XenuTV.com’s Mark Bunker Makes Appeal To TV Personality Steven Colbert For Help
Steven Colbert is a hero of mine. Colbert’s frank, earnest and shoot-from-the-hip style of political commentary is both irreverent and smart. Sort of like Dennis Miller, but with a pulse.
So, it’s both a blessing and curse that my other hero, Mark Bunker, XenuTV’s mastermind, is stuck in a position of having to appeal to Colbert for help in getting his YouTube account reinstated.
Here’s a new report from The Register in the on-going debate to “Free Mark Bunker:”
YouTube has vaporized a popular user account dedicated to criticizing The Church of Scientology.
Last Thursday, the world’s most popular video sharer removed the 10,000-subscriber-strong “Xenutv1″ channel run by Mark Bunker, a television journalist/well-known Scientology naysayer. Earlier in the week, Bunker posted a teaser for his three-hour interview with Jason Beghe - a film and television actor who recently defected from the world of Scientology - and the account was yanked just before Bunker was due to broadcast the interview in full.
“I was planning to post the entire thing on Thursday,” Bunker told us. “But before a could do that - boom - the channel was gone.”
As Glosslip reported during an interview with Bunker, someone tipped off YouTube to the second account “XenuTV1″ which Mark created when his first one was suspended. This left the door wide open for a tipster to inform YouTube of the TOS violation and suspend Bunker’s second account, coincidentally, right before the remainder of the Beghe video was released. YouTube claims the tipster was NOT a representative of the Church of Scientology. And no one who is still sucking oxygen believes them. More from the Register:
YouTube tells Bunker that Xenutv1 was erased because of the copyrighted material posted to his earlier account. “They said that because my first account was canceled, I was never supposed to have a second account,” Bunker explained. “I was supposed to be banned for life.”
According to Bunker, the site acknowledges that someone tipped them off to his second account, and it says this person did not represent Scientology.
YouTube also told Bunker that his account would be reinstated if Viacom agreed to rescind its take-down notice. But Viacom refuses to do so. In the meantime, Bunker has posted his Beghe interview to the YouTube competitor Vimeo and his Wordpress blog.
When it comes to YouTube, Bunker believes that his only chance for reinstatement is the outspoken host of The Colbert Report. This faux newsman has shown a healthy attitude towards such matters in the past - and a healthy sense of humor.
“Only one man can help me,” Bunker says. “Stephen Colbert.”
If anyone can reach the Colbert people, please do. Also, if I had any real photoshop skills I would have caption the above photo to say, “Call me.” But, I am a journalist, not some internet kid who has hacking and shopping skillz.
(hattip thanks: Jack)
edited to add: I’m not a kid, but I do haz mad photoshop skillz.
~k
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Colbert will come through on this if we let him know how much we support him. He is cool.
Comment by gary — April 24, 2008 @ 5:34 pm
Keep it up girl! Keep the embers warm and about to burst into flame. For fast breaking news I have come to visit Glosslip first after Enturb. Your talk with Andreas was calming and wonderful.
Comment by Jack — April 24, 2008 @ 6:08 pm
Get on the mesage boards at http://www.colbertnation.com / http://www.colboard.com
If we cant reach him directly, this will at least get the word spread to those around him.
Comment by AnonymousTaco — April 24, 2008 @ 10:05 pm
I’m starting to rather like Vimeo, actually. eh is a cool site, it hosts videos and doesn’t afraid of anything. YouTube, on the other hand, is pretty obviously either in the pocket or under the heel of Scientology, and increasingly useless for our purposes.
Comment by bananymous — April 25, 2008 @ 10:07 am
Srsly : http://www.anonymoushategroup.blogspot.com
Comment by OSA — April 26, 2008 @ 1:16 am
[…] ten days ago, Mark Bunker of XenuTV had his YouTube Xenutv1 account suspended because he violated the TOS agreement by creating another account after his first account […]
Pingback by GlossLip » With Enough Money, You Can Circumvent YouTube’s TOS On Banned Accounts — April 30, 2008 @ 12:08 pm