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Unfortunately, I fear the reality of this situation is a lot less nuanced than you're expressing here. It's more likely that the advertisers who give YouTube a
by nrr 6y ago
Unfortunately, I fear the reality of this situation is a lot less nuanced than you're expressing here. It's more likely that the advertisers who give YouTube a lot of money simply threatened not to advertise on the platform should he continue to have a presence there.
In David Icke's case, he directly threatens telecommunications carriers' ability to sell 5G services. That's directly counter to said carriers' marketing goals.
Not to anthropomorphize YouTube too much here, services like them derive their morality from profit. If something threatens profitability, they'll do what's required to correct that problem. Moreover, there are a number of feedback loops in place that reinforce this behavior. This isn't a matter of YouTube judging a bad idea on its merit; this is a matter of them judging a bad idea on how it affects advertising revenue.
Put in a somewhat more uncouth manner: Money talks, bullshit walks.
- ryankemper 6y agoCouldn't YouTube have adopted Reddit's quarantine concept? (Ignoring for the time-being the inherent tendency of such a concept being used to drive out dissent as happened with Reddit with respect to fringe conservative voices)
- nrr 6y agoIf YouTube's advertisers found that kind of thing agreeable, I suppose they could. That said, I'm not sure the incentive exists for them to undertake that kind of work. The platform existing for everyday people to disseminate their views is secondary to using user-submitted content as a vehicle for advertising revenue. Another way of thinking about it is that the popular content subsidizes the not-so-popular content. As a corollary: The more popular your content is, the more advertising revenue it needs to bring in. There was even some controversy somewhat recently about this very thing.