Fans of comedian Theo Von were disappointed when an episode of his ‘This Past Weekend’ podcast with Roseanne Barr was removed from YouTube, claiming that it is censorship. However, rather than diminishing its impact, the episode — and the podcast overall — has been flying since YouTube removed it.
Censorship on podcast material has been a huge topic of debate for some time now, especially with the Joe Rogan Experience having multiple episodes removed from Spotify after he signed his $100m deal with the platform.
Theo Von is a comedian who is never afraid to toe (and occasionally cross) the line, and some of his most popular viral clips come from This Past Weekend, where he has a wide array of guests come on to discuss any manner of subjects.
In the latest episode, however, he had actress and comedian Roseanne Barr on the show, and some edited clips started going viral, with Barr — a Jewish woman herself — accused of being a Holocaust denier.
Roseanne Barr ‘This Past Weekend’ episode removed
Though Barr later clarified that “of course I don’t believe the Holocaust never happened,” claiming that the comments she made were satirical and sarcastic, the episode was ultimately removed from YouTube for violating their policy on hate speech.
Naturally, this meant that everybody wanted to see the episode that had been completely pulled from YouTube — and the views came flooding in across other platforms.
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This includes Spotify, where it rose up to second in the rankings behind only JRE, and Twitter, where at the time of writing it has exceeded 72 million views.
Von didn’t speak out much on the incident, simply saying that it’s “been an interesting week” and thanking his fans for their support.
been an interesting week! thanks for the support 🙏 https://t.co/A2VNizWeHb
— Theo Von (@TheoVon) July 4, 2023
The podcast was also shared by Elon Musk, who said that “comedy is legal” on Twitter, to which Von replied by saying that he’s “happy to help” if Musk ever wants to bring podcasts to Twitter.
It’s unclear whether YouTube would decide to reinstate the podcast episode given Barr’s insistence that her comments were not made from a place of malice.