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Your argument is unlikely to have anything to do with the reason for YouTube's decision. They're thinking about their brand. Do they want to be branded as the c
by bachmeier 6y ago
Your argument is unlikely to have anything to do with the reason for YouTube's decision. They're thinking about their brand. Do they want to be branded as the company that lets anyone post videos about the election being stolen without any evidence? They get to choose between "yes" and "no" and the choices lead to very different brands.
The same point comes up again and again when porn is removed from [website]. "How dare they remove porn! I don't see anything wrong with it!" Sometimes it's even looking down their noses at the obviously primitive American culture that is the problem. Of course porn won't disappear from the world, and of course people that like porn will be disappointed, but it won't be that company's brand.
- thu2111 6y agoThe reality is if YouTube was committed to free speech this wouldn't even come up at all. People would 'brand' YouTube this way about as much as they do Chrome for letting you browse websites claiming the election was stolen, or web search for letting you find it, or your ISP for letting you download the HTML. Nobody would give a crap, they'd just argue about other platforms where the owners were engaging in censorship. Political censorship isn't just morally wrong, it's bad for business and bad for your brand too. The moment you allow that camel to put its nose under the tent, you're inviting in a whole world of pain. Suddenly every zealot out there will be demanding you silence the people who disagree with them, because they know that maybe if they make enough noise you will. They'll attack your brand hard because they know if they do you might cave. A hard core libertarian "everyone is served on principle" attitude keeps the fighting at bay because people know it's not worth putting in the energy.