[Hong Wu]

A day after refusing calls to take Steven Crowder off of YouTube because he called someone who self-describes as a "Queer" a queer, YouTube has demonitized Crowder and many other channels and banned other channels, including a freelance reporter whose work has been used in the MSM, a historian who had Nazi speeches up on YouTube etc.

What's really strange about this latest round of targeting users though is that YouTube's terms for reinstatement (when they are offered) arguably go beyond YouTube itself. For example, Crowder can get re-monitized if he takes away a link where he sells T-shirt referencing his show, an activity that many channels partake in.

This appears to be becoming a trend, the social media services are beginning to dictate to people what they can do when they are not on their service.

Further evidence:


There's also a rumor that Facebook is launching a cryptocurrency next month.

There's been a lot of arguments about how these are private companies and that they can do what they want. Imagine that a private company has you funneling a majority of your social activity through it, has 1.4 billion users a day, it has its own currency and perhaps also its terms of service begin telling you what you can do when you aren't using the service if you want to have access to it. This is all getting very unprecedented.

[Igor Antunov]

It's simple. They must all burn. All these companies need to be destroyed. Neoliberal Oligarchy mixed with corporatism is the most potent of poisons.

[Hong Wu]

Supposedly, Gab is making a de-centralized server architecture (possibly based on Mastodon) which would allow anyone to host Gab and save their profile information, posts and liked content on their own hardware, so that deleting someone would require accessing their personal hard drive that such is stored on.

As hard drive technology continues to improve (it seems to have a lower ceiling than computer processors) and as Internet speeds continue to improve, such as with the coming 5g, there may be no need to create competitors to these sites. People will have individual control over their social media content and the server system may end up de-centralized and affordable. It's really only a matter of time.

Also:


Question is whether this gets enforced as it might be.

[Heisenberg]

There's been a lot of arguments about how these are private companies and that they can do what they want. Imagine that a private company has you funneling a majority of your social activity through it, has 1.4 billion users a day, it has its own currency and perhaps also its terms of service begin telling you what you can do when you aren't using the service if you want to have access to it. This is all getting very unprecedented.

It's almost as if you and other Trump supporters should think a bit more about your "let corporations do literally anything they want to own the libs" political stance. Do you actually expect sympathy?

[Hong Wu]

:lol: It's almost as if you and other Trump supporters should think a bit more about your "let corporations do literally anything they want to own the libs" political stance. Do you actually expect sympathy?

That's a straw man though, to do literally anything they want has never been my position and it isn't most Trump supporter's positions either.

[anasawad]

I'm all for free speech, but regarding platforms like youtube and others, they're private, they decide what they want on their platforms and not, and sure as hell they decide who they're going to reward advertisement money to and who not to.
Either let the government establish such a platform for everyone, or go start your own; You're not entitled to anything from them.