Responding to a series of privacy complaints by mayor of Edgewood, New Jersey, Michael McPartland on Monday, “Independent Journalist” James “James Freeman” Springer made a series of calls to the Edgewood police department requesting welfare checks on the mayor.
Freeman called the city of Edgewood’s 911 emergency services line to inquire about the health of Mayor McPartland and to check and see if he had clean underwear following Mayor McPartland’s alleged abuse of YouTube’s privacy complaint system.
YouTuber Freeman explained that he has “friends” who contact subjects of his previous videos to inform them that they can complain to YouTube about their personal information being distributed on the service. Freeman admitted that they then get trolled again as Freeman gets a copy of the complaint and can make second video about the subject’s attempt to have his channel taken down.
Freeman explained that there is a system in place to protect a person’s private information or non-public information such as social security numbers and bank account numbers from distribution on the service. He claimed that he did not distribute either in his previous video about the mayor, released Sunday, and that had he had that information he would not have risked his channel by putting it on YouTube.
In the previous video, Freeman and a group of other first amendment auditors visited the city hall in Edgewood, New Jersey. Again, according to Freeman, the building is routinely locked down as no filming is allowed in the building.
Freeman and his group were allowed into the building and immediately started filming, making their way to the mayor’s office where Freeman claims the mayor hid from them and then summoned police to clear the men from the building.
No arrests were made in the incident as it resolved peacefully.
Freeman said the privacy complaints began soon after the first video was released on Sunday with nearly a half dozen received as of his Monday livestream.
False privacy complaints are a continuing trend on YouTube with Irish Demon’s channel allegedly receiving multiple complaints from Welsh News Network owner Daniel Jones in recent times, threatening its existence.
Our own channel received a strange privacy complaint within the past two weeks (days after monetization). There was a complaint in the system, however we were not able to see details of the complaint, what video it was associated with or who filed the complaint before the warning resolved itself.
We will continue to update Freeman’s situation as he provides updates.
