Last week, I began posting the series of critical podcasts about Teach for America created by Julian Vasquez Heilig and Jameson Brewer, which they called “Truth for America.”
To my surprise, I began to hear from readers that the posts had been blocked on YouTube. I stopped posting the podcasts and let my friend Julian know that they were blocked.
What I did not realize was there was a pattern of cyber hacking directed at these podcasts when they were posted on Julian’s blog, “Cloaking Inequity.”
I knew nothing of this background. Julian Vasquez Heilig explains here the curious attacks on his podcasts and the cyberattacks that have repeatedly caused them to be blocked on YouTube.
After negotiations that involved a lawyer on the board of the Network of Public Education, Bertis Downs, YouTube has given assurances that the podcasts are no longer blocked.
Thus, I will now post the Truth for America podcasts as I originally planned to do: one a day, beginning with the next post.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What the heck. One could argue that TFA podcasts, broadcasts, etc. could be viewed as abusive and really – racist. Two can play that game. So much for dissent. Why read Orwell when you can live it? Yikes!
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DOUBLE yikes!
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Bless you for doing this. If people only had some idea of the enormity of what is going on in our government, a few people with integrity like Bernie would be elected in a landslide. Tragically, even the “news” that is presented to the American public is so censored, so propagandized promoting the moneyed interests that we have the debacle we have today.
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TfAers apparently have a hit squad. There were a batch of people who put up a link on Facebook to the Washington Post story on the severe drop in applications to TfA and somehow those people got flagged and suspended from Facebook.
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Ken
That WashPost story about TFA was target of many takedowns
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This is really bad news. The censors need to be called out. There certainly are legal issues here. I am glad you were able to muster some legal talent for a quick turnaround in this case.
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Laura, I’d be happy to send you the photo I took of you at the conference. You can email me at clanghoff@verizon.net
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I wish I’d known both of you were there! Maybe next year there can be a post on this blog and everyone going to the conference can comment. We could set aside a time to meet face to face!
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It’s really easy to abuse the strike system for youtube. It’s also inconsistently implemented, where usually bigger channels get away with a lot and little channels get pushed around. It was all over reddit the last couple months. I would not be surprised if some young TFA employee thought he could do the same. Except, it’s kind of old news and youtube is getting better and responding more quickly because of the negative press.
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Maybe we should start calling them “CFA”: Censor For America
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One of our principals called them TFMs, as in TEACH FOR A MINUTE, but CFA works well too.
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TFR (“Teach For Resume”) also works
As does TFG (Teach for Google) given how gaga Google is for TFA when it comes to hiring.
Google owns Youtube, for what it’s worth.
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did you see the FB block of individuals re negative TFA posts? coincidence?
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This is what plutocracy looks like. It just doesn’t usually show its hand so openly.
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Many of you may recall Bob Braun’s blog received a cyber attack, I believe it was when he exposed Pearson spying on children’s social media and requesting districts to suspend/punish the students. Interesting if the reformers have people on the payroll to perform cyber attacks.
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Did you know that the CIA was forced with the FOIA to release an internal document that detailed plans to subvert and subdue media coverage of the Warren Report… My, how times don’t change.
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It isn’t just TFA either. It seems the reformers are getting hip to censorship in this way, reporting posts on any topic they dislike as spam or abusive.
Kevin Ohlandt shared this post and petition for a Parents Bill of Rights (in reaction to that ridiculous Testing Bill of Rights) on his Exceptional Delaware blog on Facebook and was notified that he would be banned from posting or joining any groups for two weeks. Ohlandt said that actually had a rebound effect–so many people were outraged at the censorship that they shared it more widely than they might have. The petition has nearly 500 signatures.
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Karen, I’m noticing posts about the data mining involved w/personalized learning are causing quite a few bans with some bloggers, myself included. This is hitting them right at the heart of their wallets, asking for laws to change or to ask parents to opt out of personalized learning tests…
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