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I’m not so sure. I can’t help but think a good proportion of Google/YouTube employees truly believe they are saving lives and fighting “misinformation” with thi

I’m not so sure. I can’t help but think a good proportion of Google/YouTube employees truly believe they are saving lives and fighting “misinformation” with this move. To me, citing lost ad revenue is a convenient scapegoat for what these partisan folks wanted to do the whole time.

TeMPOraL 5y ago
Google is a multinational corporation, not a club. Those employees wouldn't get their way if it threatened their company's revenue stream.
- BuyMyBitcoins 5y ago
  Google is also a Bay Area company and happens to have a sizable number of vocal/activist employees with lofty world-saving goals. I also can’t help but think that having so much revenue and de-facto monopolies means they are comfortable with alienating “the other side”. I think they know people aren’t going to switch en-masse to a YouTube competitor because of this.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - __blockcipher__ 5y ago
    Agreed. As one example, take Amazon banning Parler from AWS. That clearly isn't a positive move for revenue (at least ignoring any potential shady behind-the-scenes kickbacks they could have gotten for doing so), but they did it because it aligned with many of their employees' ideology (among other reasons). (As an aside Parler was idiotic for not running on their own hardware given they were billing themselves as the censorship resistant twitter, but that's neither here nor there)
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    > Google is also a Bay Area company and happens to have a sizable number of vocal/activist employees with lofty world-saving goals. Which ends up being mostly used for PR, and causes occasional drama when some employees' view conflict with tech sphere's most vocal views. Notice the swift and harsh reactions of Google and other tech companies in those cases: that's what happens when their revenue is threatened. > I also can’t help but think that having so much revenue and de-facto monopolies means they are comfortable with alienating “the other side”. It doesn't really matter what "the other side" thinks. All "sides" are using YouTube and buying Android phones anyway, because they have very few other options. And all "sides" are equally good targets for advertising. Google isn't worried about people migrating off YouTube because of these actions. They're worried about regulators, who are looking at content moderation practices and considering meddling in that space - which would be very threatening to YouTube's revenue.
- philwelch 5y ago
  Any organization can be staffed by people with ulterior motives and turned against its official purpose.
HyperRational 5y ago
"I can’t help but think a good proportion of Google/YouTube employees truly believe they are saving lives and fighting “misinformation” with this move." That is because they ARE doing exactly that.

TeMPOraL 5y ago

Google is a multinational corporation, not a club. Those employees wouldn't get their way if it threatened their company's revenue stream.

BuyMyBitcoins 5y ago
Google is also a Bay Area company and happens to have a sizable number of vocal/activist employees with lofty world-saving goals. I also can’t help but think that having so much revenue and de-facto monopolies means they are comfortable with alienating “the other side”. I think they know people aren’t going to switch en-masse to a YouTube competitor because of this.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- __blockcipher__ 5y ago
  Agreed. As one example, take Amazon banning Parler from AWS. That clearly isn't a positive move for revenue (at least ignoring any potential shady behind-the-scenes kickbacks they could have gotten for doing so), but they did it because it aligned with many of their employees' ideology (among other reasons). (As an aside Parler was idiotic for not running on their own hardware given they were billing themselves as the censorship resistant twitter, but that's neither here nor there)
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  > Google is also a Bay Area company and happens to have a sizable number of vocal/activist employees with lofty world-saving goals. Which ends up being mostly used for PR, and causes occasional drama when some employees' view conflict with tech sphere's most vocal views. Notice the swift and harsh reactions of Google and other tech companies in those cases: that's what happens when their revenue is threatened. > I also can’t help but think that having so much revenue and de-facto monopolies means they are comfortable with alienating “the other side”. It doesn't really matter what "the other side" thinks. All "sides" are using YouTube and buying Android phones anyway, because they have very few other options. And all "sides" are equally good targets for advertising. Google isn't worried about people migrating off YouTube because of these actions. They're worried about regulators, who are looking at content moderation practices and considering meddling in that space - which would be very threatening to YouTube's revenue.
philwelch 5y ago
Any organization can be staffed by people with ulterior motives and turned against its official purpose.

HyperRational 5y ago

"I can’t help but think a good proportion of Google/YouTube employees truly believe they are saving lives and fighting “misinformation” with this move." That is because they ARE doing exactly that.