” Do you think they could do that?

Sarah: I think contractually we all own our newsletter lists. So if they did that, the smart part is that we can all then pick up and go somewhere else. We have our list.

Kim: Do you know your list? Do you know who’s on your list?

Sarah: Yeah, we can download it at any point and have an updated newsletter list.

Kim: Okay, that’s great. That’s an important part of that.

Sarah: But you’re absolutely right. How do we maintain this? This is basic online freedom. Basic, basic stuff. I mean, I can’t believe that we’re fighting about being able to have basic conversations. I just had Dr. Drew on my show. And he was saying, even vanilla conversations are censored. He goes, “You should be able to have any conversation, really, as long as you’re not threatening people, you’re not doing something illegal. We should be able to have these conversations because without them, civilization dies in darkness.” It really does.

That’s what’s on the line. And people don’t realize that shutting down these conversations isn’t going to shut down the people who believe in this stuff. It just means the conversations go underground and they fester and grow. It’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen. I just posted an article on my website written by a couple of scholars talking about the history of how when you try to suppress, you’re not going to get rid of the ideas. The only way to diffuse the ideas is to let people talk about it and let the public diffuse it — because they realize they’re not good ideas. You have to allow that process to play out. But the longer you suppress that process, the stronger those ideas grow.

Kim: That’s fascinating. Talk a little bit about, if you don’t mind, when your YouTube channel first started getting into trouble.

Sarah: Well, when COVID started, I had a lot of doctors and scientists — not just MDs, but PhDs and different people who were experts in their field. I was bringing on the best experts I could find talking about it. And they had different opinions than the mainstream narrative. Those opinions have turned out in research studies and in hindsight to be true. But they deleted all of them. There were like 12 to 14 of them that were taken down. And then right before the 2020 election, they just took me and a bunch of people — anybody that had a voice who was reaching a lot of people. They accused me of being a QAnon follower, which I wasn’t.

Kim: Who cares if you were, right?

Sarah: Are we not allowed to have free speech? But I wasn’t even that. They pinned that on me to discredit me. Regardless, you should be able to follow Q if you want. People were researching it and learning based on these messages.

Kim: Was that illegal to do that?

Sarah: But that being said, I wasn’t a Q follower either. So they lied about that.

Kim: So you had around 14 shows taken down and then what?

Sarah: It wasn’t just YouTube. My whole channel was taken down. In 2020, two weeks before the 2020 election, my entire YouTube channel was taken down. It’s been down since. It went up for one day last August — a day and a half. They said I appealed and they brought it back up because they went through my content — their AI did. Then somebody came in and hand-took me down, and then took down my backup channel. Meanwhile, there are like three fake “Sarah Westall” channels on YouTube that are allowed — because my content isn’t. There are thousands of people that put up content like mine. What they don’t want is me up there.

Kim: And that’s a very important point. So it’s not always just about the content. It’s about who is doing and communicating the content in combination, and who has the distribution interest.

Sarah: Yeah. Because they are a monopoly — they’ve been considered a monopoly in dozens of countries now. Countries on five continents are fighting YouTube because of their monopoly powers over communication. This should be taken very seriously. It’s not just a US-based situation. They are aiming to be a global television streaming service, and they’re aiming to control the narrative on a global level. They have almost 100% monopolies in many countries.

Kim: Now I want to get to the other part. You said there are a few other channels using your content, even though it’s not you?

Sarah: Other people own them. They’re fake. I’ve told YouTube and the only way I can communicate with them is on X — and they don’t care. My content is covered by thousands of other people on the platform that they allow. So it is a direct target of somebody. They’re afraid to have me on there. I almost think they put up these small fake channels on purpose — when someone searches “Sarah Westall” on Google, they see 300 followers and think, “There’s nothing to see here.” That hurts my brand. I think they’re doing that on purpose to damage my brand. It should be highly illegal, but they get away with it because they have the government and the power in their hands.

Kim: We’re going to take a quick break and then we’ll continue. When I came back — so we went from YouTube to Patreon and now to your website?

Sarah: Yeah, this was all within the same time period. I had YouTube, X, Patreon, and my website taken down. GoDaddy took my website down. I called GoDaddy and asked why my website was down. They said, “We don’t do this. We don’t get involved in politics. This is not our thing.” Then it ended up being the Federal Crimes Division of GoDaddy that took down my website.

Kim: Oh my God!

Sarah: To this day, five years later, I have not been given a reason — nothing — as to what I was doing that would cause my website to go down. I had a whistleblower support group that got my website back up as sarahwestall.net immediately. And then GoDaddy, to their credit, their employees got my domain back. So there were good people in there that helped. But five years later I still don’t know why it was taken down. Then the amount of attacks on my website was incredible. They did not want the information I had out there at that time. Now it’s all coming out in various ways, but in 2020, they didn’t want any of it out.

Kim: It seems as though people are being initiated and losing their innocence about the way things are really set up and operating. And that loss of innocence is profound. I looked and looked at my own site — what have I covered that is so terrible? What is so awful? And then you literally can develop a complex. Like, what did I do? And that chills free speech. It works on your psyche, your spirit, your wellbeing, your communication. And that’s a powerful form of censorship in and of itself — to get us to stop talking.

Sarah: That’s right. And it works.

Kim: And it’s effective. We can stop this if we just support free platforms. The people have the power to make a difference if they would support the free platforms.

Sarah: Talk about the lawsuit. What happened when your channel went missing?

Well, the case is all public. We went all the way to the Ninth Circuit. I led that lawsuit to the Ninth Circuit. It’s a very corrupt situation because they changed their contract the exact moment they took our channels down.

Kim: When you say changed the contract, you mean the rules and regulations of the platform?

Sarah: The rules, the contract — which would have allowed them to do what they did — was put up the exact moment they took us down. You just don’t do stuff like that. It’s highly unethical. We had to fight in California — nobody beats Google in their own backyard. Then we went to the Ninth Circuit and we had the former Chief Justice of the Ninth Circuit as our advisor. We weren’t messing around. What happened was the court just took one side of the argument — Google’s — and it was almost like the lawyers themselves wrote the decision. They didn’t incorporate any of our arguments. It was one-sided. And none of the judges signed it. Nobody’s ever seen that before. They got it out in like eight weeks. They just cranked it out.

And Google wanted to make it an unpublished decision. Usually they only publish decisions like this when it’s trailing new paths. Obviously ours was pretty trailblazing. Why would they unpublish it? However, Google tried to get it unpublished because they want to use it for other cases — and they lost that battle. The chief justice’s advisor came back and said — because they did that in an indirect way — “They’re telling you, you would have won this case.” Which I thought was pretty interesting.

And basically, the assessment is that Section 230, which gives them immunity, doesn’t work when you have God-like power on your platform and a monopoly at the same time. That was never the intent. And to not give people — when you kick them off — clear rules that are applied equally? That was never the intent either.

Look at this: Candice Owens is literally being sued by the president of France for bullying and harassment — and she’s allowed up on YouTube. She’s promoted. And I’m told I bully and harass people without being given a single example. They know who I am. I’m not so small that they don’t. They hand-took me down and they still haven’t given me a reason.

Kim: Is there a reason you can’t communicate with them directly about the fake channels?

Sarah: I could write a letter. A lawyer could send a letter to YouTube. But this is the kind of thing — I’ve spent thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawsuits already. I don’t want to sue Google. I just want them to stop bullying me and start respecting everybody equally.

Kim: Good luck on that.

Sarah: I think I’m a powerful female voice and they claim to be for women. In business news on Apple Podcasts — and thank God Apple just leaves me alone — if you look at where I’m ranked, it’s all big organizations: Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News. And then me. I’m a powerful, independent female voice. And they are suppressing the hell out of me. You think they give a damn about women while treating me like this? No. They only care about women they have on their plantation.

Kim: That’s interesting.

Sarah: It’s true. If you’re not on their plantation, you will be destroyed.

Kim: I’m going to take that as something I just heard, not as a declaration of ultimate truth.

Sarah: Well, I hope it’s not, but black people feel the same way. If black people are not in the Democrat plantation, they get unequal destruction. Women, black people, anybody who’s supposedly supposed to be holding up a certain party line — if you’re not holding that line, you get unequal abuse.

Kim: You know, I’ve noticed that men are more apt to support and help each other along. And I’ve found very few women at all who are willing to help each other move forward in the way that guys are trained to do from very young. There is huge competitiveness in the podcast space. It would be very nice for women to be more overtly supportive and literally help each other more frontally.

Sarah: Yes! We have this Smurfette effect — where only a few women are allowed in. There’s always like one woman in a movie with a bunch of men. You go to the Rumble board, there are like two or three females out of 50. Women, it’s real. We’re making headway slowly, but we’re fighting for those two slots. Stop fighting for those two positions. Fight for the 50. And don’t compete with each other — you’re not each other’s main competitor. If there are 10 of us in a competition, I’m not the only person you’re competing with. You’re competing with all 10 of us.

Kim: Absolutely.

Sarah: Get into team sports. Learn how to compete as an individual and as a team member.

Kim: I was a tournament tennis player for 13 years — obviously a single sport, but I was also a really, really good doubles player. And it really does teach you how to work with other people and how to compete. The competing is where I think we as a culture, as women, could really use an upgrade. Even having you on It’s Rainmaking Time!™ — there are people who would consider that a threat. To me it’s fantastic. And I’ve watched your work. By the way, I love the show with Martin Armstrong. He’s one of my favorite people in the world.

Sarah: Well, it gets back to — you have all these people on your show. Why would you not have me on your show? Why not support each other?

Kim: The smirk effect. “My only competitor is that one female because there’s only one slot.” No. That’s stopped. Your competitors are everyone in the field.

Sarah: Women are not new to competition. We are very fierce competitors. We just do it in a more covert way. We’ve got to knock it off. We’ve got to compete in much healthier ways so that we’re not destroying each other. You said it to me before we got on: the crabs in the bucket — they don’t have to worry about the one crab that’s crawling out because the other crabs will take it down.

Kim: I didn’t say that! Are you sure it was me?

Sarah: I think so. It was you.

Kim: I wouldn’t use a crab as an analogy. But I like it. Say it again.

Sarah: Someone was talking about how this crab was getting out of the bucket. And the person says, “Don’t worry about it — the other crabs will see that and take it down.”

Kim: I like that, but I didn’t say it. That’s very true. That’s how podcasting feels to me online, actually. There’s also a whole other thing — instead of helping promote each other, there’s a poaching going on that I’ve noticed. It’s very subtle. Like, I would send good interviews of yours to other people — good work is good work. And you’re a very skilled interviewer. Very skilled.

Sarah: I get poached all the time.

Kim: And?

Sarah: I don’t care. Because I’m at the edge of change. I’ve been on the edge of change for many things in many areas. And I’m starting to figure out how to capitalize on it. So I don’t care if people copy where I’m going — I’m always going to be in a different place. That’s kind of my lot in life. I’ve been that way since I was a kid. People over and over tell me I follow you because I know you’re going to give me the truth. And I’m not there to sell out.

Kim: Now, your Facebook was not taken down during this whole terrible time?

Sarah: That’s because I never really used them. I just literally never used them much. And then I came back and started using them afterwards. I had a video that got 20,000 views and then it stopped. Now they have a hundred views and I just stopped posting because I didn’t want to lose my platform. So they’re just sitting there.

Kim: What are your concerns with respect to where you’re seeing these platforms going? You saw even with Rumble, for example, that there were governments that were trying to get it shut down.

Sarah: It’s getting worse. You talked at the very beginning about the EU wanting to go in and read people’s emails and decide whether they’re allowed to be sent. Canada wants to do the same thing. People think that we’re out of the woods because Trump is elected.

Kim: No way.

Sarah: We’re not even close to being out of the woods. And people need to realize this. I had to take a break for a while — I created a free speech platform after we lost that case, and I did censorship conferences. And then I just had to take a break. It was so draining mentally and emotionally. But now I’m starting to come out and talk about it again, because I think it’s important. Not as a victim — as a warning sign. This is what’s coming, and that’s what it is. I want people to understand that I am not that extreme. It’s because I can reach people and I can communicate and I can share things that they don’t want me sharing. I can reach to the other side of the aisle. I can reach normal women. I can reach the whole middle of the country. The extremes don’t like me. I get it. But most of the middle can at least say, “Okay, I don’t agree with her on everything, but she’s got a point on these things.” That’s what they don’t like.

Kim: We’re going to go to a quick break and we’ll be right back with Sarah Westall. You’re watching It’s Rainmaking Time!™

[Break]

Kim: Welcome back to It’s Rainmaking Time!™ I’m here with Sarah Westall. And I want to invite you to go to itsrainmakingtime.ch. We appreciate your comments and we appreciate you sharing the show on every platform you can imagine. It makes more of a difference than you know. Subscribe wherever you see It’s Rainmaking Time!™ Sarah, could you tell the audience where they can reach you?

Sarah: Yeah, go to sarahwestall.com and sign up for my newsletter. I’m on Substack, I’m on Rumble, I’m on Bitchute, I’m on X. I am not on YouTube — those fake channels are not me. But you can find me everywhere else. Sarah — S-A-R-A-H — Westall. If you just search Sarah Westall, it comes up.

Kim: Could you also give a finishing statement — the most important thing about your experience of having been censored, deplatformed? The exclamation point of what people need to pay attention to.

Sarah: I did a whole series on fifth generation warfare — a 10-part series looking at it from all different perspectives. I felt really driven to do that because I knew that was what we were going to be going through. It’s now available to watch for free on my Substack and I’m going to keep it out there. It helps people understand how much we’re manipulated online. I think the most important thing is to not get sucked into the media narratives. And to also support these free speech platforms. We have power in numbers. But if we keep being apathetic and just following what’s easiest, we will suffer the consequences. That means we have to support these free speech platforms that are supporting you. And in part of also supporting free speech, you have to accept some things you might not want to see. That’s part of free speech. Eventually the online platforms will get better and you’ll be able to decide for yourself what you want to engage with. But it’s part of dealing with keeping things free, and freedom comes with a price. We have to be willing to pay for it.

Kim: Thank you very much. Would you say my three favorite words with me?

Both: It’s Rainmaking Time!

Kim: It is. Thank you so much, Sarah Westall. It’s a pleasure.

Sarah: Thank you.

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