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There's the definition of censorship, and then there's people's perception of censorship as something the government does. Beyond that, it's not just that many

There's the definition of censorship, and then there's people's perception of censorship as something the government does. Beyond that, it's not just that many people can't distinguish the two, but that they've merged aspects of each into the same thing in their head. Censorship is natural and expected in many, many contexts. Any time a parent punishes their child for saying something they feel is unacceptable, that's censorship. It's just censorship in the hope of teaching their children how to be responsible members of society. The difference between censorship at the individual or group level and at the government level is that with individuals or groups it's possible to find to other people or groups (or create your own) where that speech is not censored. At the government level, where they can control all aspects of expression, that might not be possible, which is why it's more of a problem and why it's set as a fundamental right in some countries. YouTube does not control all expression through video. There are both other video streaming platforms, and peer delivery networks that can have platform front ends, and social media networks (which YouTube might classify to some degree as also) that allow video dissemination but are operated differently and have different restrictions. YouTube is censoring people, just like it has always done since day one, and in new and evolving ways as their policies change. That's expected, and legal, and the same thing every other commercial platform does, and if people have a problem with a specific type of censorship YouTube performs, they should give their attention to a platform that doesn't, but not just because there's censorship at all, because of course there is.

loup-vaillant 5y ago
> YouTube does not control all expression through video. There are both other video streaming platforms, For almost all intents and purposes, the audience is on YouTube only. Use anything else, and you are basically guaranteed to divide your audience by two orders of magnitude. Such is their monopoly on videos that are over 1 minute long. This makes YouTube deplatforming very close to actual government censorship. The only meaningful difference is the lack of due process.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  This is even worse logic than some arguments in this sphere. The audience is wherever there's a link to click on. Anyone who can watch YT can watch vimeo or peertube or even a self-hosted video. There's no problem with that click - the problem is getting people to click. You want YT to do more than host videos, you want them to market videos to their users. If YT was a completely passive video host (i.e. when you watched a video, there were no links to other videos at all), saying "the audience is on YT" would be meaningless - people could watch YT videos all day and would never ever see a link to any video that they didn't learn about via some other mechanism. What you seem to object to is YT removing material from participating in "the algorithm", which is essentially a marketing process.
  - loup-vaillant 5y ago
    > The audience is wherever there's a link to click on. This is where the audience could be. I don't know the solution to be honest. But the reality is, if a video is not on YouTube, it will not reach a wide audience. If a popular channel gets removed from YouTube, few people will ever watch it again. In most cases this means short term bankruptcy. People could click. People could follow. But they don't.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
      > if a video is not on YouTube, it will not reach a wide audience. But that's not because of any technological issue with watching videos hosted anywhere else. There are absolutely zero technological obstacles to people watching videos elsewhere. The reason it doesn't reach a wide audience is because of "the algorithm" (or rather, two algorithms): 1. the one that YT uses to put possible videos for you to watch in front of you while you watching something else 2. the fact that people tend to search on YT and tend to share YT links rather than links to other video locations (a "human procedural algorithm", if you like) I don't see how you can equate the power that this "gives" YT with governmental power. There is nothing stopping anyone from doing things outside of YT other than their (generally incorrect) belief that being unable to leverage "the algorithm" is death. > If a popular channel gets removed from YouTube, few people will ever watch it again. There's no right to use YT's algorithm or network effects for your own benefit. Does that give them great power? It does, yes. Is that like a government? I don't think that it is.

loup-vaillant 5y ago

> YouTube does not control all expression through video. There are both other video streaming platforms, For almost all intents and purposes, the audience is on YouTube only. Use anything else, and you are basically guaranteed to divide your audience by two orders of magnitude. Such is their monopoly on videos that are over 1 minute long. This makes YouTube deplatforming very close to actual government censorship. The only meaningful difference is the lack of due process.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
This is even worse logic than some arguments in this sphere. The audience is wherever there's a link to click on. Anyone who can watch YT can watch vimeo or peertube or even a self-hosted video. There's no problem with that click - the problem is getting people to click. You want YT to do more than host videos, you want them to market videos to their users. If YT was a completely passive video host (i.e. when you watched a video, there were no links to other videos at all), saying "the audience is on YT" would be meaningless - people could watch YT videos all day and would never ever see a link to any video that they didn't learn about via some other mechanism. What you seem to object to is YT removing material from participating in "the algorithm", which is essentially a marketing process.
- loup-vaillant 5y ago
  > The audience is wherever there's a link to click on. This is where the audience could be. I don't know the solution to be honest. But the reality is, if a video is not on YouTube, it will not reach a wide audience. If a popular channel gets removed from YouTube, few people will ever watch it again. In most cases this means short term bankruptcy. People could click. People could follow. But they don't.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    > if a video is not on YouTube, it will not reach a wide audience. But that's not because of any technological issue with watching videos hosted anywhere else. There are absolutely zero technological obstacles to people watching videos elsewhere. The reason it doesn't reach a wide audience is because of "the algorithm" (or rather, two algorithms): 1. the one that YT uses to put possible videos for you to watch in front of you while you watching something else 2. the fact that people tend to search on YT and tend to share YT links rather than links to other video locations (a "human procedural algorithm", if you like) I don't see how you can equate the power that this "gives" YT with governmental power. There is nothing stopping anyone from doing things outside of YT other than their (generally incorrect) belief that being unable to leverage "the algorithm" is death. > If a popular channel gets removed from YouTube, few people will ever watch it again. There's no right to use YT's algorithm or network effects for your own benefit. Does that give them great power? It does, yes. Is that like a government? I don't think that it is.