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> ... controlling what Australian individuals can see and hear on YouTube. FTFY. It's important we remember that Google is exercising its rights to not host ce

> ... controlling what Australian individuals can see and hear on YouTube. FTFY. It's important we remember that Google is exercising its rights to not host certain content and people on its own platform. This is the Internet. Australians still have access to the Sky News website. There are other third-party video platforms too. This idea that because they're the biggest they have to operate like a public utility is utter nonsense.

koheripbal 5y ago
...at some point, massive multi-national monopolies (or oligopolies) have a certain responsibility to societal ethics. This isn't the local pub kicking out a loud-mouth racist. The danger of these few massive corporation, which control 99.9% of all human communication, dictating what we can say will bite us in the ass. It's important to remember that YouTube's policy isn't always correct. They defended the WHO - but the WHO hosted a video on Youtube from Feb-2020 to July-2020 telling people that they did not need masks unless they were directly caring for sick patients. These massive corporations can no only get things wrong, they have an incentive to alter narratives to support their own agendas. It is their ubiquity and size that necessitates they respect free speech of content creators, unlike a small business that we can easily avoid. To give a more extreme example of the danger of allowing unfettered corporate censorship: Imagine if mobile phone companies started listening to the content of your calls, and banned your mobile phone from the network if you said something in a private conversation they objected to. Or Skype/Meet/Zoom did the same? It's one thing to be kicked out of a bar for being an idiot. It's another thing to be kicked out of all bars all over the world, forever.
- true_religion 5y ago
  Considering how Google is being strong armed into paying Australian news companies for the “privilege” of being able to index their websites… I am not surprised that Google is leaping on any opportunity to rid themselves of doing business with Australian news. And because of said strong arming, it’s hard for me to see how Google is the one acting from a position of strength here.
mrcsharp 5y ago
Yes, they are exercising this control on their platforms. However, considering how the new generation's source of information is the internet and that google's search engine market share is 92% [1] and YouTube market share is 90% [2]. Isn't it alarming when one entity (google) decides what information 90%+ of the public have access to? And yes, Sky News still have their website, for now, but do you also expect them to build their own Internet when their ISP bans them, their DNS records get purged, and their hosting provider shuts down their servers? I'm sorry but it is not utter nonsense to expect an entity that 90% of the public rely on every day to not have such control over the public's access to information. [1] https://www.oberlo.com/statistics/search-engine-market-share https://www.oberlo.com/statistics/search-engine-market-share [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/266201/us-market-share-of-leading-internet-video-portals https://www.statista.com/statistics/266201/us-market-share-o...
- oliwarner 5y ago
  You're talking about hundreds of private companies and utilities all denying them service. Your slippery slope is a fantasy scenario that even internationally recognised hate and pirate sites avoid. 4Chan thrives, KiwiFarms plods on, ThePirateBay still has its domain a host and is still listed in places without relevant court orders. Yes, it denies them some access to market but while everyone goes to YouTube and Google, that's Google's market to curate as they see fit. Don't like it, encourage people to use other services, as I'm sure Sky Oz will now.

koheripbal 5y ago

...at some point, massive multi-national monopolies (or oligopolies) have a certain responsibility to societal ethics. This isn't the local pub kicking out a loud-mouth racist. The danger of these few massive corporation, which control 99.9% of all human communication, dictating what we can say will bite us in the ass. It's important to remember that YouTube's policy isn't always correct. They defended the WHO - but the WHO hosted a video on Youtube from Feb-2020 to July-2020 telling people that they did not need masks unless they were directly caring for sick patients. These massive corporations can no only get things wrong, they have an incentive to alter narratives to support their own agendas. It is their ubiquity and size that necessitates they respect free speech of content creators, unlike a small business that we can easily avoid. To give a more extreme example of the danger of allowing unfettered corporate censorship: Imagine if mobile phone companies started listening to the content of your calls, and banned your mobile phone from the network if you said something in a private conversation they objected to. Or Skype/Meet/Zoom did the same? It's one thing to be kicked out of a bar for being an idiot. It's another thing to be kicked out of all bars all over the world, forever.

true_religion 5y ago
Considering how Google is being strong armed into paying Australian news companies for the “privilege” of being able to index their websites… I am not surprised that Google is leaping on any opportunity to rid themselves of doing business with Australian news. And because of said strong arming, it’s hard for me to see how Google is the one acting from a position of strength here.

mrcsharp 5y ago

Yes, they are exercising this control on their platforms. However, considering how the new generation's source of information is the internet and that google's search engine market share is 92% [1] and YouTube market share is 90% [2]. Isn't it alarming when one entity (google) decides what information 90%+ of the public have access to? And yes, Sky News still have their website, for now, but do you also expect them to build their own Internet when their ISP bans them, their DNS records get purged, and their hosting provider shuts down their servers? I'm sorry but it is not utter nonsense to expect an entity that 90% of the public rely on every day to not have such control over the public's access to information. [1] https://www.oberlo.com/statistics/search-engine-market-share https://www.oberlo.com/statistics/search-engine-market-share [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/266201/us-market-share-of-leading-internet-video-portals https://www.statista.com/statistics/266201/us-market-share-o...

oliwarner 5y ago
You're talking about hundreds of private companies and utilities all denying them service. Your slippery slope is a fantasy scenario that even internationally recognised hate and pirate sites avoid. 4Chan thrives, KiwiFarms plods on, ThePirateBay still has its domain a host and is still listed in places without relevant court orders. Yes, it denies them some access to market but while everyone goes to YouTube and Google, that's Google's market to curate as they see fit. Don't like it, encourage people to use other services, as I'm sure Sky Oz will now.