(RNS) — Greg Locke, a Tennessee pastor known for his viral videos about COVID-19, election conspiracies and witchcraft, claims another social media giant has given him the boot.
Locke, pastor of Global Vision Bible Church just outside of Nashville, Tennessee, was in Ohio, getting ready for a preaching gig on Tuesday (Nov. 15), when he got word his YouTube channel was gone.
“I saw it on Twitter,” said Locke in a phone interview, adding that he had not received any official notice.
The link to Locke’s YouTube account led to a message saying the page was not available. The link to the Global Vision Bible Church YouTube page led to a similar message.
A spokesman from YouTube told Religion News Service he was looking into the matter.
Locke told RNS his personal account had more than 100,000 followers and more than 800 videos at the time. All of those videos — many of which were from church services — are now lost, he said.
“All we have left is what is in the camera from the other day,” he said.
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A Donald Trump supporter who has been featured at Christian nationalist events such as America’s Revival and disgraced former Trump official Mike Flynn’s ReAwaken America tour, Locke was banned from Twitter last year for spreading misinformation.
Locke, who founded Global Vision Bible Church in 2006, has long had a knack for attracting attention, often for fundraisers. In the church’s early days, he backpacked hundreds of miles for Bibles, spent three nights in the freezing cold atop a scissor lift to support a homeless ministry and rode a bike across the country to raise money for a church building.
He gained national attention for posting viral Facebook videos protesting Target’s gender-neutral bathroom policies.
Then the COVID-19 pandemic changed his life.
