The audiobook was uploaded to YouTube and DesiringGod.org on the 8th of April but was subsequently taken down from the video-sharing website on the 15th of May without any explanation except a notification saying the video was “removed for violating community guidelines.”

YouTube released a statement on the 28th of April announcing that in response to COVID-19, it had expanded its “fact check information panels” to the United States by up-ranking, down-ranking and demonetising certain videos that mention the topic.

On the 7th of April, YouTube Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan told Axios that the Google-owned platform had already “removed thousands of COVID-19 videos violating the platform’s policies…”

“YouTube’s policies [about the new coronavirus] are entirely focused on the content of a video and not who is speaking,” Axios reported. After being reinstated, Piper’s audiobook on the Desiring God YouTube channel jumped from over 187,000 views to more than 200,700 views as of Tuesday afternoon.

The author of the book offers six biblical answers to the question: What is God doing through the coronavirus?

YouTube’s censorship of the audiobook followed a call by twenty-two military chaplains to “discipline” a senior army chaplain for sending nearly three-dozen other chaplains an email containing a copy of the e-book. The twenty two military chaplains, some of whom are from the LGBT community, had a problem with the book because it states that “some people will be infected with the coronavirus as a specific judgment from God because of their sinful attitudes and actions.”

Source: christianpost.com