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Google is a private company. It's fully within their rights to remove any video they don't like, for whatever reason. It comes with the territory if we want Go

Google is a private company. It's fully within their rights to remove any video they don't like, for whatever reason. It comes with the territory if we want Google to be able to censor hate speech and misinformation. You can always use a competing site, or build your own.

deleted 5y ago
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danuker 5y ago
Except the sheer scale of Google is hair-raising. (Sleep tight dear FTC). If Google loses a YouTube creator, it has almost no impact on their bottom line. If a creator gets kicked out however, their livelihood is threatened. I would argue this is the perfect scenario for a creator's union (of course, it should use some other platform to communicate).
- freebuju 5y ago
  > If a creator gets kicked out however, their livelihood is threatened No. There are numerous providers that can host your videos. For a small fee. This mentality is what gives Google such pseudo-power.
  - derivagral 5y ago
    At the end of the day, I'd guess this is less about alternatives and more about youtube being the best platform for your investment. Hosting isn't the problem, its the audience and traffic (and ad monetization from your vids.) Do the alternatives hold up in terms of things like market reach, $ performance, and not banning the same users?
    - freebuju 5y ago
      If Youtube was to go away today, do the guys who upload videos on this platform stop being content creators? This is myth I want to dispell. Now to answer your question. Yes, it will be tough and disruptive should you start distributing your content through other alternatives if you were using youtube as your only vehicle. But similar issues were faced by other content creators such as musicians, journalists when the streaming era started disrupting their vehicles. They adapted. Don't see why video content creators shouldn't be able to find the same flexibility and continue to thrive. Youtube by itself with no content does not have anything to sell. Infact, relying only on a single platform can be dangerous for creators since we've seen some of them being booted off by AI. No human explanations. Audience, traffic, monetization, reach are all market problems. They will exist whether Youtube is there or not.
EasyTiger_ 5y ago
Thanks for joining HN just to tell us this.
- rscoots 5y ago
  That post really does read like a parody haha. Such a desire to shield mega-corporations from any moral culpability since they think it serves their personal sensibilities. Very naive.
- sumtechguy 5y ago
  It seems to be a common opinion, I see a lot. What many do not realize is the 'build your own' is going on (I can name at least 4 YT replacements, some better than others). But they are dismissing them with the same reasons they are kicking the creators off the 'mainstream' sites. So you see a lot of YT refugees and many existing YT creators 'splitting the difference' basically they upload it to both YT and several other sites. There is almost zero downside in doing so really. Eventually someone will click it all together in the right way and create a decentralized uncensorable thing. At that point the internet will become a lot more like 4chan. The old adage is 'the internet sees censorship as damage and routes around it'. It just does not happen overnight though.
AnimalMuppet 5y ago
Do we want Google to be able to censor hate speech and misinformation? You assume the answer is "yes", but I think it's at least an open question, with me personally leaning toward "no".

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

danuker 5y ago

Except the sheer scale of Google is hair-raising. (Sleep tight dear FTC). If Google loses a YouTube creator, it has almost no impact on their bottom line. If a creator gets kicked out however, their livelihood is threatened. I would argue this is the perfect scenario for a creator's union (of course, it should use some other platform to communicate).

freebuju 5y ago
> If a creator gets kicked out however, their livelihood is threatened No. There are numerous providers that can host your videos. For a small fee. This mentality is what gives Google such pseudo-power.
- derivagral 5y ago
  At the end of the day, I'd guess this is less about alternatives and more about youtube being the best platform for your investment. Hosting isn't the problem, its the audience and traffic (and ad monetization from your vids.) Do the alternatives hold up in terms of things like market reach, $ performance, and not banning the same users?
  - freebuju 5y ago
    If Youtube was to go away today, do the guys who upload videos on this platform stop being content creators? This is myth I want to dispell. Now to answer your question. Yes, it will be tough and disruptive should you start distributing your content through other alternatives if you were using youtube as your only vehicle. But similar issues were faced by other content creators such as musicians, journalists when the streaming era started disrupting their vehicles. They adapted. Don't see why video content creators shouldn't be able to find the same flexibility and continue to thrive. Youtube by itself with no content does not have anything to sell. Infact, relying only on a single platform can be dangerous for creators since we've seen some of them being booted off by AI. No human explanations. Audience, traffic, monetization, reach are all market problems. They will exist whether Youtube is there or not.

EasyTiger_ 5y ago

Thanks for joining HN just to tell us this.

rscoots 5y ago
That post really does read like a parody haha. Such a desire to shield mega-corporations from any moral culpability since they think it serves their personal sensibilities. Very naive.
sumtechguy 5y ago
It seems to be a common opinion, I see a lot. What many do not realize is the 'build your own' is going on (I can name at least 4 YT replacements, some better than others). But they are dismissing them with the same reasons they are kicking the creators off the 'mainstream' sites. So you see a lot of YT refugees and many existing YT creators 'splitting the difference' basically they upload it to both YT and several other sites. There is almost zero downside in doing so really. Eventually someone will click it all together in the right way and create a decentralized uncensorable thing. At that point the internet will become a lot more like 4chan. The old adage is 'the internet sees censorship as damage and routes around it'. It just does not happen overnight though.

AnimalMuppet 5y ago

Do we want Google to be able to censor hate speech and misinformation? You assume the answer is "yes", but I think it's at least an open question, with me personally leaning toward "no".