As regular readers know, I’m no great fan of banning online commentary, even the most egregious. On most topics I come closer to being a free speech absolutist than not, something that will likely get me into real trouble one day. However, even I need to draw a line somewhere. And that is why I will shed no tears at the permanent removal from YouTube of the Computing Forever channel, hosted by the Irish neo-right wannabe Dave Cullen. Popular with followers of the amorphous white nationalist movement in the United Kingdom and the United States while being virtually unknown at home, the channel peddled the usual online propaganda and conspiracy theories of the British and American alt-right. Everything from the Brexiting Brits fighting the sinister forces of globalisation to the racialist great replacement theory, with some absolutely crackpot views on the Covid-19 pandemic thrown in for good measure too.
Quite frankly, good riddance to bad rubbish. And if the removal of my own official channel by YouTube in 2019, apparently due to a concerted effort by online activists associated with a now defunct far-right identitarian group in Ireland and the UK, makes the disappearance of Computing Forever all the sweeter? Well then, so be it!
