Godstud wrote:So, @maz, it's all right for an extreme alt-right group to complain, but not for an extreme alt-left one to complain?
Everyone has a right to complain, but in the end, Youtube decides what does damage and what shouldn't be on their platform. if you don't like that, then tough beans.
Both groups were complaining about the same thing; censorship, and they had a right to complain. YouTube decided that only one side deserved to have their grievances heard and to be heard by others and that is fine. The ostracized moved on to more open platforms where their political enemies fear to tread.
Political YouTube seems more like an echo chamber in terms of content where videos are a mix of approved but cringe "organic" content creator and mainstream media corporate dross. And of course heavy handed censorship where content creators are not even allowed to talk about 1/10th of the things we can talk openly about here, right on this forum! The exact thing that people were fighting against in the 1980s.
Donna wrote:The issue was that YouTube's algorithms would mistake political or philosophical content about LGBTQ+ issues (for using tags such as 'gay', 'lesbian', etc.) with pornographic search terms, thus unfairly censoring that content.
And that is exactly how the algorithm first started to work against the people that YouTube deemed unacceptable. Their content got flagged with "hate" even though they were just talking about regular issues such as immigration, crime or other social or current events. They would get demonetized and have their videos buried or removed.
The Buzzfeed article that I posted was something very different. This was a model that could have worked across the entire platform, for all users. It was a filter that would prevent people from seeing things. Pretty much every social media/big tech platform has this very rudimentary feature.
For instance, if you are a conservative who isn't interested in hearing about whatever 65 gender LGBT issues YouTube could have simply set up a filter that would restrict that content from reaching you and your family's feed.
Conversely, if you were a member of the LGBT community and didn't want videos featuring religion, guns, immigration or homeschooling, YouTube could have easily set up a filter that would have prevented you from seeing that.
What we have found out was that there were special interest groups who had a vested interest in their political enemy's messages and wanted to prevent them from speaking at all costs.
Conversely, the individuals on the other side seemed to have been more than open to having their political opposition speak on an open platform as long as they could be there to engage them in debate.
There was never any reason to have to remove anything that wasn't directly in violation of existing laws or already per-existing terms and conditions of the platforms as they were when they were originally created.