Cain protests temporary removal of controversial rabbit ad

Former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain took to Twitter Monday to protest the temporary removal of a controversial new ad posted to YouTube by his political action committee.

For a few hours Monday, the video was unavailable on the video-sharing website. No precise reason was given, but Cain tweeted a screenshot of a message from the Google-owned service saying that community members had flagged the video as inappropriate.

This is free speech, this is free speech under #YouTube. I have some questions! #SOS t.co/GKOmPkU4

— Herman Cain (@THEHermanCain) March 26, 2012

It's likely that users of the service objected to the imagery in the ad. In the commercial, a young girl says that a rabbit she is holding represents "small business." The rabbit is then placed in a catapult, launched and shot in mid-air by a gunman.

“This is small business under the current tax code,” the girl says.

Google said Monday that they do not comment on specific YouTube videos, but that sometimes videos are mistakingly removed from the service.

"Occasionally, a video flagged by users or identified by our spam team is mistakenly taken down. When this is brought to our attention, we review the content and take appropriate action, including reinstating videos that had been removed," a Google spokesman said.

Cain acknowledged that the video was back up in a subsequent tweet:

I guess I'm back from my "#YouTube time-out" Go vote for the topic of our next video: t.co/0npFIgFk #SOS

— Herman Cain (@THEHermanCain) March 26, 2012

Cain has used provocative commercials to make headlines before. In an ad released earlier in the month, a goldfish drowning after its fishbowl breaks is used as an extended metaphor for "the economy on stimulus." Cain later assured concerned viewers that the fish was rescued before suffocating entirely.

During his presidential bid, Cain's commercials drew similar notoriety. In one, campaign manager Mark Block was shown puffing a cigarette and blowing smoke into the camera.

—This post was updated at 3:15 p.m.

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