Prager University, co-founded by talk show host Dennis Prager, is a non-profit group better known as PragerU. It produces documentaries and news segments, but it is perhaps most famous for its five-minute educational videos that discuss hot-button issues in politics, culture, and religion.
Sabrina Kosmas, senior director of outreach at PragerU, tells AFN the organization got in trouble with Google for the documentary “Dear Infidels: A Warning to America.”
The documentary, which features moderate Muslims and former Muslims, was flagged as “hate speech” by Google and soon afterward the PragerU app was pulled from the Google Play store.
PragerU’s content is targeted for teens and young adults, who make up 60% of its audience, so the mobile app makes a huge difference in outreach.
After being informed about the punishment via email, PragerU watched Google perform a flip-flop hours later and reinstate the app “after further re-review.”
The head-spinning reversal was surprising but Kosmas says the initial punishment was not.
“We actually have a history of fighting Big Tech censorship,” she says, “and specifically going back and forth legally with Google and YouTube.”
Google, which owns YouTube, was sued by PragerU in 2017 for violating its free speech rights when it flagged videos as “inappropriate” because of their subject matter. A federal appeals court ruled on behalf of Google in 2020, writing that Big Tech was not bound by the First Amendment.
