YouTube Suspends Prophet TB Joshua’s Emmanuel TV, Facebook Takes Action Too
TB Joshua, a well-known Nigerian TV evangelist, has had his YouTube account suspended due to accusations of hate speech.
After watching at least seven recordings of the preacher performing prayers to “cure” gay people, a human rights organization lodged a lawsuit.
At least one of the offending messages, depicting a woman being slapped, has been deleted from Facebook, although TB Joshua claims to be casting out a “demonic spirit.”
The preacher said that he was contesting YouTube’s decision.
He had 1.8 million subscribers on YouTube.
TB Joshua is one of Africa’s most strong evangelists, with a following that includes top politicians from across the continent.
What was the reason for the account’s closure?
After analyzing seven videos posted on TB Joshua Ministries’ YouTube channel between 2016 and 2020, which show the preacher performing prayers to “cure” gay people, the UK-based openDemocracy lodged a lawsuit.
The channel was shut down, according to a YouTube spokesperson, because its policy “prohibits content that alleges that someone is mentally ill, diseased, or deficient because of their membership in a protected category, like sexual orientation.”
“We have had a long and fruitful relationship with YouTube and believe this decision was taken in haste,” TB Joshua Ministries wrote on Facebook.
What is the content of the video?
The video is an update of a woman named Okoye’s prayer session, which was first broadcast in 2018.
TB Joshua slaps and moves Okoye and an unidentified woman at least 16 times in the video, telling Okoye: “You’re being bothered by a spirit. She’s implanted herself in your body. It is a woman’s spirit “According to openDemocracy,
The video, which had over 1.5 million views before being taken down from YouTube, later shows her testifying in front of the congregation that “the spirit of woman” had been destroying her life but that she had been cured after the preacher’s prayers.
She announces that she no longer has “affection” for women and that she “now has affections for men.”
Who is TB Joshua, and where did he come from?
One of Nigeria’s most influential televangelists, the founder of the Synagogue, Church of All Nations is perhaps the least flamboyant of his peers.
Thousands of people flock to his weekly services in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city.
His rise to prominence in the late 1990s coincided with an avalanche of “miracle” shows broadcast on national television by a variety of pastors.
TB Joshua was ridiculed for not having the finesse of his colleagues during “deliverance” sessions, which are intense prayers similar to exorcism.
His ministry claims to be able to cure all types of diseases, including HIV/AIDS, and it draws visitors from all over the world.
Mr Joshua, who operates the Christian television station Emmanuel TV and often tours Africa, the United States, the United Kingdom, and South America, is known to his followers as the “Prophet.”
One of his churches collapsed in 2014, killing at least 116 people, many of whom were South Africans.
“The church was culpable because of criminal negligence,” a coroner in a Lagos court said, but he was never charged.
