“They’ve destroyed us,” he revealed in a recent interview about the Duck Dynasty star’s feature film and its battle with an internet giant.
“I’m Not Ashamed” is the first feature film to star Sadie Robertson from A&E’s Duck Dynasty and that helped it gain even more media coverage about its Christian message surrounding Rachel Joy Scott’s life and her death during the Columbine shooting.
In a report by several media outlets, filmmaker Chuck Howard explains how his film was subjected to unfair censorship by YouTube and its parent company, Google. Howard also accuses them of an anti-Christian agenda that factored into their removal of the film’s trailer.
Accumulating more than 5 million views on YouTube, the trailer and the channel it was published on were removed from the video site in October 2015 without providing movie execs with a reason for the deletion. Since then, the channel and trailer have since been reinstated after media picked up the story.
Now with legal representation from Massey, Stotser & Nichols, the filmmakers are demanding YouTube to explain its reasoning in the trailer’s deletion and have a penalty posted on the YouTube channel removed.
“As of yet, we have not filed suit against Google, but are exploring all options,” Howard told The Washington Times. “We’ve missed 11 months’ worth of advertising. They’ve destroyed us from carrying the momentum that we originally had going forward.”
YouTube issued a statement to The Christian Post about the removal, suggesting it may have been a mistake – however, that would not explain why it took nearly a year to be reinstated.
In a letter from their attorneys to YouTube, the filmmakers assert that in the time since their video and channel have been reinstated, the trailer has received “virtually no views”.
Watch the full trailer for “I’m Not Ashamed” below and let us know what you think in the comments!