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YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views
- coinward 7y agoCensorship bad
- Bizarro 7y agoHey coinward, according to HN, that's not the case ;)
- bsamuels 7y agoHe's being downvoted because his comment is not constructive and is a knee jerk reaction to reading the title of the post, not because people disagree with him
- Bizarro 7y agoI would've said that 20 years ago saying "Censorship Bad" wouldn't have been constructive, but these days with all these people against free speech, I would say it's a very constructive comment.
- luckylion 7y agoAre you sure? I've seen quite a few "censorship is good if it censors bad things" comments upvoted while free speech absolutists generally get downvoted into the ground.
- praptak 7y agohttps://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/
- Madmallard 7y agoThe problem with this is that mediums like facebook and youtube have completely monopolized the attention of the masses. You basically have to use them. So either play along or be irrelevant. No alternative.
- nyc_data_geek 7y agoFreedom of speech is not entitlement to an audience. People can always make a sign and shout in the park.
- Madmallard 7y agoYou don't really have a chance at an audience without using the platform..
- anigbrowl 7y agoI don't think the other poster misses your point at all, but simply disagrees with it (as do I).
- nyc_data_geek 7y agoNo one said you are entitled to one.
- Madmallard 7y agoIf Youtube deems your content inappropriate for whatever reason then they remove you. This is a problem when they control the channel for the vast majority of content. You can't apply the simple ideology to it anymore. It is its own government at this point.
- kgraves 7y agoThen they can build their own YouTube so you don't have to watch their bile.
- nyc_data_geek 7y agoGermany does fine not allowing for nazi ideology to be espoused. Commoditizing the spread of bad ideas is not, in fact, a public good.
- Bizarro 7y agoThe U.S. isn't Germany. The U.S. has a first amendment.
- gizmo385 7y agoWhich deals specifically with preventing the government from censoring your speech. You are not obligated to use YouTube, nor is YouTube obligated to host your speech.
- mullingitover 7y agoThank goodness for that. If not, YouTube might be forced to publish extremist content that they find to be harmful.
- DasIch 7y agoGermany isn't the U.S. Germany has a 5th article[1]. Germany acknowledges that there are human rights (plural), that they occassionally conflict and that there are tradeoffs that must be made to achieve some balance and maintain all human rights in some reasonable form. [1]: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.html#p0037 https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.h...
- rukittenme 7y agoPlease cite your source. > According to the annual report of Germany's interior intelligence service (Verfassungsschutz) for 2012, at the time there were 26,000 right-wing extremists living in Germany, including 6,000 neo-Nazis. > The National Socialist Movement (NSM), with about 400 members in 32 states,[195] is currently the largest neo-Nazi organization in the United States. It seems the right to free speech and the right to association has led to FEWER Neo Nazis in America than Germany despite America's population being 4 times larger than Germany's.
- luso_brazilian 7y agoThe actual rules is very impartial (btw, [1] should be the actual link): > Today, we're taking another step in our hate speech policy by specifically prohibiting videos alleging that a group is superior in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion based on qualities like age, gender, race, caste, religion, sexual orientation or veteran status. If they apply this rule to every instance of allegation of superiority (regardless of age, gender, race, caste, religion, sexual orientation or veteran status) it is a very sensible rule and not censorship at all. The problem is when there is some "asymmetry" in what kind of (otherwise identical) behaviour is allowed and what is forbidden based on the exact characteristics they outlined above. Then it just becomes "picking favourites" and, yes, full blown censorship (which, to preempt the usual retort, can yes be practiced by private corporations, as opposed to "violations of first amendment rights" that, yes, can only be done by US jurisdictional governments) [1] https://youtube.googleblog.com/2019/06/our-ongoing-work-to-tackle-hate.html https://youtube.googleblog.com/2019/06/our-ongoing-work-to-t...
- shadowmore 7y agoHate speech is free speech. We know this both through logical deduction and through multiple different Supreme Court rulings. The "impartial" label just obscures the fundamental problem of it being absurd to consider any speech harmful to anyone, ever, especially within the context of an online content platform that isn't meant to be a publisher with a prerogative to edit said content.
- happytoexplain 7y ago>logical deduction How can logical deduction flawlessly relate such subjective terms?
- RappingBoomer 7y agobecause these views threaten corporate profits
- crankylinuxuser 7y agoNote that it's not extreme views (like my adherence to the FSF). Nope, we're talking about "videos and channels that advocate for neo-Nazism, white supremacy and other bigoted ideologies". As much as I don't like censorship, views that advocate for extermination of other people can rightly fuck off.
- nullbyte 7y agoYouTube gets to decide what a "bigoted ideology" is. That's a sweeping term that can be used as a catch-all for videos they don't like. I think that this will be bad for the platform overall -- an increase in censorship is never good.
- davidw 7y agoIf nazis are fundamental to the success of their platform, that's... a problem.
- mjfl 7y agoYou're a Nazi, davidw. Get off this platform. Can you see how the above is a bad thing now?
- fwip 7y agoUnfortunately for your argument, most people have basic literacy and understand the meaning of words.
- mjfl 7y agoThis is obviously untrue if you consider the people who call Ben Shapiro, who is Jewish, a Nazi. It's obvious to most people that people take wild liberties on the interpretation of words, especially when insulting people who they consider their enemies.
- 7y ago
- randyrand 7y agoExtreme political views. The title is missing a very important qualifier.
- Bizarro 7y agoLet's be clear here. The left is hoping that anything that doesn't conform to their worldview of identity politics, socialism, climate change will be banned. In other words, they're hoping that conservatives, libertarians, and others that don't conform to the leftist hive-mind will be banned. If I were Google I'd be very careful here with the DOJ knocking on their door.
- sj3k 7y agoWhat up James Damore?!
- warp_factor 7y agoAnd here we go. As usual the "racist" pretext is being used to censor videos. I have no doubt that there are some terrible awful racist videos in that lot but you have to wonder how many times this is ALSO used as a mean to censor pretty much any video that the youtube execs don't like. Censorship is getting worse Edit: Replacing "Censorship is coming back" with "Censorship is getting worse"
- Kye 7y agoSince when do they need a pretext? Countless videos from LGBTQ+ people and people of color got wiped out due to mass reporting and inaccurate automated removals. All the people who usually cry censorship were silent.
- luckylion 7y agoThat was a while ago, right? From what I remember, the "usual suspects" (aka libertarians, liberalists etc) weren't that silent, they pointed out the irony that the try to control platforming backfired, but did oppose the bans. Might be something newer, of course, in which case I didn't see it and can't comment on it.
- Kye 7y agoIt's an ongoing thing, and not just on YouTube. I see people popping on to Mastodon every day because they said, on their own timeline to people following them, that (for example) "transphobes can fall off a cliff." Banned for threats. Sometimes permanently. Most big instances have the :guillotine: and :trebuchet: emoji because of one such case. This is way more than the few cases that float up into your attention. It's been going on for years across all these big silos. People who fully endorse actual censorship know they can abuse automated systems to silence marginalized people.
- stcredzero 7y agoPeople who fully endorse actual censorship know they can abuse automated systems to silence marginalized people. Very true. This statement is neutral with regards to both the left-right axis and authoritarian/anti-authoritarian axis. In order to have a society in which people can speak truth to power, in 2019, we have to be on the lookout for new forms that censorious power can take. Technology is a double edged sword here. New tech introduces ways of circumventing censorship, but also introduces new forms of censorship not covered by old laws.
- wnevets 7y agoWhy do some people think they're entitled to say what they want on youtube?
- rukittenme 7y agoBecause some people view free speech as more than a legal requirement. Its a philosophy of individual rights.
- wnevets 7y agoWhy do you think you're right to free speech has anything to do with what you can say on someone else's property?
- randyrand 7y agoHe just answered that. It’s not only about it being our most important right. We also expect our communications platforms have morality, and criticize them when they do immoral things. Many think belief in free speech is an important moral - doubly important for communications companies like Youtube/Google.
- makomk 7y agoThe thing that gets me is, the folks who think Google should delete such content have no trouble with the idea that services have moral obligations which go beyond what's legally required of them when arguing they should remove stuff. It's only when someone argues the moral obligation goes the other way that it suddenly becomes about what's legally required and only that.
- Allvitende 7y agoWhy do you think it's right for you to tell someone what to do with their property?
- chronial 7y agoAs warp_factor said in sibling: > because it became the de facto place most of non tech-savy people go to to see videos online. They have a huge monopoly on our time and attention Society has a vested interest in either regulating or breaking up monopolies. Our rights don't magically stop at property borders. It needs to be checked on a case-by-case basis, whether the right to free speech or youtube's right to do what they please with their property is more important.
- raverbashing 7y agoWell, not surprising > The tension was evident on Tuesday, when YouTube said that a prominent right-wing creator who used racial language and homophobic slurs to harass a journalist in videos on YouTube did not violate its policies. The decision set off a firestorm online, including accusations that YouTube was giving a free pass to some of its popular creators. For context: https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/4/18653088/youtube-steven-crowder-carlos-maza-harassment-bullying-enforcement-verdict https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/4/18653088/youtube-steven-cr...
- shadowmore 7y ago'“Opinions can be deeply offensive, but if they don’t violate our policies, they’ll remain on our site,” YouTube said in a statement about its decision on Mr. Crowder.' I'm sure those policies will shift stealthily until everything except Baby Shark videos is banned. Left, right or center politically? But a little too spicy for your average 8-year-old? Banned. Gotta keep the Coca-Cola ad execs happy. It's a curious hyper-puritanical yet simultaneously secular social order we find ourselves in today. I'm sure this won't lead to any social unrest or civilization-wrecking upheaval.
- chocolatebunny 7y agoWe can always go back to liveleak and vimeo. I think all the youtube I watch would be fine for an 8 year old and I think most of the people who use youtube are the same. The most popular platform should be the most innocuous. But there should be alternatives.
- stcredzero 7y agoWe can always go back to liveleak and vimeo. Good luck trying to monetize that. Good luck getting viral traction with that. (I will be happy if someone succeeds, because that will be the end of the YouTube monopoly on video commentary.)
- forgot_muh_pass 7y ago"Whites have disproportionate power." Yes, yes. Say it louder. "Jews have disproportionate power." We need censorship, now!
- patagonia 7y agoWill YouTube also remove their algos that send people down rabbit holes of “extreme views” and encapsulate individuals in information bubbles that seem to validate and fail to challenge their views? The platform should shoulder as much or more blame than the content in this case. Free speech man. This is not ok.
- blancNoir 7y agoFrom the article: "In addition to tightening its hate speech rules, YouTube announced it would also tweak its recommendation algorithm, the automated software that shows users videos based on their interests and past viewing habits. This algorithm is responsible for more than 70 percent of overall time spent on YouTube, and has been a major engine for the platform’s growth. But it has also drawn accusations of leading users down rabbit holes filled with extreme and divisive content, in an attempt to keep them watching and drive up the site’s usage numbers."
- patagonia 7y agoTouché. Guilty. I didn’t read. Thank you for pointing out. Pessimistic me says that not much will change because as the other person’s comment says, algos are there to maximize the viewing time of people, and that have their views challenged etc, they aren’t gonna watch as much.
- 6d6b73 7y agoThe cynic in me thinks this is simply to have an excuse to recommend videos to people to change their views, only when it's in Google's interest.
- la_barba 7y ago>and encapsulate individuals in information bubbles that seem to validate and fail to challenge their views? Err, how do you know that the algorithm does this? And also, how do you know that people are not exposed to other views outside of YouTube. And lastly, why do you think its the job of an entertainment platform to "challenge" views?
- 0815test 7y agoSo, they're removing thousands of bad videos... thousands! Don't worry though, there are many, many other videos just like those on the platform. Your default recommendations are still going to suck.
- ModernMech 7y agoHeadline says thousands of videos, story body says thousands of videos and channels. I imagine you have to remove only about 20% of the videos/channels to account for 80% of the views.
- ausbah 7y agoHere is the actual blog post: https://youtube.googleblog.com/2019/06/our-ongoing-work-to-tackle-hate.html?m=1 https://youtube.googleblog.com/2019/06/our-ongoing-work-to-t... Main points: >Removing more hateful and supremacist content from YouTube I think this is great, I see nothing of value being lost from channels whose whole schtick is to marginalize people's of a target group. >Reducing borderline content and raising up authoritative voices I do like attempts to curtail outright scams and misinformation, but don't like YouTube choosing "top channels" as voices of authority. >Continuing to reward trusted creators and enforce our monetization policies I think this shows what drives YouTube and many other platforms, what is and isn't advertiser friendly. Principles only go as far as the bottomline.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- skrowl 7y ago> > Removing more hateful and supremacist content from YouTube > I think this is great, I see nothing of value being lost from channels whose whole schtick is to marginalize people's of a target group. Who gets to pick what's 'hateful' and 'supremacist' though? Did you think of that?
- Retra 7y agoWhy do you assume they didn't? People make decisions. That's how decisions are made the world over.
- tootahe45 7y agoWho do you think? Hint: If they go the Facebook route it will be various 'anti-hate' orgs which have openly called people like Trump and Ben Shapiro Nazis.
- fwip 7y agoGoogle. Is this a trick question or something?
- 7y ago
- nyczomg 7y agoFrom the article: 'The new policy will ban “videos alleging that a group is superior in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion,” the company said in a blog post.' Is this going to include videos that mention "white privilege" (which one could argue alleges superiority of white people) in which white people are asked to "check their privilege" in some way (which one could argue is an attempt to justify exclusion)?
- sneak 7y agoHow about PHP devs? Furries? Racists? KKK members? Pedophile activism? Nationalism? Pro-EU content? I will happily allege that people who aren’t racist are superior, and that racists should be discriminated against, segregated, and excluded wherever possible. Is that video permitted? YouTube is going too far. This will either be the biggest footgun due to unintended blast radius, or will be selectively enforced so that they have an excuse to editorialize and shut down stuff they or their advertisers personally find icky (entirely subjectively) while ignoring other stuff that breaks these rules.
- DuskStar 7y ago> YouTube is going too far. This will either be the biggest footgun due to unintended blast radius, or will be selectively enforced so that they have an excuse to editorialize and shut down stuff they or their advertisers personally find icky (entirely subjectively) while ignoring other stuff that breaks these rules. Pretty sure it'll be the latter. Selective enforcement seems to be the name of the game in SV, and IMO that's going to bite them in the ass eventually. (this isn't to say that selective enforcement is avoidable with the ruleset they've chosen, because it's probably not, but instead that policies that minimize the opportunity for selective enforcement should be used)
- ajross 7y ago> "check their privilege" [...] (which one could argue is an attempt to justify exclusion)? If you can make the case, maybe. I mean, it sounds like a kind of insane case to make to me. Who's being excluded, and from what, merely by having their assumptions challenged in a discussion context? The groups actually being targetted are ones that tend to advocate for the status of the US as an inherently white nation. Sort of an easier sell to my mind.
- api 7y agoYouTube is a privately owned and operated proprietary delivery platform. This is no different from a TV station deciding what to air. If you don't like it, switch platforms or just host stuff yourself somewhere. Yes I am concerned that these dragnets will delete a lot of content that doesn't even match the stated criteria. In my experience Google/YouTube's evaluation of content for compliance is not very deep or well considered. It's generally performed by underpaid overworked folks that lack any domain expertise. This is part of why I am a data packrat. If something is really interesting I snarf it and store it on my personal NAS. Easy to do and means I'll have backups of things that get "disappeared" and can share them with others if needed. If more people did this I think we'd have less of an issue with this.
- GrayTextIsTruth 7y ago> YouTube is a privately owned and operated proprietary delivery platform. Are there any public online social platforms? There literally isn't the equivalent of a "public space" online so many view it as a de facto public space.
- Notorious_BLT 7y agoIf YouTube wants to be treated like a TV station who can choose what to air, then they need to stop receiving the benefits of section 230. If they are allowed to choose what content is allowed and what is not, then they must be held directly accountable for the content that they don't remove. This includes content that infringes copyright, content that is illegal, etc. They can't have both.
- argd678 7y agoIt would be good if they apply the policy consistently to people in power too, such as politicians. I doubt they will though.
- throwaway190605 7y agoWe're not talking about the removal of extreme political views. We're talking about the censorship of one particular ideology. Where is the corresponding elimination of polarizing videos espousing views from the radical left? A wholesale expunction from one end of the spectrum is hard not to interpret as politically charged censorship. Let's see how many Antifa and BLM videos get taken down.
- untog 7y ago> We're not talking about the removal of extreme political views. Yes we are. You are implying equivalence where there is none. Black Lives Matter and Antifa are not equivalent to white supremacists.
- throwaway190605 7y agoYou're arguing with the least interesting part of my point. Just watch how many radical left videos get removed, irrespective of what group posted them.
- untog 7y agoYou appear to not be understanding my point. The videos being removed are not some "radical right" that serves as the opposite of your definition of "radical left". They are "channels that advocate for neo-Nazism, white supremacy and other bigoted ideologies". BLM, Antifa, etc. are not the "left" equivalent of these "right" viewpoints.
- whenchamenia 7y agoAs someone who finds them both distasteful and hateful; yes, they are very similar. All sides need to reign in their extremists, or become defined by them.
- untog 7y ago"similar" is a very vague term. We are talking ideologies that call for the extermination of other races here, in what way is Black Lives Matter equivalent?
- GrayTextIsTruth 7y agoThere are comments being removed from this thread even though they are not supremacist. People need to wake up to the control of big tech, big govt, etc.
- happytoexplain 7y agoWouldn't that imply that the only reason comments might be removed from Hacker News is if they encourage violent, extremist political ideologies?
- GrayTextIsTruth 7y agothey did neither.
- Dirlewanger 7y agoI'm surprised this post is even still up. HN usually removes anything remotely controversial. A couple weeks ago, they removed a NYT article solely because the article had "White Liberals" in the title.
- dang 7y ago> HN usually removes anything remotely controversial. That's not close to true. How people arrive at these generalities is beyond me!
- dang 7y agoUsers flagged them, in most cases probably because they broke the site guidelines by being generic ideological flamewar. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- vowelless 7y agoGood. Online radicalism is a thing. To all the people here who are decrying this as “censorship”, remember that during the early 2010s, Islamic radicals were getting radicalized on YouTube by pretty benign sermons (Ex: Awlaki and his “tour of Paradise” lectures that inspired Boston 2013, fort hood and a bunch of other international attacks). YouTube removed all that out and I think Muslims getting radicalized on YouTube plummeted. White supremacy is a much bigger deal with a worse tail risk than Islamic extremism. Don’t see why anyone would object to removal of Neo nazi content yet go along with the removal of wahabi sermons.
- creaghpatr 7y ago>getting radicalized on YouTube by pretty benign sermons Which is it? You're contradicting yourself here.
- vowelless 7y agoThe point is, awlakis sermons were not even “extreme”. They didn’t call for violence. They just talked about how great heaven was. YouTube rightly removed those videos because they were inspiring suicide attacks by teaching pretty mainstream Islamic beliefs like: martyrs go to heaven. Would be for or against YouTube removing videos that encouraged suicide in depressed individuals?
- ravenstine 7y agoI'm starting to think that comment sections on news sites are a really bad idea. At first I thought NPR and the like were cowards for removing theirs. It's bad enough that NYT can be pretty biased on its own, but the comment sections are always full of low-tier thinking that just push whatever narrative is currently in the Overton window. What I find distressing is how people remark that a telecom and advertising giant acting as a de facto government over the public square isn't a violation of free speech principles because they're a "private business", as if that's an original thought that's profound. Funny how people say "it's a private business" when it suits their own political interests. We wouldn't blindly allow company-owned cities or states to pass laws, especially vague or undefined ones, that potentially violate our rights, so why do we allow "states" in cyberspace to be run in such a way? Ban people promoting violence? Sure, why not. I'm as against hate and violence as the next person. But not only is censoring "hate speech" becoming a slippery slope at the company level, it's bad for the public in general because it sets a greater precedent for what the big corporations that run our everyday lives can tell us what we can or cannot do, and with no forgiveness. I don't find it hard to imagine a world where individuals can be instantly and permanently banned from doing everyday things, just like they are on YouTube, because they said or did something off the platform.
- AndrewStephens 7y agoI was shocked when news sites started publishing comments as a matter of course. They worked so hard to research and create a 2000 word article that accurately reflects the world (in accordance to their editorial guidelines) using their good name - and then let fReEtHiNkErChAd and 2020BloodInTheStreets chime in at the end. It would be OK if they strictly moderated the comments, but few sites seem to do that.
- lostmymind66 7y ago"They worked so hard to research and create a 2000 word article that accurately reflects the world" I find this laughable. Many recent articles I've seen are designed to get clicks and have nothing to do with good journalism or research beyond what someone can get from behind a keyboard.
- kgraves 7y agodang, could you please flag this post, people are disagreeing with me here and this post isn't technically stimulating. I think we should keep politics out of HN at this point, I don't want it to become reddit.
- happytoexplain 7y agoHow do we deal with cases where a topic is important and relevant both technically and politically? I agree with you generally, but it would also be a big shame if many socially and technically interesting and impactful stories simply could not be found or discussed on Hacker News.
- AndrewStephens 7y agoIn my opinion, sites like YouTube that rely on user generated content should drop any pretense of being neutral - they aren't and never have been. What they have been doing is dodging responsibility for being the publisher of racist and harmful material. I'm sure that YouTube would say that they don't play favorites but even if that were true, as we have seen there are organizations all the way up to nation states that are hell-bent on corrupting platforms like YouTube for their own ends. And they don't require much corrupting. Moderation is key. Sites like Hacker News work only because of strict moderation by humans. Similar sites without such moderation quickly become a haven for trolls and spam. Automatic systems can always be gamed - what is needed is a strong editorial hand. I don't want YouTube to end - there are thousands of hours of great content. But if it is to survive it needs to make a choice of what kind of site they want to be. Letting itself be anything its users want is turning it into a cesspit.
- skrowl 7y agoGoogle / Facebook are private companies, and they should absolutely be able to pick and choose what is posted on their platform if they want. However, they SHOULD NOT be able to have it both ways where they censor posts they don't like (like a publisher would do) but enjoy protections afforded to actual open / neutral platforms. Once you start censoring things that aren't breaking any laws, you're now a PUBLISHER and not an OPEN PLATFORM, so you are responsible for what's posted on your site.
- javagram 7y agoFWIW, this would be a major shift in the law. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communications_Decency_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communica... > The court upheld AOL's immunity from liability for defamation. AOL's agreement with the contractor allowing AOL to modify or remove such content did not make AOL the "information content provider" because the content was created by an independent contractor. The Court noted that Congress made a policy choice by "providing immunity even where the interactive service provider has an active, even aggressive role in making available content prepared by others."
- buboard 7y agoHow easy is it to shut down decentralized systems like mastodon, ipfs, bitchute etc? because i feel they are going to become quite popular
- Kye 7y agoThe nuisance model on Mastodon is different. Silos push everyone together in the same space, so you pretty much have to fight to protect your own little corner. People you might like to remove from your experience will tend to congregate on certain instances favorable to that kind of thinking. You have the power to block that instance at an individual level. There isn't the same impetus to deplatform them because you can just break the link. I have many (but not all) "free speech" instances blocked because they're packed with users who try to force that perspective on me by (for example) removing content warnings when replying. I don't have to appeal to any authority to enforce my boundaries. Only the owners can decide who has the power to make those decisions on centralized social media sites. That seems to be outsourced moderators with little or no understanding of niche or marginalized communities.
- Simulacra 7y agoI strongly disagree banning anyone or any video that does not call for violence. I think it's a slippery slope and smacks of book banning. The information is out there, right or wrong. Who is it to judge what the public should see?
- dawnerd 7y agoYouTube is in charge of what they serve on their site. That’s your answer right there.
- ng12 7y agoI'll never understand this reductionist argument. Yes, YouTube/Facebook/Salesforce/etc can do whatever they want. That doesn't mean that it's good for society or that it's not worth talking about.
- happytoexplain 7y agoI think that line is just too unsubtle. If that rule, and that rule alone, were applied to practically any platform, it would be overrun with extremely low-quality content (though the entertainment value might increase, for whatever that's worth).
- nocturnial 7y agoI'm not sure if I follow your line of reasoning. Suppose it wasn't a call to violence but rather a call to never speak or engage with that person again. That person can be fired and never be able to rent again... (I have examples of this if you're curious) The slippery slope argument works both ways.
- Faark 7y agoI would also prefer Youtube not banning those videos. But they certainly should not help them get views. Google is fully responsible for the output of its recommendation algorithms and the impact to society.
- adwi 7y agoEven as lifelong card-carrying ACLU supporter I don’t see why they don’t just take down anything they damn well please. They’re a private company and are entitled to have a curatorial viewpoint—and for my particular beliefs culling white suprematists and borderline pedophilic content is a Good Thing. You’re entitled to say whatever you want in this country, but I’m not obligated to broadcast it for you.
- skrowl 7y agoI think the problem is that they censor views they don't like that aren't breaking any laws, which makes them a PUBLISHER but then they claim they need protections only offered to OPEN PLATFORMS. They've often claimed in court to be an open / neutral platform, because that comes with legal protections against what your users post - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/02/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-platform-publisher-lawsuit https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/02/facebook-... Publishers (like Forbes when people blog on there) on the other hand are responsible for their user posts. I think Facebook / Youtube is more like the Forbe here, so they should be treated legally as a publisher.
- esailija 7y agoI cannot find any mention of youtube in the link, it seems to be about facebook.
- sintaxi 7y ago> I don’t see why they don’t just take down anything they damn well please. Its because Youtube would rather be legally categorized as a service rather than as a publisher. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communications_Decency_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicati...
- microdrum 7y agoThe beginning of the end of YT. "Extreme" is the ultimate slippery slope situation, and Google is unable to articulate respectable, bright-line rules around extremism. I can think of dozens of startups that allow video sharing, and some like streamable seem to have speeds and compute that outperform YT.
- JacksonGariety 7y agoRegarding the general phenomenon of removing 'hateful content' from social media platforms (Facebook and Twitter as well) there seem to be primarily two reactions: 1) Good. Hateful content spreads hate and causes it to multiply. We should not allow it to proliferate on the internet. 2) This is censorship. It it is the fault of the individuals watching/reading the hateful media who are to blame for number of views the videos/articles get. So I wonder: is it really an either/or decision? Is there no third option here? It seems like a classic ethical antinomy. Authority influences people but, at the same time, the authority always needs to be recognized as authoritative by the people who are influenced by it.
- minikites 7y agoMost people are not information or media literate, they don't do their own research to fact-check claims, and they believe any authority who says something similar to what they already believe. The "marketplace of ideas" requires people to put in the effort I describe, effort that they clearly aren't, so the responsibility for checking and enforcing content limitations passes to the platform owner. If you don't like this outcome, argue for more humanities and social science classes in primary and secondary education to educate society in evaluating claims and the other aspects of information and media literacy.
- root_axis 7y agoIf you believe that YouTube unjustly engages in censorship on their platform then boycott YouTube and encourage others to do so. Just because YouTube is popular doesn't mean YouTube is obligated to host your videos for free. In reality, YouTube is unimportant and not something the government should guarantee you access to.
- staunch 7y agoPrivate companies like Google can't be expected to uphold human rights. They will almost always act in their own financial interest. It's up to the citizenry and their elected lawmakers to force them to do what is right. All it would take is a law that compels public internet services to behave as if they're public services once they start reaching >33% of citizens. The problem seems to be that a large percentage of citizens don't grasp that important freedoms often have a high price tag. Anyone can see this with the response to second and fourth amendment issues, and the same is becoming true of the first amendment. Free societies have an inherent amount of chaos. That chaos is the price you pay. People desiring to live in a fully ordered society are unwittingly asking to live in a prison.
- Sephr 7y agoThat's fine if we can agree on what is an "extreme view". YouTube has already decided that academic software vulnerability exploitation proof-of-concept videos are "dangerous content", which results in video removal and a strike on your account.
- swalsh 7y ago53% of millenials have a favorable view of socialism today. But in th 20th century when we were fighting wars to "contain" it, we had senators keeping lists of people they suspected had favorable opinions of it. It used to be an extreme view. This seems like another example of containment, but it's scary because what's normal today might be an extreme view tomorrow... and what's extreme today could be normal tomorrow. As much as I detest the idea of ideas like white supremecy spreading, I'm not sure I like the idea of fighting it by hiding it from view. Yesterday was the anniversary of Tiananmen square. China avoided democracy by hiding all evidence of this terrible event. I think most people can agree the government hiding the truth is wrong, but if social media is the new public square (which the supreme court in a way ruled to be true when it ruled Trump can't block his tweets), I think these ideals of not hiding information still applies. The 1st amendment, and what it stands for is truely in jeopody with these actions.
- Bakary 7y agoAn extreme view is anything that may reduce income by making advertisers leave.
- Nuzzerino 7y agoCorrection: Anything that can be reasonably argued to make a layperson believe that it has the potential to make advertisers leave.
- praptak 7y ago"They came for the Nazis and I protested. Then they came for me and it was the Nazis." Tolerating extreme views is okay as the price for freedom of speech. It does not mean large platforms are obligated to give them megaphones. Some kinds of speech do cause harm far beyond someone getting angry at someone else's views.
- nailer 7y agoI don't think I've ever seen a Nazi video on YouTube. I've seen a bunch of videos by a conservative Orthodox Jewish man who is the most frequently targeted victims of anti Semitic attacks, who is bizarrely labelled a nazi by Buzzfeed, but that's about it.
- cwperkins 7y agoI applaud any effort towards deradicalisation, but we need to work towards transparency. My gut reaction to the college board instituting an adversity score, was that it would’ve disproportionately impacted a guy like me growing up, but I’ve since come to realize that I’d prefer one entity with a transparent methodology tackling the problems instead of each institution, like Harvard, having an opaque system of their own.
- xwdv 7y agoWhat I worry here is that the extremity of a view will vary depending on how close it is to your own beliefs. Extremists don’t self identify as extremists, so the question is where does YouTube’s temperament lie?
- yakshaving_jgt 7y agoWe’ve seen their leaked meeting videos. We know where their temperaments lie.
- Animats 7y agoNot good. What's "extreme"? Medicare for All? Brietbart News? Islam? Haredi? School shootings? Kim Jong-un? Putin? Trump? YouTube already tries to transcribe videos to text. Is it within the state of the art to recognize common false statements and superimpose a crawl with counterarguments? One thing you have going for you is that the nuts aren't that original. If you had a classifier that could pick up the 100 best known nutty statements, you could do this. Is there a startup in this?
- creaghpatr 7y agoIt's up to the advertisers really, think cable TV. A little bit of edginess, but if it gets crazy a boycott can force an advertiser pull out. We're only a few years away from YouTube turing into cable TV, maybe even the FCC will get involved in making that determination. Edit: I don't agree that advertisers should be in charge, I just think they will ultimately decide the line between edgy and extreme.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jsonne 7y agoIt's curious to me that people who were absolutely up in arms about ISPs censoring content are 100% okay with Youtube doing it. Not that I support the views that these videos they're removing espouse (I don't) but it seems to me to be a pretty big about face by this community.
- Nasrudith 7y agoWell YouTube isn't a pipe but a platform in spite of its popularity. I can always head someplace else with a website. I can't just switch ISPs casually as entering a different URL.
- llamataboot 7y agoI think the difference is that YouTube /pays these people/. It's almost an employer/employee relationship. YouTube generates revenue, youtube shares that revenue, contributors with tons of views are making money directly from YT. This is simply not the same as Twitter, etc. Twitter may make money off of eyeballs. I may somehow make money by becoming twitter famous. But my money is not coming as a share of twitter revenue. The incentives are all screwed up. YT benefits financially the more 'shocking' my vid can be, and I benefit financially if YT does.
- themacguffinman 7y agoIf that was the only issue, YouTube can demonetize the content or creator. They already do so for controversial content that advertisers won't abide. The fact remains that people want this content completely gone from YouTube, and preferably the entire internet.
- kypro 7y agoWhat I find funny about all this is that I'm certain if YouTube existed a few decades earlier we would likely be under pressure to ban "disgusting" pro-LGBT content or content supporting things as "vile" as interracial relationships. We would say, these private companies have a duty not to radicalise our children. That our children are being led away from god and into sinful lifestyles like homosexuality. Some of us would welcome our views being censored by a few execs in silicon valley because we would see them defending the moral values of the status-quo... Surely I'm not the only one who feels it might be a little short sighted to give a handful of billionaires like Zuckerberg control over what we can and can't express in the 21st century? If we're so concerned and don't want to see content we morally disagree with, why can't we have family friendly modes? I for one am glad we were all radicalised to support the "homosexual agenda". I'm glad we were radicalised by people like MLK to resist racism. And sure, there were some extremists along the way who took it upon themselves to commit acts of terrorism for the "greater good", but we understood these people were rare and this was the unfortunate, but necessary cost of liberty. So before we continue too far down this road, are we certain we have all the answers now? If someone can be banned from social media sites for stating biological (but perhaps unfortunate) facts such as, "trans women aren't women" are we completely sure we'll get mass censorship right this time? It might be worth remembering vast majority of us hold one or two "extreme views" that others find morally offensive. Edit: Not that I should have to, but for those who are suspicious of my motives, I'm a left-wing, pro-LGBT, anti-racist type of guy.
- lugg 7y agoI don't think the analogy fits. Those individuals are protected classes and refusing them access like this would be discriminatory behavior. Likely not illegal in USA but it would be illegal elsewhere. Racists are not a protected class of people. They aren't afforded those same rights. And on some grounds their disruption of society actually puts an onus on you as a platform to restrict their access.
- leereeves 7y agoThey weren't protected classes when the political pressure would have been against them. "Protected class" basically means politically favored group, and as GP points out, that changes.
- fzeroracer 7y agoI always find things like this interesting. A short while ago I posted a thread here [1] on a publicly owned service engaging in clear viewpoint discrimination with nary a peep. YouTube, a privately owned service, moves to moderate their platform and all hell breaks loose. Mind you this isn't an attempt to defend YouTube at all given what they did yesterday but rather that I've always seen the battles over free speech and the bias on HN as being incredibly lopsided. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19976398 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19976398
- RosanaAnaDana 7y agoRelevant xkcd (todays): https://xkcd.com/2159/ https://xkcd.com/2159/
- smsm42 7y ago> The company also said that channels that “repeatedly brush up against our hate speech policies,” but don’t violate them outright, would be removed from YouTube’s advertising program Even their own rules written by them is never enough for censors. They have to invent stuff like "brush up" to extend censorship even further, even when recognizing there's no violation of their own policies, that they themselves wrote. Talk about slippery slope...
- idlewords 7y agoHacker News should follow YouTube's lead by nuking this thread. Flagged.
- pessimizer 7y agoI'm sure that Google has been waiting for a youtube media panic to pull the trigger on this for a while. They'd prefer to be an on-demand cable channel, and would love to remove any material controversial to anyone, but didn't want censorship to be the story (especially with antitrust stuff going around.) Google isn't in the video business because it wants people to be able to share videos with each other. Google is in the video business to sell ads. Censoring the illiberal is the way to get to get liberals to support censorship. Announcing manual control over the suggestions is a way to justify steering viewers away from any content, starving it of revenue, and getting it off the platform.
- LinuxBender 7y agoI know this will be an unpopular opinion, but Youtube can delete whatever they want. It's their site. AFAIK, most people don't have legally binding contracts stating that Youtube must keep all their videos online. Even the big streamers that make money off Youtube have to follow whatever guidelines Youtube come up with. I bet there is wording that says something to the effect of "Subject to revision..." or like that in the AUP. That said, there is nothing stopping people from creating their own sites, or putting taboo / extreme videos on chan sites, forums, etc... and plonk it down behind Cloudflare or Akamai. i.e. 4chan, 8chan, I mean, you won't find more extreme videos that what get posted there every 90 seconds. In this case, I am not linking to the examples.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- squarefoot 7y agoAs an antifascist I welcome this move, though at the same time I fear the risk of abuse. FTA: "... and videos denying that violent incidents occurred" This one seems perfectly tailored to match with the Chinese Govt. negationism about Tiananmen Square events, so that would be generally A-OK for us, but what about videos or comments by police officers denying violent behaviour of their colleagues? Would their videos/comments be axed the same way? Then what about governments lying about civil deaths figures or use of banned weapons in military attacks? 100 Euros and a beer that the rule will be heavily bent case by case.
- qmanjamz 7y agoSo they're doubling down on the policies that have earned them an anti-trust investigation? This is alarmingly stupid.
- munificent 7y agoFor almost all of human history, sharing and persisting information had a pretty high cost. To get something into someone else's head, first you had to verbally tell them. Then you could at least write it once and have it read multiple times. That written work persisted over time longer too, though it required scribes to manually copy them periodically to broadcast it farther. During all of that time, driving the cost to persist and broadcast information down has been a good thing. The cheaper the better, because it gives more brains access to useful information. I think because of that, we assumed the ideal cost is zero. In the past several years, I believe we are slowly, painfully, realizing that we were wrong. The web has driven that cost down to practically zero. Any rando can write anything and it will be served on the web to all and sundry in perpetuity. The problem with that is that it makes it equally easy to broadcast mis-information. What humans need to prosper is access to good information — true facts and useful ideas. Information that helps us take actions that help people. When there's a non-zero maintainance cost for info, someone has to periodically choose to pay that cost. The scribe has to decide what book to copy. The printer has to decide which pamphlets to re-print. The public access channel has to decide which shows to schedule. If someone can't be motivated to care about some piece of information enough to do that, it naturally decays and disappears. Like evolution, there's a natural selection process where some memes die. Now, granted, even with a non-zero cost, bad or misinformed actors may choose to further bad information. But I think that happens way more often when the cost to doing so is nil. So, when you have a non-zero cost, it encourages a certain amount of selection where useful information tends to last longer. At the same time, you don't want the cost too high. When that happens, only the powerful are able to decide what information persists and they choose only information that furthers their own power. Driving the cost down has been, I think, one of the major engines of democracy. But I do think we've overshot the mark now. In the next several years, it's going to be up to us as a culture to figure out how to effectively deal with the hurricane of misinformation constantly roaring around us. It is, I think, the biggest threat facing human society today. (You might argue that climate change is a bigger threat. But note that a primary reason we're failing to take sufficient action on climate change is because of misinformation.)
- fwip 7y agoYou're not pro-LGBT if you think trans women aren't women.
- DuskStar 7y agoAnd you're anti-women if you think trans women should be able to compete in weightlifting competitions as women. This isn't an issue with easy, clearcut answers.
- jim_dow_jones 7y agoWhy not? Do you have to share the views of every single person within a group to be considered a supporter? What if they vote for every pro-LGBT politician that runs for office? What if they vote for every pro-LGBT legislation that they come across? What if they give support and words of affirmation to LGBT family members that are close to them? Why is he suddenly not a supporter because he disagrees with a small part of the discussion? This seems like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
- ModernMech 7y ago> Why is he suddenly not a supporter because he disagrees with a small part of the discussion? That trans women are women isn't a "small part" of the discussion. It's kind of the whole point.
- QualityReboot 7y agoI think you meant to say "You're not pro-LGBT if you think women aren't women." Why are you segregating "trans women" as different than just "women"?
- fwip 7y agoBecause trans women are the people being discussed, duh. If you were saying "tall women aren't women," the appropriate rejoinder is "yes, tall women are women," not the useless tautology "women are women."
- man2525 7y agoMy sense is that unless content creators get views for calling out the behavior of other content creators, they risk losing likes and advertising revenue. Then they become the political agenda guy, and no longer the comic book movie critic, chef, video game expert, or theremin playing guy they were trying to portray. I'd like extremism resolved through naming and shaming, a living exile ideally, but I don't think drafting popular YouTubers to do so is completely realistic. Black Mirror, here we come?
- patagonia 7y agoYou ever been to a legit protest? Have you been near the police line at a protest when there are thousands of protesters and hundreds of police officers and tensions are high and really not nice stuff is being said all around? And the police officers just stand there at the ready. (Sometimes they don’t and they antagonize protestors or just plain assault then, but my experience has been that is the exception.) I have immense, enormous, huge respect for those officers. Sometimes the individual officers personal beliefs align with the protesters. Sometimes not. But they stand there. Just stand there. If things get violent then they shut things down. But a lot of times it feels like things don’t get violent because they are there and people know they will shut it down if things get violent. That’s what I want YouTube to be. YouTube should be the public infrastructure that is available for people to gather and exchange ideas upon, such that most people don’t even give a second thought to the importance of having public streets available to protest on, and the police are there when the law is broken or unprotected speech is spoken. That is it. The job doesn’t pay well. It’s not a glorified role. And it’s prob pretty miserable when things get heated. But it’s a beauty to behold when you step back from it all and take it in and see what is happening.
- mbrameld 7y ago> The job doesn’t pay well. I think this is an outdated belief. Many officers earn 6 figure salaries in the US.
- patagonia 7y agoA quick google, the top three results said average was 50k-60k. One result said the top 10% make low 6 figures. I doubt the majority of officers in those lines are top 10%, almost by simple math.
- Balgair 7y agoDepartments pay differently, but it is not uncommon that protests pay overtime and that picking up extra shifts in 'normal' work also pays overtime. Such things that pay overtime may be providing security at a parade, may be going into a school for education, may be going to a confrence, etc. Typically, any time you see an officer in uniform, they are getting compensated for that. This is VERY dependent on department, but it is typically not difficult to make much more than 60k.
- joshfraser 7y agoGive your worst political enemy the power to decide what is "hate speech" and what is "disinformation" and then you'll realize that free speech isn't something we should ever compromise on. - Naval Ravikant
- drilldrive 7y agoWe talk all the time about the two internets, one of China and one of the rest of the world. But more and more we are seeing a new division arising within America itself of two internets. I can't say how this will play out long-term, but with alternative-media sites rising we may well see two broad forces developing.
- tal8d 7y ago> ...but with alternative-media sites rising... That should be happening, but isn't - not to the degree it naturally would. Debanking. Payment processors have been very busy weeding out potential competitors to the big names in SV. I almost want to laugh at the fact that the early cryptocurrency proponents experienced the exact same treatment while building the very thing that would protect those presently being targeted by Visa/Mastercard. I'm still banned from two major banks... This youtube censorship stuff is going to pale in comparison to the coming wave of debanking. There is a very freaked out class of people who have their hands on the wheel at the moment (especially true at Mastercard), so you can't rely on traditional profit motives to predict behavior - anything is possible. My financial adviser suggested, with a straight face, that I consider a portfolio built around some new social equity index... my account has been self directed ever since.
- drilldrive 7y agoYes this is absolutely true. But once the cryptocurrencies gain a true grip, along with alternative payment processors, we will really begin to see a true divergence. In some sense, such particulars are the bedrock of the second internet.
- tal8d 7y agoMaybe. I have no doubt that cryptocurrency use will be common, primarily because it will be necessary in a world dominated by software agents that can't rely on meatspace money, but I'm starting to wonder about likelihood of the original political goal. Wallstreet gave up fighting it after a couple of years, and is presently positioned as the guy selling the shovels in the gold rush, but there is an increasing amount of direct interaction. It seems like they think they'll be able to maintain the present segmented status - which is obviously not going to work. So I expect they'll go full hands on mode once it is obvious that there is no going back. What will that look like? Well every couple of years, since the very beginning, some idiot has tried to start a colored-coin/tainted-coin service - to, you know, think of the children... making the currency worthless after being tainted by activities deemed unacceptable (ransomware, exchange hacks, etc). No matter how many times it is explained that this eliminates the property of fungibility, which is what makes a currency a currency, these people keep popping up. Well wallstreet might be able to make it happen, if they make the move before there is more widespread global adoption.
- fallous 7y agoI'm not entirely sure that certain large sites have thought through the legal implications of this kind of behavior, and no I'm not talking about "censorship!" or other free speech laws that are applicable to government rather than private entities. Back during the late 90s all of us working on public websites knew that allowing user-contributed content was a great way to build both community and to increase the sheer amount of content, which increased advertising revenues. But there's a catch to user-contributed content... in order to avoid legal responsibility as a site owner for the user content posted on the site you can't moderate that content directly. The reason for this is the "common carrier" rule. Common carrier essentially states that as a communications platform you are not liable for the legal implications of the communications that occur on your platform as long as you do not choose to engage in editing or moderating that content. AT&T, for example, was not legally liable for a conversation that occurred on their telephone network even if the conversation involved the commission of a crime (we're plotting a terror attack, a bank robbery, etc.) The reason they were not liable was because they did not monitor the communications on their network and did not cut off a phone call if it sounded like you were planning something illegal, evil, whatever. The minute you, as the carrier, begin actively moderating the content (as opposed to setting up common universal rules such as site karma or user driven moderation), you are responsible for ALL of that content. You managed to remove 99.99% of all illegal communication? Too bad, you're still on the hook for that 0.01% that you missed. This does not mean that content may never be removed by the company, it's just that they must do it under the order of a court or applicable government entity... in the same way that AT&T could not tap your phones absent a court order. Many sites opted not to have user-contributed content due to the potential concerns regarding advertisers or their own brand reputation. Others did allow such content and later removed things such as comments and the like due to the conflict between violating common carrier and the problems that arose with advertisers and/or their brand (see Yahoo Finance comments circa 2002 or so).
- telaelit 7y agoAnd yet they’re not taking down Crowder’s homophobic videos??
- r3bl 7y agoThey kinda are over at Twitter: https://twitter.com/gaywonk/status/1136056663927087105 https://twitter.com/gaywonk/status/1136056663927087105 They've demonetized Crowder. > Update on our continued review–we have suspended this channel’s monetization. We came to this decision because a pattern of egregious actions has harmed the broader community and is against our YouTube Partner Program policies. Then they've made some additional confusion by talking about how they'll remonetize him when he removes shirts from the shop (they've presented it as the only requirement to reinstate monetization). At the end, they've doubled down on the first thing they've said: > Again, this channel is demonetized due to continued egregious actions that have harmed the broader community. To be reinstated, he will need to address all of the issues with his channel.
- lucaspm98 7y agoYou're going to have to explain what you are accusing him of because I am struggling to find anything homophobic.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- malloreon 7y agoI said it about facebook and I'll say it again about youtube: zero credit for deciding extremist views like white hate have no place on your platform a decade later. How many ad dollars did Google make off these videos? And how much damage did hosting those videos do?
- charliebrownau 7y agoGday I would recommend people consider shifting platforms * Facebook -->> Minds+MeWe * Twitter -->> Gab * Youtube -->> Bitchute * Pateron ->> subscribestar * Instagram ->> Pixelfed * Meetup ->> @GetTogether * Skype -->> Wire or GNU Ring * SMS -->> Telegram * Google Search Engine -->> Duckduckgo * Google Mail -->> Proton mail or Tutanota mail * Google Maps -->> Open Street Map * Firefox >> Waterfox * Chrome >> Iridium * MS Office >> LibreOffice Our future is de centralized and self hosted free speech open source platforms with no admins that are LEFT, ""progressive" , SJW , Feminists, vegans or any other Marxist grouping
- SmaryLarry 7y agoI think the analogies in this case are often extremely accurate ways that people have been getting the point across. I'll add one of my own in just a second. The problem here is not censorship at all, the problem is monopoly. Take the recent Disney acquisition of Fox for example in which in the acquisition they were forced to sell off regional fox sports stations in their purchase. The problem was they were about to have a monopoly on sports TV content. Now look at YouTube which has a near monopoly on ALL user uploaded video content. The problem is an entire industry - user uploaded video - is consolidated. Peoples incomes, their very livelihoods depend on YouTube. YouTube decides whether individuals succeed or fail with user uploaded video with their recommendations, suggestions, and trending algorithms. Success of individuals depends as much on YouTubes opinion of them as much as on their own abilities to produce content. YouTube itself people wouldn't call a small company, but it doesn't have that many employees... unless you start to count people who upload videos as employees, then they have millions of them, most which work for free until they can make it big. YouTube is the largest employer in the world and their monopoloy on content means their employees have no where else to go when they get banned. This doesn't even scratch the fact that typically we have seen bans done across multiple platforms - Facebook, Twitter, iTunes, Paypal, Patreon. They all ban users simultaneously to silence people and cut their income off. Imagine if the water company decided your speech meant you were too evil to be worth supplying. Well Money is not quiet as necessary as water but it comes close for many people who are working or trying to make it big at YouTube. Hey you can buy water from some other company, they might say, right? Even other large companies are depending on their YouTube videos to succeed and they employ hundreds more people who rely on YouTube. It is clear that their monopoly on user generated video content is what is the true problem. How can their power be weakened is the better question than what should they be censoring. Splitting YouTube from Google and the rest of Alphabet is a start. They likely saw this coming a long time ago and preemptively worked towards this goal with their recent restructuring. How else do you break up a monopoly that was made by user choice? Well in the Disney example they simply split the channels. Force YouTube to split into two or more companies. Whether that means breaking subscribers right now the middle and making two companies or dividing it up into multiple categorical companies then do it. I don't know the best way but I do know their dominance and user lack of choice by virtue of the monopoly is the true enemy, not censorship.