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Ban Pewdiepie

I feel like almost all media is being sponsored by the left and everyone should follow what the mainstream media tells us to follow. This isn't anything new, this has been done for many years already but the last few years it's getting more extreme. If you don't agree with what the media tells you you're instantly considered a peasant/bigot/racist/hater/... There even is no room for discussion anymore. People aren't allowed to think about the bigger issues (like the overpopulation of the planet, the oil wars, the impact of certain religions on an indigenous population, the class system,...) Instead they want to keep you busy talking about the latest HBO show, sports, celebrities, etc. Youtube used to be neutral and a good source of information until they started banning people like Alex Jones.

My opinion on this issue is pretty simple:

I don't care.

This doesn't sound like an issue about 'speech', it sounds like an issue about money. So many people that claim to be champions of speech tend to be hypocrites, they never see it both ways.

Even before the internet was a thing, we've had government entities actually censoring mediums like the TV and radio (the FCC still does). Youtube isn't levying fines on these people, they are just deciding who gets to earn money on their own platform.
If you rent a stall to sell goods at the fair, it doesn't give you carte blanche to sell whatever you want. You can't just sell booze to minors, you can't sell nazi paraphernalia- and expect the event organizers to not shut you down. You can argue that you are being censored but you are still free to go peddle your crap somewhere else.

I don't understand the big deal. There are other platforms, and I remember when stupid Youtube didn't even exist. The government isn't levying fines, no one is getting arrested- this is the equivalent of a property owner throwing a party and asking unruly guests to leave. It's up to the owner who can stay and who needs to go.

I mean think about it- if you owned a website and paid for server expense and data transmission how would you like it if you were forced to host content you wanted off your site? How is that 'freedom' at all?

We are talking about a private site run by a private entity. How would you like it if the next party you throw at your house you were required to host neo-nazis and antifa and terrorists and sex traffickers?

Well, on the one hand Youtube is a private platform and they can do what they want with it. It's not a first amendment issue, even though some people are claiming that these huge social networks are the new public square and should be regulated by the government. I disagree strongly with this contention, as I am not eager to have government step in and control social media like China and other authoritarian governments.

That said, people love to parrot the "well Youtube is a private company so you're not entitled to say whatever you want on their platform so nyeeeeeh" line. Ok, sure, it's their platform and their rules and they can run it how they please. However, they are engaging in blatant censorship and manipulation and should be criticized and ditched for more open platforms. I truly believe that the future of the free web will be through these decentralized, federated, open source, community driven alternatives. I realize not everyone will jump ship from the tech overlords, but the way things are going the alternatives are looking better and better.

The issue is not political bias, it's bigots.

YouTube gives conservatives a platform to reach millions and millions of people. It is a megaphone for conservative voices. It has been a huge boon for conservatives.

If you can't be a conservative without being a bigot - without saying racist, homophobic, and/or sexist things - then the problem is you, and you're giving conservatives a bad name. If you need to resort to racist, homophobic, and/or sexist remarks to reach and maintain an audience, then you're a bigot - regardless of your political affiliation - and I think you shouldn't be paid for saying such things and have no issue with private companies deciding not to have you on their platform.

(reposting reply, with tweaks)
I feel a major part of this is as much due to the way content propagates itself, such as the 'suggested for you' algorithms, and exposure through who you follow or befriend, etc. The things you find distasteful, amusing, heroic, witty, are then echoed outwards in a kind of signal relay just through association, be it positive or negative. Engaging in the replies to such pieces of content, whether in disagreement to someone elses reply or in a tribalistic 'me too' to the message of a video, it serves to construct a loose echo-chamber structure even when an individual had no intention of becoming trapped in one. The more you get sucked into political-leaning matters, the more likely you are to see a one-dimensional view of prejudices and censorship, and woe betide anyone who dare dissent from the echo chamber you find your feed leaning towards, oof.

While youtube is supposed to be primarily a video content sharing service, its inclusion of a comment section, reply alerts, a "+1" voting function and such, makes it another form of social media. Twitter is a more vicious example of social media because of how directly it echoes content you interact with into your acquaintances feeds, and how the character limit on each post serves to trim out valuable discourse and subtly cause people to favour cathartic clapbacks and childish id fulfillment, but youtube is still a form of social media all the same.

The only problem with 'censorship' arises when a social media platform takes a stronger stance towards one flavour of rule infraction than to another. It is worth considering that such large websites are undoubtedly moderated by multiple individuals, who will have their own value judgements sneaking into actions taken, and that an automated response system is likely in place (and abuseable by mass-reporting), but big companies are notorious for their tone-deafness.

Social media platforms can be absolutely biased, but usually it is a mix of laziness and a lack of genuine concern. Using twitter as an example, people can make thinly concealed death-threats and not be banned despite mass reporting, while others can be banned within hours of posting a meme. People can happily have feeds full of openly racist diatribe and never get touched by moderation, while others get suspended for a single tweet because they cussed and used a disliked abbreviation at the same time. In one hand, people can be suspended for making jokes about milkshakes while others aren't touched for making knowing, directly targetted nods about "i'm taking my sidearm, I can't wait for you to give me an excuse", and then on the flipside having people talking about throwing bricks who are never penalised, whereas others are shut down for far less. When it comes to youtube, consider that they happily demonetise channels when a bot spuriously throws claims out at the behest of an obvious greedy copyright troll group, or that their own automated detection system can flag hundreds of videos as potentially stealing your content because they included a cutscene from a videogame you reviewed.

I often feel this is less about favouritism of the left vs right, and more about the apathy of the personally uninvolved moderators who take glances at reports and make judgement calls with little scope of the actual severity, tone, and realistic implication and intent. Reports that get past automated filtering/response likely get through to someone who treats it as 'just a job', and who have to operate based on the parameters of higher-ups who likely don't give a single shit. But if those higher-ups do give have a bias (or a myopic mindset that doesn't actually grasp certain modern lingo or concepts), then that would likely filter down just as badly. Both sides claim to be victimised and ignored while the other side gets a free pass to censor on a whim, and claim 'the enemy' always believe themselves to be the victims. Full disclosure : My feeds tend towards the left-leaning, and I can confirm there are few angels to be found there either, but there are plenty of pointless suspensions, demonetisation and mass-reporting targeted towards them too.

Demonetizing someone isn't censoring them. Advertisers don't want their ads on political and controversial videos. They're still free to speak their mind, they just won't get ad money for doing it. If they stop making videos because they can't get paid for them, then they were only doing it for the money and don't care about their message being heard. Most channels now aren't supported by ads anyway, they get external donations through sites like Patreon, so if they get demonetized and complain, they're just trying to stir up their followers to make controversy where there is none.

Resist we much!

Hate speech isn't free speech.

Forums everywhere I see are getting dumber and dumber with this kind of topic.

Free Speech is only guaranteed from state sponsored manipulation, like an elected official menacing to remove the "license" from a media provider, private companies can and should do as they see fit, if you think there can be political manipulation from internet information delivery platforms im sure many spy agencies in the world were already aware of that and be even more skeptic of information in the internet than traditional information providers, but im sure they will tell you otherwise, without Net Neutrality, there is even no recourse against an ISP directly blocking any site on the internet.

I for one im glad these companies take actions to make it harder for irrational actors to spread their misinformation, such antivaxxers or terrorist organizations.

nothing new.

erm, demonitizing != censorship

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AL997BhfP0M

An interesting video on the topic. Obviously biased, but shines some light on it.

censored one last time by the authoritarian sg ;_;