Former US Congressman Ron Paul has joined a growing list of independent political journalists and commentators who're being economically punished by YouTube despite producing videos that routinely receive hundreds of thousands of views.

In a tweet published Saturday, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange tweeted a screenshot of Paul's "Liberty Report" page showing that his videos had been labeled "not suitable" for all advertisers by YouTube's content arbiters.

Assange claims that Paul was being punished for speaking out about President Donald Trump's decision to increase the number of US troops in Afghanistan, after Paul published a video on the subject earlier this week.

The notion that YouTube would want to economically punish a former US Congressman for sharing his views on US foreign policy – a topic that he is unequivocally qualified to speak about – is absurd. Furthermore, the "review requested" marking on one of Paul's videos reveals that they were initially flagged by users before YouTube's moderators confirmed that the videos were unsuitable for a broad audience.

Other political commentators who've been censored by YouTube include Paul Joseph Watson and Tim Black – both ostensibly for sharing political views that differ from the mainstream neo-liberal ideology favored by the Silicon Valley elite.