Scott Adams Hit With Youtube Censorship

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He was suggested as one of the people for me to follow on Parler.
Seriously, if Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, et al., are going to editorialise Conservatives and Libertarians, they only have themselves to blame when they lose that ad revenue.
 
It was one video. I know Republicans love to regulate of business (except their own), but gee whiz. It was one video that was deemed a violation.
 
The article is a little misleading. It says,
The fact that Scott is an artist and a podcaster particularly known for his satirical approach and commentary made no difference, since now even artistic expression is apparently fair censorship game over on YouTube.
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Scott Adams’ comic strips (and even most of his books) would fall under the category of satirical or artistic expression, but that’s really not how he styles his blog (or this video series, which is what his blog evolved into), so it’s not quite accurate to say that YouTube was censoring satire in this case.

Personally, I tend to be against censorship in all its forms. If people get deceived by misleading claims, so be it. But after seeing the violence in DC this past weekend, caused by people who came to the city because they were confused about some basic facts of reality, I am starting to understand where YouTube is coming from with this policy.
 
There are some channels on youtube which I enjoy and like to follow. But honestly, when I see that they are censoring political speech or satire, it just makes me want to abandon the site entirely. Maybe they should relocate to China where censorship and suppression of viewpoints is expected.
 
Yeah, one video. Plus the thousands of others that are being demonetised, censored, deleted, and hidden, by YouTube, of anyone with an opinion they don’t like. You can believe YouTube, Facebook, etc. are benevolent if you want, but the facts clearly speak for themselves.
 
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sealabeag said:
Yeah, one video. Plus the thousands of others that are being demonetised, censored, deleted, and hidden, by YouTube, of anyone with an opinion they don’t like. You can believe YouTube, Facebook, etc. are benevolent if you want, but the facts clearly speak for themselves.
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I don’t know why this surprises people. YouTube/Facebook/Twitter are private companies, not public services. If they don’t want Scott Adam’s stuff on their platform, they have no obligation to host his videos.

Like, the idea that big tech companies lean left is kind of a “no duh” revelation in my mind.
 
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It doesn’t matter that it was one or a dozen or a thousand. It is censoring political speech
 
I was a fan of Dilbert just like every other engineer if my generation, because the stuff Adams wrote about in the comic was true to life. However, like many engineers, the guy also has political views that are on the hairy edge of extreme or over the line entirely. I’m not going to stop enjoying Dilbert because of that, but I really couldn’t care less if his political baloney got censored on YouTube because there are plenty of other outlets to post that stuff and YouTube is a private company and free to decide if they don’t want certain content there. The fact that he’s Scott Adams doesn’t matter to me any more than if he were Joe Blow from any one of my past employers, except that if he’s not in my office I can more easily ignore his political ramblings.

If Youtube deletes my favorite crime and history channels I go to other platforms where I can see those. It’s not a big deal.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
Yeah, YouTube isn’t the government. They’re allowed to censor whatever content they want.
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Right. I mean, if someone made an account on CAF and ran around posting pro-Nazi memes and racist diatribes, they’d get banned pretty fast. No legal issue there.
 
The only issue is that if a platform like YouTube applies its policies unevenly, for instance by pulling Nazi videos while allowing hate speech videos from the left, their customer base will likely squawk, look for reasons to sue, and it may draw the attention of the government to come regulate the platform. It’s essentially a public check.
 
I agree, it shouldn’t surprise people. However, the majority of people are not particularly critical thinkers, and do not realise that big tech are biased and engaged in censorship, or that the content they are viewing is more than likely left-leaning as a result of that bias. Most people who turn on “the news” on a mainstream news channel just take it at face-value and don’t see the bias, in the same way that young people who go on YouTube don’t realise that the content is filtered through a leftist bias.

These channels have the right to do that, I suppose, although I’m sure there’s a debate to be had there, but yes, I’d agree that free speech applies and as a private company, they have the right to do that. However it would be very helpful if they were to declare their bias openly. Which won’t happen.
 
Yep, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc–they are all private companies. Private companies that have a global reach and dominate their markets. I thought that the idea of the internet was that everybody would be connected and free to express ourselves. But it turns out we aren’t free to express opinions that are contrary to the giant corporations that dominate the internet. Governments are small potatoes compared to global tech giants. We are free to shut up and do as we are told.
 
MarkoB0726 said:
You mean the violence Antifa instigated?
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Does it matter who instigated it? Anyone instigating violence is obviously confused about fundamental facts of reality.

As our Lord tells us, even reciprocating violence with violence is ignorance (cf. Matthew 5:39). Regardless of who started it, there is no excuse for it, for any of the parties involved.
sealabeag said:
young people who go on YouTube don’t realise that the content is filtered through a leftist bias.
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I agree that Google has a leftist bias. However, it’s not clear to me in this particular case that the censorship they applied was due to that bias.

The U.S. Supreme Court, which arguably is conservative now, has rejected lawsuits challenging the legitimacy of the election. This isn’t really a partisan issue.
 
AS too CAF limiting speech, who cares? Compared to facebook, google, twit, CAF has 300 posters. They are turning off the boards in a couple of weeks and with the exception of a few people no one will care. CAF and be a publisher or a container

Can the same be said for Google, Facebook, and Twitter? Are they publishers or containers of info?
 
I meant “Private company” in the public-private sense, as in the public sector is the government and the private sector is not the government.

I did NOT mean whether it’s privately held or publicly traded with shares being sold.

It’s pretty obvious that Youtube is not owned by the US government or any other government, and it’s also pretty obvious that that’s what I meant.

Muting this discussion now as there’s nothing more to be said here.
 
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