Jeopardy! host Ken Jennings’ stranger-than-fiction podcast, Omnibus, has been banned from YouTube for alleged “hate speech.”
John Roderick, Jennings’s co-host, broke the news on Tuesday, claiming that YouTube’s AI moderation tool had mysteriously flagged an episode from 2019.
On Omnibus, which debuted in 2017, Jennings, 51, and Roderick dive into “strange-but-true stories” such as the New Coke controversy and the history of pneumatic tubes. The show purports to be a time capsule of “human history and achievement.”
“Here’s a nice example of how AI is improving our lives,” Roderick, 57, wrote on the podcast’s Facebook page. “You see, @youtube has flagged as “hate speech” an episode of The Omnibus Project where @whoiskenjennings and I spent an hour debunking the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”
Roderick said that he was given a chance to appeal the ban without the ability to provide context and was rejected “within six hours, with no explanation given.”
Now, Omnibus is banned from posting anything on YouTube until June.
“Whatever the reason, YouTube should be embarrassed,” Roderick said, who noted that YouTube’s AI made both decisions, “having fired all the kids who used to do it half-manually.”
In the October 2019 episode, Jennings and Roderick debunked a turn-of-the-century antisemitic hoax, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, that described a supposed Jewish plot for global destruction.
“So this has got to be malicious,” Jennings said of Hermann Goedsche, the writer who helped spread the antisemitic text. “Like, he’s got to know that he is adding something new and untrue to the story by passing this off as a Jewish plot.”
“Well, or taking something away from it, which is its context,” Roderick added.
They continue to describe the rise of antisemitism in Europe, how the text was written and disseminated during Nazi-occupied Germany, and how it became essential to modern-day white supremacy.
“What made it so appealing,” Roderick said, “wasn’t that the Jews were trying to control the world. It was an explanatory text for how come the world is what it is. And it made the scapegoat the liberal impulse.”
Though Jennings left the podcast as a permanent co-host in September, he continues to appear as a guest host. The podcast boasts a robust fan base of over 1,800 Patreon members, who pay anywhere from $5 to $100 per month to support the show.
Ken Jennings did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Though the show will continue to publish on podcast platforms and Patreon, Roderick was incensed by YouTube’s decision.
“This kind of thing makes the world ACTIVELY STUPIDER by making UNAPOLOGETIC STUPIDITY company policy,” Roderick concluded on Facebook. “Somewhere up the executive chain there is a vice-president who put AI in charge of this and I hope AI makes the decisions regarding their medical care when they get old.”
