Also, just as an example, YouTube demonetises (and therefore effectively punishes) you for using words like ‘suicide’ so now we have to say silly things like ‘unalive’ — at least until Google/the advertisers catch on. These days YouTube is more censored than traditional TV.
As with all of this crap, it’s about taking offence on behalf of those who aren’t offended or don’t even exist.
> censorship boards in traditional media too, which are typically much stricter.
Which ones? In which country would the word ‘suicide’ be censored? There are countless other examples of topics that YouTube has decided are beyond discussion — even the left-leaning BBC aren’t as censorious.
Yes, they can do what they like on their platform. But by the same token, we can complain about it.
My point is that average YouTube is going to be less censoring overall. The perception may be that there is more censorship because there is simply more content on it that can be censored and they have more stakeholders that they have to appease. BBC released The Modi Question, which got censored on YouTube. However, YouTube has significantly more Modi criticism than anything on TV in India. Likewise, YouTube censors covid related conspiracy theories, but you're still going to find more of them on YouTube than the BBC.
It’s as if a government said ‘we’ll tax you 1000% if you criticise us on social media’. You’d still get some bozos online saying ‘it’s not censorship; people are free to speak’ because you’re not directly prevented from speaking. But you can imagine the effect it would have.
E.g. clickbait content might bring you more, but it doesn't mean the other type of content is censored.
This is evident in (e.g.) WW2 documentaries where an old 4:3 television broadcast is simply put online, and the original footage had perhaps footage of corpses but on Youtube it is blurred.
I do wish the TikTokification would stop, though. But that’s never going to happen, given how effective it is at holding our eyeballs hostage.
Corporations get freedom of speech, freedom of reach, no consequences. The people do not.
To the HN crowd, sorry but I'm not going to hold back. Death does not turn you into a saint. Susan is the one who turned YouTube into the censored mess it is today, pushed for unliked mainstream channels over popular organic content creators (changed the algorith to push late night talk shows), ruined the algorith to always push "authoritarian" channels (CNN, CBS, MSN, NBC, PBS, etc), gave creators the option to disable the dislike button, permanently banned thousands of channels that even mentioned "pedophilia" like Mouthy Buddha's channel during the Q-anon nonsense. Creators at the time made 30 minute long videos analyzing data and proving that the recommended mainstream channels being pushed were inorganic.
She helped ruin YouTube. I will not apologize. Bye Susan. Come back in your next life and help fix it. Downvote away. I do not care.
