I re-visited this video a few hours after having left the following comment, and could not find it. I was using a different account than the one I normally do. Oddly enough, this comment only appeared while logged on via my regular account. This is how Ghost Blocking works on YouTube. Give the user no clue that he’s been blocked.

Two people have independently confirmed that it is missing. Can you find the comment on his video? If so, I’d love to offer a retraction of my suspicion. Unfortunately, the page is too long to screencap and FireShot is choking from lack of sufficient memory.

Update: David Pakman says that a random user must have marked the comment as spam. See screenshot below. I’ve reposted it. I’ll be curious to see if it sticks.

deanesmay we’ve blocked nothing. We actually try to approve everything marked as spam by viewers. If it is gone, viewers marked it as spam

and

ask YouTube what the algorithm is. It has nothing to do with us or our channel.

I’m happy to give him the benefit of the doubt and a scornful sneer to those who are so small that they cannot bear to have public civil discourse.

Second update. I’ve just reposted, switched accounts and the comment was gone. I have difficulty in believing that a human was watching and so quickly marked it as spam. I’m going to guess that it was YouTube’s system. It is possible that it may be because I used the string “register-her.com” even though it was legitimately part of the conversation.

I offer my formal apologies to David Pakman for the error, and thank him for his attention to the matter. Thank you to Dean, as well for bringing it to his attention.

Final update. (Copied from a response I had made to another.)

We have one of two options. Either it was initially marked as spam, and all later similar posts are mechanically done as such, or it was purely automated.

I don’t know how to discern which is which. Would it be good for him to tell his audience to not mark as spam? Sure, I think all video producers should encourage people to show tolerance, but none has control over another.

The fact that he’s left far harsher comments up, and by people who, unlike myself, are very well known, and in direct and often aggressive opposition to his point of view tends to make me accept that my much milder comment probably wasn’t singled out.

I don’t know if he has the power to put it back. If he doesn’t, he can’t. If he does, but won’t, he won’t. And it is, after all, merely a comment. I’m just going to let it drop.

I take issue with the Mark Potok’s assertion that a common belief of men’s rights advocates claim that women routinely make false-rape accusations. It is more accurate to say that our stance is that too many women do make them, in a system that too-often accepts mere claims as a fact, and that this has a destructive impact on the accused. Do most Feminists claim that men routinely rape women? No. The argument is the same.

The question that Pakman semed to be trying to express was “What is the standard by which you gauge whether content is deemed to be hate, and to what degree of this must a site endorse such statements?”

I think that’s fair question.

So his standards?

Assumption: a website is not a group. That’s fair.

1.Action must be taken beyond the publishing of a website or online forum.

What action? How is it tangibly measured? No standards offered.

Mark Potok claims that the Men’s Rights Movement is “an anti-woman movement.”

This is a flat-out misrepresentation of the Men’s Movement. The men’s movement is comprised of people who advocate for men’s fair and impartial treatment under just law and dignity in culture. If them men’s rights movement can be asserted to be “anti-woman” because of it’s criticism of common behaviour amongst women, specifically that of Feminist women then he must concede that the Feminist and Social Justice movement is “anti-man.”

At about 5:00 The register-her.com website started with the notion of holding individuals accountable, but in my opinion was a failed experiment that was perceived as a blame-and-shame website. Oddly enough, it had similarities with the SPLC. If we acknowledge that this is undesirable, then so too, must we assign the same evaluation to anyone who dox’s or uses blame-and-shame tactics. I will forgive his error of speaking of it as existing in the present tense as a mere impromptu slip of the tongue.

There is a huge amount of “internet harassment” (a.k.a free-speech rebuttals) of anyone who makes any political statement on the internet. Potok seems to believe that calling a group of people misogynist is an assertion of fact, rather than the potential denigration of entire groups of people to whom it may not apply, yet, seems to accept that this is perfectly acceptable because… “protect the women?” Why not also “protect the men?” Oh, right… because all men are oppressors thus do not deserve protection, but to be defeated.

At about 6:00 Pakman begs Potok to make a connection between the men’s rights movement and some other potentially harmful/dislikable movement. That’s not a fair question. Potok is happy to oblige him “extreme right wing conservatives.” Wrong.

At about 7:30 Pakman finally blurts it out: Many non right-wing conservatives support equal rights for men and women, but isn’t it mostly right-wing conservatives who are joining? Please?

No, David, your approach is parochial. The men’s rights movement is global, ranging from India to Italy, to the North America, to Europe, to Japan, Korea and more.

At about 7:50 Potok says “There is absolutely no doubt that there are some legitimate beefs that men have […] that said, there are a minority of legitimate complaints on these websites.” And by what standards do you evaluate the legitimacy of an issue? Do you apply this impartially to people of any sex? He ties this in to a group of extremists on reddit. OK, do we get to tie the SPLC’s political views with the #killallmen hashtag?

At about 9:30 Pakman asks Potok to speculate: have men always been bastards toward women, or are we only now hearing about it because of the internet? Potok responds: Hey! The women have had their say, we should be done, now. “The real violence against women began in a sense in 1989.” He points to l’École Polytechnique de Montréal. Note that he says that “the violence. Against women. Began (in a sense). in 1989.” Never mind that he misrepresents salient facts on the matter, he then goes on to associate lunatics with the men’s rights movement, when, in fact there is no tie. Shall we associate Valerie Solanis, and Lorenna Bobbit and Katherin Kewbecker with Feminism as a series of monstrosities since the 60’s toward men with Feminism?

He then claims that for the last 30 years or so, that men have had a “rage-filled reaction towards women.” Rage-filled, not resentful, not objecting, not seeking to be equally heard and have people collaborate to resolve the issues that affect men, but rage! And toward women, not Feminist ideas, not Feminist behaviour, but women.

Then, wildly he veers into “the country is becoming less white.” Sweet Mary! Beg for speculation, and boy does one get it! Oh, and of course the issue of same-sex marriage gets tossed in because…. stream of consciousness?

Of course, men are experiencing “rage,” right? In the 60’s, women were accused of “hysteria.” Will you now start characterizing Feminist conversation about women’s issues as “hysterical,” Mr. Potok?

“Paul Elam has created a movement.” How incredibly parochial. The movement existed long before Paul Elam. What he did was to bring a number of arguments to the forefront, via the internet and provided a platform for other like-minded people to discuss the ideas as well.

The men’s rights movement is, and has been a global phenomenon since its inception. The men’s rights movement is comprised of every type of person seeking impartiality and fair treatment under just law, and dignity for men in culture.

Anything else is, like most of Mr. Potok’s statements, are generalization, distortion, misrepresentation and speculation.

Screenshot of David Pakman’s response.