"As an open platform, it’s crucial for us to allow everyone–from creators to journalists to late-night TV hosts–to express their opinions w/in the scope of our policies."
Tweeted YouTube, quoted in "YouTube is refusing to punish a star with millions of fans after he hurled homophobic slurs at a journalist" (Business Insider).
Thanks to YouTube for taking the strong free-speech position. Let us hear and decide for ourselves what we think of insults. Don't overprotect us, or we will become children.
ADDED: I was running off as I wrote this post, so I didn't get to 2 topics that commenters are talking about:
1. YouTube doesn't just allow people on and kick people off; it also monetizes and demonetizes. Different considerations arise, and I understand advertisers not wanting their product juxtaposed with, say, homophobic slurs. I used to work in an ad agency in the 1970s, and I remember putting it in the contract that an ad for an airline wouldn't run next to a story about an airplane crash. Placement of ads matters, and YouTube is selling ad space and needs to be able to present advertisers with places where they want their ads, not just flow money to video providers based on the size of the audience. Nasty speech can grab a lot of eyeballs. There need not be an automatic cash reward for that.
2. The use of the word I've been talking about for 2 days — here and here — "deeply." I think "deeply offensive" is the worst of the deeply phrases. And frankly, I don't think the purported deep offense here and elsewhere is that deep. In fact I think it's damned shallow. Deeply shallow.
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205 पैकी 1 – 200 नवीन› नवीनतम»It wasn't that strong of a stance. They still demonetized the channel in question and then demonetized many more that weren't in question.
Counterargument:
Steven Crowder
John Henry
Yeah, then they decided to go ahead and punish him after all. So yay. Free speech some other day.
Didn't they demonetize his channel after that tweet?
They are liars.
A slur isn't an opinion. It's an opposing stance.
Deeply offensive opinions. Right.
Of course anyone on the left can fling a deeply offensive insult. No one on the right dare counter. or -deeply offensive.
The purge continues
via insty
Is it cynical of me to predict they will cave and ban Crowder?
FYI the Twitter handle of the man wanting to ban Crowder for zinging his sexuality is @GayWonk.
Leftwing opinions are sacred.
any thing non-leftwing must be purged.
One-sided repression of speech will be part of the indulgence Big Tech has pay to avoid meaningful regulation and anti-trust.
And what's really convenient is that they chose which side long ago.
"Thanks to YouTube for taking the strong free-speech position. Let us hear and decide for ourselves what we think of insults. Don't overprotect us, or we will become children"
A joke or something? YouTube Just purged hundreds of websites and took away a lot of people's income and not necessarily because of anything they had posted sometimes it could just be who followed them.
"The principle [of censorship] is wrong. It's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't have steak.” - Heinlein.
That is complete hogwash. The number of deplatformed and demonetized creators is up (according to one youtuber) almost 800% in the last 3 years. The funny thing is that they can't do it manually without the help of their algorithm they crafted and as a result huge numbers of people get caught in their dragnet - a dragnet with virtually no appeal.
All it takes to kick the algorithm into gear is to start 'reporting' content using the button on youtube videos. The more clicks the higher in the cue it goes.
Many content creators and indicated they're going to start a campaign of 'flagging' every single video. Not even the entire population of India as tech support would be enough for a manual review process.
Free speech is an 'on-off' switch. It's either free speech 100% of the time for everyone or, what you're seeing now, and eventual slip into 'no-speech' by ham-handedly picking and choosing.
For a bunch of supposedly smart people, they simly will not learn.
They support free speech like Lois Lerner supported an independent IRS.
Of tea bags, black holes, babies, and a diverse variety of semantic slings, too.
"They still demonetized the channel in question and then demonetized many more that weren't in question."
Sure. But that will be far less reported.
They support free speech like Lois Lerner supported an independent IRS.
Alphabet is counting their letters and sorting them into politically profitable and deplorable bins.
They also remove subscriptions when someone like Dave Rubin gets near the beneficial/threshold of a million subscribers.
"Lispy queer". Which part is untrue? Does he or does he not lisp? Is he or is he not gay? If both are true, I don't see the defamation.
“Thanks to YouTube for taking the strong free-speech position.”
Do a little more research. YouTube is hardly covering itself in free speech glory here. They’ve been going back and forth on banning and/or demonitizing many accounts, and without any clear guidelines as to what counts as “hateful” content. And the guy who complained is as much a “journalist” as the comedian who hurled homophobic slurs at him.
"Thanks to YouTube for taking the strong free-speech position. Let us hear and decide for ourselves what we think of insults. Don't overprotect us, or we will become children"
Please try again.
Could that BI article have been more fact-free? The principle communications are never revealed. As an audience to this dispute/drama we are only presented with snippets of text (literally st one point quoting texts saying “debate Crowder”), which is the only example of “harassment” the gay Latino Voxxer provides) that fail to impress me. It looks like one jerk, who considers himself a journalist and is out and proud about his ethnicity and sexual orientation, had his WORK and OPINIONS ridiculed by another jerk. So instead of defending his WRITTEN OPINIONS (and you know how good those are at Vox!) the first jerk wants the second jerk silenced because it’s somehow a mind-crime to use the same descriptors to identify the first jerk that he “proudly” uses to self-identify.
Then there that Tweet from a guy who wants YouTube to have “principles” instead of rules. AI is literally a series of rules in complex algorithms not capable of principles, a human concept. Thank God the humans in charge have allowed free speech in this single isolated case, which really distillate to allowing both parties to use the same words.
"You can have free speech on our platform as long as it meets our standards" is not much of a free speech defense.
You people need to start a fox version of youtube and quit whining for free stuff from private businesses. Crowder is one of those chickencuck canadian acolytes of the right who is afraid of his homosexual wet dreams making him an overcompensating prissy douche.
' "YouTube is refusing to punish ...hurled homophobic slurs
I laughed that anyone would think it's youtube's job is to "punish" anyone.
And! I'm deeply offended by the "hurl slurs" construct. It sounds like "vomit indistinctly".
Thanks to YouTube for taking the strong free-speech position.
This incident is not a strong position at all; youtube is actually pretty weak on free speech. They should allow anything that's not illegal.
Perhaps the compalaintive just dislikes Crowder because his last name reminds him of a racist TV character. But does that justify banning?
The internet (at least like it still is for the time being) is the greatest free-market device ever devised. In a truly free-market - especially a free-market of ideas - the people vote with their eyeballs, their feet, and sometimes their pocket book.
But we've been seeing cracks for some time in that there are lots of people out there who have been doing nothing but pulling the wool off peoples' eyes, something that has been revealed the tech corporatists can't tolerate. It's quite clear the jig is up. They are not free-market people, they have never been net-neutral.
You would think that in an industry this ephemeral (remember myspace...just 15 years ago?) they would understand a need to NOT pick and choose between competing interest groups using their platforms as a battleground and adopt a policy of not paying attention to noisy minorities whose only ability to win is the cry foul and asking them to 'shut-it-down'...that is almost always a sign of weakness, not strength.
What this should show you is that they're actually losing and that they're scared. The influence of these content creators must be far more outsized then they'd like you know about.
This is a sign they're losing control of their platforms, not vice versa.
Youtube pays for the platform, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Socialism suits you when you can't compete.
“Hurled”? He said some stuff on the internet.
Treating everyone the same is not easy when you're on the left. The cry for diversity is a big phoney laugh.
"deeply"
Crowder demonizes himself with his own per-pubescent potty mouth
These social media platforms should be forced to choose whether they’re neutral platforms that don’t censor or they’re content publishers. They shouldn’t get to have it both ways. The more they edit and censor what goes up on their platform, the more they’re pushing a viewpoint and thus acting as content publishers — and the less justifiable it is for them to enjoy immunity from civil liability for defamation and so on.
Congress can fix this real quick.
"Thanks to YouTube for taking the strong free-speech position."
If only this were true. Sadly, it is not even close to being true.
Howard said...
You people need to start a fox version of youtube and quit whining for free stuff from private businesses. Crowder is one of those chickencuck canadian acolytes of the right who is afraid of his homosexual wet dreams making him an overcompensating prissy douche.
How about you stop drilling for a gusher on Althouse and go back out into the real world and put your skills to work making America even more energy independent and great again?
I'm retired from E&P. What's your roughneck nickname chickadee? Now am working to save the planet by turning toxic waste into organic vegetables.
“Youtube pays for the platform, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Socialism suits you when you can't compete.”
Fair enough. I take it then that you support abolishing Sec 230 and making YouTube/Google financially responsible for everything that is posted on the platform?
And one more thing that indicates 'loss of control'...
Their complete inability to be consistent or stay on message despite billions in expertise both on and off staff in public relations and affairs. The net is replete with examples of them saying one thing, doing another, and then reversing course in some cases within the same day, only to repeat their original decision days or weeks later.
They. Don't. Know. What. They're. Doing.
There's definitely a leadership problem, and there's also a problem with the common knowledge that there's simply so much content they can't handle it all.
Someone or some group of people are finally going to figure this out and actually start creating REAL competition. You saw it with FB vs. Myspace, you saw it with Gab vs. Twitter, you're seeing it with anti-trust in EU against Google.
The smartest guys in the room aren't as smart as you think they are.
So when are they going to ban all the hate against Trump voters and Trump himself? There is video of people pretending to ASSASSINATE the President...but lispy queer is a crime???
Re: demonetization, I think the internal censors at Youtube are testing the envelope again, and seeing what their user/viewer base will let them get away with. Their most popular user, PewDiePie (unless he's been surpassed by some other personality I've not heard of), has been a constant thorn in their side because Youtube's censors clearly really, really want to ban him, and activists with nothing better to do spam complaints against him all the time, but he remains a huge draw for the site and could pull millions of viewers onto an alternative platform if they pissed him off to the point that he moved. So they haven't been able to ban him, but they have fiddled with his revenues.
Howard said...I'm retired from E&P. What's your roughneck nickname chickadee?
One of the problems with the Althouse commentariat is that it attracts far too many retirees. It gets boring after a while listening to all the idle "problem solvers."
Professor, as a mother of a son who is gay do you consider what Crowder said to be a slur or just a normal insult? Society has changed a lot in the past few years. What was considered a slur in 2009 may not count as one now. I don't have a perspective that would tell me which is the case currently. The only contact I have on a regular basis with gay people is in a drinking/running group where vulgar language is encouraged.
They still demonetized the channel in question and then demonetized many more that weren't in question.
From what I hear, following his demonitization, Shopify ceased selling Crowder's merchandise (anti-socialist tee-shirts, I believe),and Twitter started denying users the right to retweet for mentioning the Crowder incident and/or retweeting Crowder tweets. YouTube will not allow remonetization by Crowder unless he removes links to his website. Seems like a questionable set of choices for entities facing antitrust talk...
I'm no Crowder fan. But YouTube is so stupid to listen to Vox, a competitive platform. It's like NBC demanding CBS deplatform Stephen Colbert.
About whom, I might add....YouTube is happy to have his snippets on their platform. But I never feel more hated than I feel when I watch Colbert. And their standard is supposedly nobody that claims superiority over another group can have those clips on YouTube. MmmmHmmm.
Lucid: sounds like a free market solution is around the corner. don't hold your breadth.
What would we all say if Google decided to start skimming Gmail for certain thoughts, and not deliver the emails that meet their criteria?
Let's see if I have this right-
Youtube created a platform to host videos from users. The videos created by users made Youtube a raging success.
Youtube was able monetize that success by selling advertising. Youtube started a revenue sharing program to encourage more and creative content, and allow content creators to turn their hobby into a paying job if they were successful.
Youtube, now having a virtual monopoly in video sharing, sells to Google.
Google changes the business model. It no longer needs content creators. It has advertising and the deep pockets of corporate media to drive profits.
Google then eliminates successful independent content creators, as they are in direct competition with their main clients--corporate media.
Do no evil.
"Crowder's channel ... suspend monetization."
IOW, youtube doesn't support free speech, youtube DID "punish" him, and the businessinsider headline is Fake News.
But I never feel more hated than I feel when I watch Colbert
Colbert is like the old minstrel shows, caters to the same bigotry about people that the viewers consider inferior and works their bigotry for laughs, except that they don’t dress in blackface and mock blacks, they mock conservatives. It makes sense because conservatives are naturally skeptical and so make a poor audience for advertisers who want to change minds with pretty pictures.
Blogger bleh said...These social media platforms should be forced to choose whether they’re neutral platforms that don’t censor or they’re content publishers. They shouldn’t get to have it both ways. The more they edit and censor what goes up on their platform, the more they’re pushing a viewpoint and thus acting as content publishers — and the less justifiable it is for them to enjoy immunity from civil liability for defamation
Howie: Cucks!
Chickie... keep reading, I'm into my 4th career. I left E&P 30-years ago. Right now,I'm a partner in a chemical engineering startup to turn industrial pollution into a high value product. It might yet fail, but you gotta try. This ain't no disco
Colbert is a whiny little leftist bitch.
But they demonitized Crowder, after more whining by that crybully little bitch. Who does have a lisp.
I think antitrust action needs to go against Alphabet. I also wouldn't shed a tear if a meteor hit Youtube's headquarters.
I don't get Colbert either, hafta agree with my favorite bimbo. ron swanson does a better job of lampooning the right because he is not mean
walter: if the phoo shits, wear it.
Every night you can go on to the network television shows and see conservatives being mocked and ridiculed and defamed. Every single night this happens.
And yet a comedian and a debater like Steven Crowder can't mock a stick-up-his-ass Nazi like Carlos Maza without losing his job.
Why isn't every damn professor at the University of Wisconsin fired. Most of them have said things that others have disagreed with. Most of them have said things far, far more offensive then what Crowder said. That would be justice! That would be an equivalent act!
We are losing our freedoms so quickly. We are in so much trouble.
This incident is not a strong position at all; youtube is actually pretty weak on free speech. They should allow anything that's not illegal.
So you want youtube to be another pornhub? For all your love of capitalism, if a corporation decides certain speech is harmful to their profits, you all get bent out of shape.
"the sky is falling... the sky is falling..."
pretty much is the key sign of a cuck
Right now,I'm a partner in a chemical engineering startup to turn industrial pollution into a high value product.
Give us the specs, we might want to invest.
I have a Crowder mug. Got it for signing up for a year of CRTV.
That was much more than a year ago. No more CRTV for me, I cancelled before another year renewed since I had already stopped logging in after the first few weeks. Not cause of me beein' fussy re his beein' fussy re stuff like this homo. There's something tiring about someone who will carefully pick at the opposition, and then also glosses over for their side. Don't make it so obvious that your goal is to manipulate me. And, bad faith discourse is dull anyway.
IMHO.
Same w/ Shapiro.
OTOH, that slob who keeps feeding info to Wolff does seem to be more up n' up. That's not an opinion re his opinions. Just that he seems less obviously smarmy re a constituency.
I dunno.
All the ChemEs in the thread, raise yur hand.
OK, I count one.
Now LispyQueer is crying because some of his friends got caught up in the bans....https://twitchy.com/samj-3930/2019/06/06/oh-no-you-own-this-carlos-maza-tries-blaming-youtube-for-voxadpocalypse-but-aint-nobody-letting-him-off-the-hook/
It's such a cheap simple process, it's bootstrapable. The only problem is getting the proper approvals from the governing agencies to market the product as organic. Reading Kafka helps you get through the layers of red tape.
Don't fall for the fucking lies. This is not about Steven Crowder mocking an asshole with a homophobic slur.
Steven Crowder is losing his income because he is conservative. That is the only reason.
There are literally tens millions of left-wing assholes that have uttered homophobic slurs in their lives. None of them are going to lose their jobs because of it. But everyone that is conservative or right-wing is in danger.
Re: Freder Frederson:
So you want youtube to be another pornhub? For all your love of capitalism, if a corporation decides certain speech is harmful to their profits, you all get bent out of shape.
If they thought the speech was harmful to their profits, they wouldn't demonetize it (which just means that Youtube pockets all the profits and doesn't share with the creator). They'd take it down. They choose demonetization in these cases precisely because the speech is helpful to their profits, but their management still wants to slap back at people they don't like.
I'm no Chem-E, but I play one in industry.
Shorter Althouse lib commenter:
These dirty cocksuckers should not be allowed to call people names. We have to ban them from speaking to preserve free speech. Is that too hard to understand, you stupid idiot morons?
10% of the comments are from Howard defending you Tube. I'm beginning to think he works for you tube
Whatever, Balfegor. It's up to youtube to steer their ship. If this is a loser for them, so be it. They are putting their money and mouth on the same platform.
I'm one on paper. But, moved on long ago*.
*For me, 'long ago' is measured re a different scale v the many golden years-ers 'round here.
not defending youtube, I'm defending free market capitalism from the socialist right.
Thanks to YouTube for taking the strong free-speech position. Let us hear and decide for ourselves what we think of insults. Don't overprotect us, or we will become children.
There is no such thing as "you are free, subject to our policies which we can change at any time for any reason".
no shirt, no shoes, no service
Mommy and daddy finish putting you through architecture school yet?
Lispy queer. Whatever. The gay left is Stalinist as fuck. They deserve the slurs.
Not quite how it went Nob.
But, it is done.
On to the next hobby.
Now Howard's at 18% of the comments. I don't believe this guy has a job
Alphabet wants to abort the baby and keep him, too. So, they decided to cut him in half. How very Pro-Choice (PC).
I have the impression that YouTube does resist pressure to censor more than Facebook, Twitter and Google do.
I think it's mostly a matter of YouTube's leadership. It has just so happened that YouTube's leaders appreciate free speech more than the other company's leaders do.
This could change in the future. The replacement of just a few of YouTube's leaders might cause YouTube to follow the other companies toward more censoring of non-liberal opinions.
Basically, Facebook, Twitter and Google are leading the way.
"Now Howard's at 18% of the comments. I don't believe this guy has a job"
If Althouse was still banning people, like she did to me, maybe he'd be erased from this thread.
To protect the children.
Lispy queer.
Transphobic - the fear and hate that orientations in the transgender spectrum will be tolerated but not normalized.
Although Facebook, Twitter and Google are important leaders in the drive to censor free speech, our societies most important leaders are our universities.
"You people need to start a fox version of youtube and quit whining for free stuff from private businesses."
But we did.
Ninety-five percent of the programmers that wrote the software way back then that made all of this possible, and in some cases whose literal code is still being run, would be horrified by all of this.
What happens is the parasites, and most of them are left-wing, come in, and they are all university-certified, and they turn what we created into a fascist paradise.
I guarantee Twitter's deplatforming policy has a disparate racial impact. Can that be constitutionally protected?
Mike Sylwester said...
Although Facebook, Twitter and Google are important leaders in the drive to censor free speech, our societies most important leaders are our universities.
Don't forget our media outlets! They didn't like that Nancy Pelosi video one bit. And the citizen who created it had to be shamed! And now some of them were pushing for Crowder's de-platforming.
Nobody loves the first amendment more than those who see themselves as having special rights to use it.
I don't have any confidence that either Google or YouTube have any belief in a strong form of free speech. They, so far, haven't done the worst thing they could do (deplatforming all "bad" speakers) but they have taken some steps in that direction (demonetizing, warning/suspending, etc) and I don't think anyone should be confident they won't.
I don't believe YouTube believes in free speech. That we have, thus far, made them pretend like they might is a good thing and worth pointing out, but I wouldn't place a bet that it'll hold.
dON'T video any Antifa crimes for all to see. That's a crime.
Our universities give censorship an intellectual patina.
Censoring wrong opinions is something that is done by very smart people, such as university administrators.
This impression justifies the urge to censor likewise in non-academic organizations, such as Facebook, Twitter and Google.
I think that adds is working on a bot to produce comments like his own, without him having to work at it. It’s too early to pronounce his bot named Howard a total failure, there is a vague similarity, but signs don’t point to a big success, as the Magic 8 Ball might put it.
Btw, the internet came from ARPA, a US Defense Dept. program. The feds treat the airwaves, created by nature, as a publicly controlled, granting licenses to use it, and yet allows these new media companies to act as sole owners of what was made possible by our tax dollars. They didn't build that!
Re: Howard:
Whatever, Balfegor. It's up to youtube to steer their ship. If this is a loser for them, so be it. They are putting their money and mouth on the same platform.
Again, I think they're testing the waters here. They don't want to lose a bunch of profitable content, so they're generally not shutting channels down. That's a contrast with copyright strikes, where I think they have significant concerns about litigation risk from copyright holders, and seem to be pretty aggressive in freezing and deleting channels.
But at the same time, there's people high up in the company (probably including their CEO, Susan Wojcicki) who clearly dislike the different culture and values of many of their major creators and want to signal their animus where they can, without triggering a commercially problematic exodus. I don't think that's uniform throughout the organisation (PewDiePie is a good example here, because the people who worked directly with content seem to have been fine working with and promoting him), but the people in charge do have a problem with him. Anyway. There's a balance, and they're seeing where that balance lies.
What happens is the parasites, and most of them are left-wing, come in, and they are all university-certified, and they turn what we created into a fascist paradise.
This.
The government has, paradoxically enough, restricted free enterprise in the newspaper business in order to preserve competition. Maybe we need similar remedy for the web.
Google has removed the mask of allowing independent political commentary earn money. Ergo: Google is is an enemy of the truth slipping out.
I am somewhat more confused than usual by this post.
Are we to contemplate the difference between leaving Crowder's content up while demonetizing him on YouTube? "Yay free speech. Just don't expect to get anything on this platform if we disapprove."
Well, that's robust.
Is there an alternative to YouTube?
By the way, while I find Crowder sometimes funny, what the heck was he doing mocking that guy's ethnicity and sexual preferences? Sheesh. Talk about an unpersuasive argument and unfunny material! If Maza is an idiot, mock his idiotic ideas. Who cares if his is gay or of Mexican heritage?
Crowder needs to ask himself, "What would Howard Stern do?" I think the answer is, "Book some prostitutes while Robin Quivers and other sidekicks giggle in the studio." Now THAT'S entertainment!
Re: HoodlumDoodlum:
I don't believe YouTube believes in free speech. That we have, thus far, made them pretend like they might is a good thing and worth pointing out, but I wouldn't place a bet that it'll hold.
Well, on the flip side, I don't know that Youtube needs to believe in free speech. They're a company, after all, and if they want to implement the Information Purification Directive, and create for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology, where each worker may bloom, secure from the pests of any contradictory true thoughts, well, you know. They generally ought to be allowed to do so. I know the Progressive Unification of Thoughts is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth, but come on -- I don't really think we're going to talk ourselves to death and end up buried by our own confusion.
That said, to the extent they end up being treated as a kind of public forum (cf. that wacky case where some twitter trolls complained to a court about the President blocking them on twitter), I can see how the law might end up otherwise. Still don't think I would be in favour of that.
Gays seem to have better lives in free speech societies than those who live in Marxist monocultures. They're subverting the very principles that allowed their cause to prosper. In my lifetime homophobia became a more shameful vice than homosexuality......Have you ever heard of anyone being shut down for hurling Marxist abuse?
My bot would be 27% Methadras, 69% Palladian, and 4% that bug that jumps around on a keyboard.
Just sayin'
Howard said...
You people need to start a fox version of youtube and quit whining for free stuff from private businesses.
Just like Rosa Parks. Let her start her own bus line.
Pretty words. Look at YouTube's actions not their words. Ann likes the pretty policy as worded.
Children, meet women. There is a reason we lump you together.
Keep in mind Crowder did not violate Terms of Service. His bogus 'copyright infringement' strikes were rescinded upon appeal.
Crowder works closely with the Youtube legal teams to make sure he stays firmly within the parameters set by Youtube.
Crowder has paid staff and expenses to produce content under the contractual understanding costs would be offset by revenue sharing of advertising.
This is as simple as breach of contract.
It's interesting that this drama is going on over the backdrop of various discussions within the halls of power about potentially breaking up or visiting new regulations upon the various tech giants. In the normal course of events, conservatives are generally opposed to messing around with the free market too much. But it seems like these companies have burned through any good will they have with many conservatives by evidently demonstrating uneven treatment when they deal with conservative versus liberal content creators. They've angered a lot of people who may have defended their positions. Over the past couple years I've seen at least as many calls for regulating or breaking up big tech from the right as from the left.
In the case of Youtube, cleaving it off from Google/Alphabet seems like an increasingly likely outcome. Whether or not that will solve the fairness problem I don't know, but it sure seems like Google is working against their own interests by not dealing with it in a more open and honest way.
This post is missing its civility bullshit tag.
"We're for free speech, unless..." is the civility bullshit of the 2020 election.
A huge proportion of YouTube videos are seen by very few people. Many of them have been viewed by absolutely no one.
Most people don't search YouTube for content. Or I should say they don't do it normally.
The reason we even have these conservative YouTube commenters like Crowder is that what YouTube used to do, via an algorithm, was to look for authors whose popularity was trending upward and put those videos in the recommended video list that a small percentage of people would see. And I suspect most YouTube users only click on what is in their recommended list. If the popularity kept going up, then it would be recommended to a larger percentage. And so on. For cycle after cycle.
The only thing that was suppressed was pornography.
So the algorithm that YouTube used were neutral for a long-time. And popularity was strictly driven by what was popular with users.
Now I should say I don't know this was how it worked. But I can infer that this was what was going on. And it was fascinating. Or at least I found it fascinating.
The algorithm also tried to adapt to what you clicked on, and what you approved of. And it was remarkable what I would sometimes find in my recommended viewing list: A lot of surprises and a lot of interesting stuff.
And one of the consequences of this is that it turned out that most people aren't interested in left-wing commenters. They were not anything like as popular as various conservatives like, for instance, Crowder.
But those days are gone now. My recommended viewing list has gotten stale and predictable. I'm no longer seeing the weird stuff that the wisdom of the crowd would throw up.
It's obvious what has happened. There algorithm is now far from neutral and they are deliberately trying to discriminate against conservative views.
Once the current crop of popular right-wing figures on YouTube are banned and gone. There will be no one to replace them, because they will never get in the recommended viewing list.
You have to realize Crowder is not extreme at all. He is gentle spirit. Much gentler than most of the people commenting on this forum.
I'm not really a fan of his. He's not my style. But I've watched maybe ten of his videos, and that's enough to get a pretty good idea of who a person is.
And if he can get banned then there is no one that can't get banned. Or demonetized in this case. And that matters. Crowder had over 4 million people subscribed to him. Making political commentary was his full-time business. Most of his income came from YouTube. And now it's gone.
A history teacher had his channel deleted yesterday because twice he posted excerpts from nazi speeches.
Thousands of channels were deleted yesterday. I watched a D-Day documentary on Youtube yesterday. It had tons of Nazis, literally Hitler, and guns. Soon to be banned also?
"Don't overprotect us, or we will become children."
Well said Ann.
Althouse needs to update her post.
YouTube changed their mind.
crowder=rosa parks you've come a long way baby.
I would be interested to know if Althouse wrote this before or after she heard they went through and de-monetized (and removed some content) all of those accounts last night (the Voxpocalypse)
Try https://www.godtube.com/
we do need alternatives. FreeSpeechTube for instance.
Everyone welcome.
Since we are discussing Steven Crowder, and it's in the context of the ending of his income, for those that haven't seen one of his 900 videos and counting, here is one:
'Rape Culture is a Myth': Change My Mind
I've only watched the first minute. But it seems typical of what I've seen before.
He let's people speak. Unlike our fucking Nazi news media, he doesn't edit people to make it seem like they said something that they didn't.
The video is 44 minutes long.
You people need to start a fox version of youtube and quit whining for free stuff from private businesses. Crowder is one of those chickencuck canadian acolytes of the right who is afraid of his homosexual wet dreams making him an overcompensating prissy douche
This is exactly the type of remarks that got Crowder demonetized.
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Liberals will try to tell you this is all about one specific person-Crowder, and one specific sin-gay bashing.
They might even mock you for defending him by referencing Rosa Parks.
I submit anything that does not promote leftist ideology and anything that may assist in Trump's re-election are vulnerable are systematically being banned from the public square.
You won't notice if you concentrate on the one person, who did the one thing, that one time.
Yea words!
Boo deeds!
Whether Youtube was or was not genuinely upholding free speech, I applaud Althouse for giving them due credit. We've been edging perilously close to neutralizing our First Amendment rights. Criminalizing 'hate speech', for instance, is antithetical to our founders' intent and our national values.
mockturtle said...
Whether Youtube was or was not genuinely upholding free speech, I applaud Althouse for giving them due credit.
IDK....it seems to me credit isn't really due.
My only use for YouTube is the thousands of videos of classical etc music performances. I don't know how the 'monetization' business works but it doesn't seem to be in evidence anywhere in the music videos I see (apart from the videos that are uploaded directly by the record labels of course). My impression of the classical artists I see on YT is that they all of them are happy to live (or to live in public) in various wavy depths of woke-ness. God forbid Jonas Kaufmann or Ann Hallenberg give pro-Orban or pro-Salvini interviews! who knows what that might lead to.
Who gets to define "hate speech"?
totalitarian fascist leftists.
YouTube's current stance on the videos it didn't remove: We can keep making money on your videos. But you no longer can
If only they'd do that for ALL or their posters.
Demonize
Demonetize
It's a D-Day for lefties
Per SDaly @10:42: I've thought about these passages a lot of late.
It amazes that still anyone with an ounce of decency would consider an activist stooge like Carlos Maza to be a "journalist." Increasingly, the media companies are moving away from objective news reporting towards outright political activism, opinions and news "explainers." And they perversely exploit and abuse whatever reputation they still have for objectivity by publishing highly skewed, politicized "fact checks." Because some people, particularly of a certain age, grew up trusting journalist to at least try to play it straight.
We are in a strange transitional period right now. Journalism is already dead but many people don't know it yet. Once that trust is gone altogether, things will get really bad. The news media in America is indeed under assault, but not from the Trump administration. It's destroying itself.
Without objectivity, the news media is really no different from PAC's, except that the news media doesn't suffer the same level of regulatory scrutiny or public skepticism about what they do. Much like the social media companies enjoy indirect subsidies in the form of civil immunity, the news media enjoys a certain kind of immunity as well. All predicated on the quaint notion that they're fair and unbiased. What happens once the public's belief in that evaporates?
I wonder how many liberals would rethink their opposition to the holding in Citizens United if Congress decided to go after the media corporations that own the newspapers, cable news channels, websites like Vox/MMFA, etc.?
Mr Allsop History
@MrAllsopHistory
YouTube have banned me for 'hate speech', I think due to clips on Nazi policy featuring propaganda speeches by Nazi leaders. I'm devastated to have this claim levelled against me, and frustrated 15yrs of materials for #HistoryTeacher community have ended so abruptly.
@TeamYouTube
10:36 AM - 5 Jun 2019
Ditto re music on Youtube.
And all sorts of unique things.
Its heaven for people who like unpopular things, minority interests.
The sheer accumulated volume of this is a competitive advantage.
This is real capital that is unaccounted for on financial statements.
This volume creates a quality of its own, a condition of a de facto standard.
I actually heard Bill Gates, in person, expound on this in the 1980's.
Its not usually mentioned in Business School strategy courses, but its a de facto goal of IT startups since the 1980's.
Its very hard to compete against a standard.
@Sdaly@MockT
hand/forehead---> deeds/thoughts? Curiously 'heart' is left out.
maybe to circumvent the cop-out "I participated, but it wasnt really
where I was at in my heart"
younotyoutube.com
Once you have created a standard you have a semi-natural monopoly, and have leeway to behave like a monopolist. Its like owning the only newspaper in town, even today, with the only distribution system. You have created a monopoly position as it will take a large capital investment to start a competitor, with poor prospects for ROI.
'It's interesting that this drama is going on over the backdrop of various discussions within the halls of power about potentially breaking up or visiting new regulations upon the various tech giants.'
It is curious. I can't tell if they're being foolish or remindjng their prog buddies that they'll keep the narrative clean and tight...
Has everybody forgotten the VIDEO that caused Benghazi??? Trillions around the world saw it, and it angered them enough to attack and kill 4 Americans INCLUDING an ambassador!! True Story. Our Greatest President ever and his Sexy Secretary of State told that whopper to the faces of the victims family (not to mention their millions of faithful followers.) Maybe it is time to ban YOU TUBE?? haha!!
'Rape Culture is a Myth': Change My Mind
Culture? Normalization? Religion? The missing links are inferred.
Well, there are casting couches. "Friendship with benefits" is a progressive path. The planned parenthood protocol is empowering. The witch hunts and warlock trials are historically a means to prosecution of social justice and miscarriage of justice.
A monopolist that is creating an opening for a competitor through its policies can easily shut down its competitor by adjusting its policies. Its like what Saudi Arabia used to do, through its position as low-cost producer, it could at least temporarily reduce prices below economic viability for anyone else.
A monopoly position is very difficult to overturn, as countermove risks such as these loom large.
Another true statement comparing young D-Day heroes to todays youth....https://www.facebook.com/OccupyDemocratsLogic/photos/a.1648005522084023/2414858548732046/?type=3&theater
I'm confused by Ann's update.
Is she saying demonitized videos no longer have ads?
If she is saying this, I dont think it's true. I think they still have ads but the creator doesn't get the money. YouTube does.
This needed the #bullshit tag.
'It's interesting that this drama is going on over the backdrop of various discussions within the halls of power about potentially breaking up or visiting new regulations upon the various tech giants.'
It is curious. I can't tell if they're being foolish or remindjng their prog buddies that they'll keep the narrative clean and tight...
It's not foolish. We have a divided government in DC, although the Right technically controls the executive branch agencies, and nearly everything these days is tribal. The feelings of antagonism are intense. If the tech companies throw in with the Left by signaling their virtuous opposition to "hatred," i.e., anything that deviates from the extremist line set by leftwing activists, they hope to find Democratic allies in Congress who will play defense for them against unfavorable legislation. In exchange, the tech companies will do what they can to promote the interests of the Democratic Party in 2020. This is the smart play for them.
The Republicans are the "conservative" party during a time when social and cultural attitudes are rapidly shifting, and those shifts are largely embraced by established commercial interests that used to eschew politics or hot-button cultural issues. You can see proof of that this month, where every corporation in America dons rainbows to signal their full-throated support of Pride and everything LGBTQ+. The dominant pop cultural attitude in 2019 America leans Left, and so the path of least resistance for the tech companies is to embrace that.
And Google lies.
Maza sounds a great deal like Chuck.
#GoogleLies
#GoogleLies
Yeah, Alphabet is a missing a few letters. So Pro-Choice.
"I'm confused by Ann's update. Is she saying demonitized videos no longer have ads? If she is saying this, I dont think it's true. I think they still have ads but the creator doesn't get the money. YouTube does."
Ridiculous. Look it up. If that were the problem, the content provider could just opt for no ads — go to settings — but that's not what happens! The problem is advertisers don't want their ads connected to certain kinds of material and YouTube is offering to match the ads up to content in a desirable way. That's their business model.
Eric wrote:
"I think they still have ads but the creator doesn't get the money. YouTube does."
Google has definitely been caught out doing exactly this in the past, but I just checked a handful of Crowder's videos, and none of them have ads within them now. So, in this case, they have certainly stopped putting ads on his channel.
I'm glad I don't bother with all this stuff. I've been involved in some things that got YouTubed, and informed by enthusiasts that I can see it anytime! I say "thanks, I'll take a look," and get back to reality.
Narr
Is that forgivable fibbing?
I get notes from Google from time to time telling me they're not going to put ads on this or that page of mine. I challenge and sometimes win, but mainly it's that advertisers don't want to be on a page that's porn or promoting illegal drugs or something like that. I get false positives on that sometimes, and I understand that the system for demonetizing pages isn't completely accurate. I can try to avoid it by not using certain words or jokes. But I could just get rid of Google ads. I still have Google giving me this free website, but it's not a charity. It's getting some value somehow.
This is great to see. I am a YouTube Premium subscriber (mostly to avoid the ads) and probably watch more youtube overall than I do movies or TV anymore.
I do wonder, though, how Ms. Althouse might react if her site were demonetized, or like some sites simply taken down by Google's revocation of the right to use the software.
Placement of ads matters, and YouTube is selling ad space and needs to be able to present advertisers with places where they want their ads, not just flow money to video providers based on the size of the audience.
You suggest the resolution yourself. YouTube probably has (or could make if it wanted to) a system of categorizing its channels. It could use the infamous algorithm not to ban but to slot and pigeon-hole channels. In its contracts, it could have advertisers indicate the categories of sites the advertiser does or does not want to advertise on.
Problem solved.
And Tim Maguire is correct- the solution is to allow the advertisers to pick and choose. I find it unlikely that all ad buyers didn't want the eyeballs Crowder provides.
To the earlier post. ChemE here too. That’s 2
Well they are taking down historians who post clips of Hitler, and also this https://mobile.twitter.com/FordFischer/status/1136334778670518273
Plus they did demonetize crowder. Not the same as taking down certainly but it undercuts the praise you give them. And the history guy was taken down.
"I do wonder, though, how Ms. Althouse might react if her site were demonetized, or like some sites simply taken down by Google's revocation of the right to use the software."
Well, there's obviously an immense difference between withdrawing the ads (ie, demonetization) and kicking me off the site entirely (especially if my archive were destroyed).
My post de-links these 2 concerns, and they really are very different!
I consider getting rid of the ads already on my own. The amount of money isn't commensurate with the intrusion on the page. It's about right on the line where I want the money enough not to kick them out. So if they withdrew the ads, it wouldn't be a huge deal for me. It's very hard to make a normal income that way though. I'm not reliant on that income to get by in life, so my reaction is different from that of some other people.
"Google owns Blogger. I hope this blog just doesn't go *poof* because of a controversial post or a *hateful* comment."
Yes, and that's one reason I praise YouTube for valuing free speech with respect to not kicking people out.
The monetization problems are different, and I'm not praising or criticizing YouTube here. I think it's a more nuanced problem.
I do wonder, though, how Ms. Althouse might react if her site were demonetized, or like some sites simply taken down by Google's revocation of the right to use the software.
Althouse is one of those who thinks "It can't happen to me". And she will be shocked and outraged when it does, eventually, happen to her.
Make no mistake, these progressives have no intention of permitting free speech for anyone who isn't 100% with the program.
"Althouse is one of those who thinks "It can't happen to me". And she will be shocked and outraged when it does, eventually, happen to her."
You're a terrible mind reader. And there's even stuff in the archive you could read on the subject. Good luck figuring out what I think and what would shock me.
I'm also aware that I could drop dead at any moment.
Somehow I go on.
The problem is advertisers don't want their ads connected to certain kinds of material and YouTube is offering to match the ads up to content in a desirable way. That's their business model.
It isn't the advertisers who are complaining. Crowder's advertisers were fine with him. It is Leftwing SJWs who are complaining and attacking Rightwing channels in a fairly successful attempt to silence and punish people they disagree with.
As probably mentioned above, Crowder was demonetized as are others who express wrongthink, meaning those with conservative voices.
Those on the left are being left alone even though they say as 'bad' or worse things. The left also being part of the mob to silence anyone on the right. Nice little brownshirts that they are.
Somehow I go on.
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
You suggest the resolution yourself. YouTube probably has (or could make if it wanted to) a system of categorizing its channels. It could use the infamous algorithm not to ban but to slot and pigeon-hole channels. In its contracts, it could have advertisers indicate the categories of sites the advertiser does or does not want to advertise on.
Problem solved.
I don't think you've identified the correct problem.
I don't get the praise for YouTube, then. They have deplatformed people for exactly the things Crowder was accused of. All I see here is that Crowder is on his way to being deplatformed- his enemies just haven't applied enough pressure on YouTube to this point in time, but they will.
Crowder was demonetized not for the content of his videos...but because he included links to a separate website where he sold merchandise that the SJWers objected to.
Youtube's explanation for the demonetization:
"To clarify, in order to reinstate monetization on this channel, he will need to remove the link to his T-Shirts."
Further, if you think this is about 'advertising', advertisers can and do pull their advertising from any and all medium they do not want their products associated with.
Youtube, like all leftist, get offended on their behalf, and punish on our behalf.
Praising YouTube for this decision is sort of like praising a despot running reeducation camps rather than extermination camps.
"To clarify, in order to reinstate monetization on this channel, he will need to remove the link to his T-Shirts."
I will be watching to see if this actually happens. I think it won't matter what Crowder does to comply- he won't get the ads on his site again.
Althouse: if I write the word "f-g" in your comments, you can safely assume that your blog is reported or flagged for potentially hateful content, even though I am just a read who comments on your blog posts. You allow me to post my comments, so in some sense you are responsible for my content. Forget advertisers, perhaps Google doesn't want to be associated with the word "f-g" and decides to take down your blog.
I am choosing not to write the f-word because I really do take seriously the possibility of your blog being taken down.
This is merely to illustrate a point. What if Google decides that readers objecting to, say, gay marriage in your comments section are promoting hate, and therefore you are promoting hate if you don't censor their comments before allowing them to be published? Do you really want to do the comments moderation thing again, and if so, are you really willing to adhere to Google's vague, shifting, subjective views on "hatefulness" as opposed to your own good sense about what is or is not hateful?
I looked at a few Crowder YouTube videos and none of them have ads. I understand the argument for demonetizing a specific video to protect advertisers from content that may be offensive. but why demonetize his entire channel except to be punitive?
Dave Rubin
Verified account @RubinReport
3h3 hours ago
Oh man, look at all these gay jokes on YouTube. Family Guy must be banned and @SethMacFarlane must be hunted down and destroyed. Comedy must come to and end so we can build a safe and secure society.
Carlos Maza
Verified account @gaywonk
Carlos Maza Retweeted Towleroad
Deplatforming works and we should use it way more aggressively.
8:57 AM - 3 Dec 2018
I will be watching to see if this actually happens. I think it won't matter what Crowder does to comply- he won't get the ads on his site again.
The T-Shirts are just Youtube's version of "emanations" and "penumbras".
Liberals successful, conservatives hardest hit
Liberals successful at silencing those who disagree with them, conservatives hardest hit
FTFY
Youtube doesn't believe in freespeech. Its only for Leftists. What happens to those on the right is this. Some SJW complains that some video is "raciss/sexist/bigoted/homophobe/anti-immigrant etc." then Youtube deletes it. Or demonitizes the person, or deletes the entire persons account
Be too strong in your attacks on the Left OR talk too much about illegal aliens or immigration being a problem AND Youtube will ban you. This was part of the master plan. Get everyone against "Hate Speech" and agree it should be banned. THEN expand the definition of "Hate Speech" so that anything the Globalists or the Left dislikes is now "Hate".
Needless to say, the Never trumpers, Bill Kristol, David French, etc. are A-0K with anyone on the Right getting banned from social media. 'Cause Free Market. And Google has paid them off. LOL
I can never get too upset at people like Crowder being demonitized because he has NEVER attacked Social Media for banning OTHER conservatives. Its typical of the Right, its everyone for himself, and they will NEVER organize or look after each other.
Eliminate all adjectives! If the word "offensive" seems weak, choose another word!
The 1st amendment guarantees your right to publish content, it doesn't guarantee your right to make money publishing. That would be stupid. So from now on, only government approved publications can be monetized. Unapproved ideas can still be published -- we'll be 1st amendment absolutists -- but they can't make their publisher money.
And Team Trump will be appointing the bureaucrats who approve or disapprove the published works for monetization.
The idiot liberaltarian never trumper response is "start your own video Channel"
Even though we regulate every corporation and require them to do all kinds of things that aren't the "Free Market". In any case, no one has a couple $Billion sitting around to start their own "Youtube" Nor do they have the deep connections with Google, Facebook, Twitter, Hollywood, record labels, etc. that would allow any competitor to survive.
"Free market" is a just a way to agree with banning conservatives without having the guts to say so.
This didn't come from the advertisers. It came from Vox and Buzzfeed. I am certain advertisers already can choose certain content. I know April the Giraffe had one sponsor this year during maternity watch. And they take a certain portion of donations that come in through their super chat feature.
But they didn't leave Crowder (and others) with even that option. And they said it's because they don't want content in which someone purports to be superior to another person or group.
I really don't understand the praise for YouTube on this post.
Youtube is granted a government monopoly via IP law. They should be regulated as a monopoly.
The most important limit on monopoly power, absent the law, is substitution cost. Consider that Youtube's customers are its advertisers, not its users. What substitute product(s) are available to them?
And in order to sell ads (and have value to its investors) YouTube tracks who uses it and how, and how many eyeballs there are and what kind of things those eyeballs buy.
So the idea that the content creators aren't creating value for YouTube even if there aren't advertisers is a non starter. Not when you can say you've got traffic like Crowder and some of the other people bring in.
Dear Advertisers: "We have viewership of X million available, but we'll hide your advertising from them because someone at Vox complained"
Youtube gets a pass as a bulletin board from being sued for publishing libel. If they're going to restrict content, they ought to lose that legal protection. They're publishers.
Regardless of advertiser preferences.
Google could stop letting Althouse publish. Or it could insist she take off her ads and her Amazon link if she wants to continue. It could insist she take down certain posts if she wants to continue. That would be similar to what happened here.
Google could stop letting us send Gmail if it didn't like the content or the person. Imagine that. They could read a comment on this blog they didn't like, and block us from using that gmail account to communicated.
Sprint could decide it didn't want certain people to have mobile phones on their carrier service.
These are all private actions by private companies. How are they so very different?
x Howard said...
not defending youtube, I'm defending free market capitalism from the socialist right.
Actually what you are defending is corporate fascism.
These tech giants have been helping political allies in elections. Facebook gave all of their user data to the Obama campaign in 2012 and bragged about how tech savvy obama was. They censor their allies opponents.
For all of the Trump-Hitler talk it is the democrat party with their corporate sponsors, antifa brown shirts, and virulent anti-semitism that are following the path of national socialism to a tee.
You're a terrible mind reader. And there's even stuff in the archive you could read on the subject. Good luck figuring out what I think and what would shock me.
Fair enough, it was presumptuous of me to say what you think.
I just don't get how someone in your position can view YouTube's actions so benignly. The deplatformers are coming for anyone who is not fully with the program, and that includes you.
Youtube and google claim to be open platforms, but they are not. They have a heavy editorial presence. It doesn't make sense for them to say that they are not responsible if your ex posts a video saying that you stole from him/her, or that you routinely go to work wasted, are cheating on your taxes, etc., and yet say that they won't let you post, or will demonetize you, based on arbitrary decisions by management (that's what political censorship is).
The business models of Facebook and Youtube are broken. All the gov't has to do is step in and tell them that they have to either be a common carrier (and be immune from the liability of users), or they are a publisher, and can be sued for publishing false or defamatory content. This is an entirely reasonable position to take, and it will destroy the business model of Youtbe & Facebook regardless of which path they choose.
Youtube and google claim to be open platforms,..
Youtube is Google.
Anyone who believes that youtube is an example of free market capitalism needs to have his head examined.
Here is free market capitalism: You have three donut shops, right next to one another. All make an identical product. For reasons you, a consumer, do not understand, one donut shop sells donuts for a dollar a dozen, the shop next door sells them for $1.50/dozen, and the shop next to that sells donuts, one dollar for thirteen -- a bakers dozen. So you always buy donuts from the third shop. The donut makers are competing on price.
How is this like youtube?
What we think of as free market capitalism exists only in commodity markets & the imagination of Libertarians and ignorant conservatives. There are conservative pundits who will leverage copyright law and branding to erect legal barriers to entry to competitors, and stand on their soapbox to preach the glories of free market capitalism.
The ministry of truth was based on Orwell experience with the BBC world service.
Howard, is "E&P" "Editor & Publisher"?
THEOLDMAN
As usual, the Hostess does not get it. YouTube only does this against conservatives with miniscule exceptions possible.
YouTube, as a private platform, can do virtually whatever they want within their terms of service.
That being said: If someone has built an income stream off of youtube - say $5k a month - by investing enormous time and resources and youtube suddenly eliminates that income stream with no prior warning or advance change in terms of service or notification period - that seems to be grounds for an issue. The issue could be:
1. Legal/civil suit
2. Reduced gross product on youtube by others afraid of being maliciously demonetized in this way
etc.
I predict #2 will be of significant impact to them.
"We only want Alex Jones" in the same way "We only want that one Rebel Flag" on the Capitol grounds in S. Carolina (thanks Nikki).
Never give them an inch. Not one. Ever.
War.
"I think "deeply offensive" is the worst of the deeply phrases."
In another thread, Althouse actually showed some semblance of contrition about her own use of the word, in her occasional but therefore remarkable schoolmarm mode. Thanks, Meade.
Deeply offensive needs an offense bullshit tag.
Anyone who defends "Free Market Capitalism" and Crony Capitalism for deplatforming the Right, are closet leftists. OR idiots.
It reminds me of a Russian General in 1918. He had a "Principle" of pledging allegiance to Anyone ruling Russia. He was "non-partisan" in his allegiance. The Russian simply served the Head of State whoever that was. So, when Lenin took over, he hurried to Moscow (or Petrograd) to "Pledge Allegiance".
When he got off the RR Platform one of Lenin's flunky's strangled him to death with his own ribbons. A fitting end to a dumbshit who was too stupid to understand that "Grand Principles" mean nothing when they conflict with reality.
"You can have your free speech, but we will punish you for it"
"Blogger TreeJoe said...
YouTube, as a private platform, can do virtually whatever they want within their terms of service."
Substitute the word "publisher" for "platform" and you see the problem. Publishers are not allowed to do virtually they want within their terms of service. They are not allowed to libel, even if their terms of service allow it. They are allowed to do viewpoint discrimination, if they are a publisher.
If they are a common carrier like the phone company, they are not allowed to discriminate on viewpoint, but they are protected from the libel/slander actions of its users.
Facebook and Youtube want to be both open carriers and publishers. Can't be done, for the reasons we are now seeing: I go on Youtube & make a video claiming the local pizza parlor uses rats to make its pepperoni, Youtube says it's not responsible. I go on Youtube & make a video disparaging gays, and whoa, hold on, Youtube says that I am violating their arbitrary standards.
Sprint could decide it didn't want certain people to have mobile phones on their carrier service.
These are all private actions by private companies. How are they so very different?
Banks are already doing it.
"You can have your free speech, but we will punish you for it"
The implication is that Alphabet's action is politically incongruent, which limits their reaction to cutting the baby in half. Perhaps due to an intra-corporate conflict of interests.
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