Video blogger claims YouTube ‘threatened’ her over Juncker interview

One of the questioners in webcast with Commission president said she was told to avoid ‘red flags.’

A French video blogger selected to interview European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said Sunday she was pressured by YouTube to ask “soft questions” during the webcast.

“I found out they expected for me to ask only very soft questions,” said Laetitia Birbes in a Facebook video about her interactions with YouTube before last week’s interview. “The whole point was to give advertisement to Juncker.” 

The interview was conducted online Thursday, a day after Juncker had delivered his “State of the Union” address, and was sponsored by YouTube, Euronews and the Debating Europe online platform.

Birbes, a blogger from the outskirts of Paris, told French news website Rue 89 she was “assured” by YouTube that she was free to ask any question, but that a representative from the video site suggested she ask Juncker questions such as “What is happiness?” and for details on his vintage Nokia phone and dog “Plato.” 

But Birbes said YouTube balked at accepting some “more important questions.” She said a YouTube representative advised her he would need to speak to Juncker’s spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud about potential “red-flag” questions.

“At the beginning, I realized that YouTube was trying to gently influence me,” Birbes said in her video statement.“Then it got more serious and I felt threatened.” 

A spokesperson for Google, the parent company of YouTube, said there was no intention to pressure Birbes into going easy on Juncker.

“Laetitia had some tough questions for President Juncker and before the interview, asked for our advice on how to phrase them,” said the spokesperson, who declined to be named. “Our colleague encouraged her to be respectful, rather than confrontational — that is all that happened here.”

Bertaud denied any Commission effort to influence the line of questioning in the interview. 

“For the Commission and the president, we had no knowledge of the questions asked, as it is the case for any interviews the president is giving,” Bertaud said Sunday evening. “The president was very happy with the interview and thanks Debating Europe to have organized it in association with Euronews and YouTube, and the creators who participated in it.”  

The only red flags for the Commission, Bertaud said, were to respect Europe’s diversity, gender equality and linguistic differences. Two other interviewers came from Germany and Poland, and the program was broadcast on YouTube in English, French and German.

Birbes ended up asking Juncker her tough questions anyway. She quizzed him about his predecessor José Manuel Barroso’s new job at Goldman Sachs, about Luxembourg’s controversial tax policies under his term as prime minister and finance minister of that country, and about the lobbying battle behind the pesticide glyphosate.  

“As everyone can see in the actual interview, she had the opportunity to ask all the questions she prepared,” said the Google spokesperson.

Birbes is the host of the YouTube channel “Le Corps. La Maison. L’Esprit” (“The Body. The Home. The Spirit”), which focuses on ecological lifestyle issues and has more than 64,000 subscribers.

“What was difficult for me is I felt a ball in my stomach when I talked to the YouTube guy,” Birbes said in her Facebook video, which as of Sunday night had more than 1.2 million views. “Clearly I had a choice: risking to lose everything I’ve been working for until now for asking the question.” 

Birbes filmed her interview prep with YouTube and uploaded it to Facebook, including the exchange about what questions to ask Juncker. 

In the same video, Birbes claimed Google offered her after the Juncker interview a chance to become a YouTube ambassador for humanitarian projects, which included a grant of €25,000. 

“Are they proposing this contract to buy me off and for not showing the video, not talking about this?” Birbes asked, adding she did not know whether she would accept the offer. 

She called on YouTube “to pledge publicly for no more manipulating, threatening and ‘instrumentalizing’ YouTube content makers.” 

In a blog post before the event, Google, the parent company of YouTube, said, “It’s up to Laetitia, Jonas, and Łukasz [the other content makers participating in the interview] to choose the questions.”