Many people present a lot of criticism against YouTube because of their practices, particularly related to demonetization of videos. Video creators lament and hate that they have to jump through unclear undisclosed hoops in order to try to not get their videos demonetized, having to try to guess what they can and can't say and show in their videos, and how difficult it is to contest automatic demonetization by the AI that's working behind the scenes. And, especially, how hard it is to restore a non-infringing video that gets falsely restricted or even removed. The DMCA and copyright strike system also gets a huge amount of criticism and backlash.
However, I would like to, once again, offer a different perspective and actually praise YouTube. I have written about this very topic a couple of times before, but I think it deserves repeating.
This is because considering the current political climate, and particularly considering how leftist Google as a company is, it's actually amazing how much YouTube allows in their platform, when it comes to the expression of differing political opinions and other related content.
Unsurprisingly, you can find tons and tons of extremely leftist content on YouTube, sometimes even quite radical such content, outright tip-toeing on the very edge of what constitutes content policy infringement.
More surprisingly, you can also find tons and tons of extremely conservative and "right-wing" content on the same platform. Even content that's extremely and very vocally critical of leftism in the harshest of terms. Content that modern far-leftist activists outright hate, loathe, and would want to completely erase from the internet and the world.
YouTube really is living up to their principle of "express yourself": YouTube is supposed to be a platform where you can very easily publish and share your video content, and where you can show your creations, and where you can express your views and opinions. And that you can do, within some quite reasonable boundaries (in other words, no porn, no illegal material, no material that might be technically legal but goes well beyond what's morally acceptable.)
When it comes to the monetization issues, consider that YouTube's hands are tied: They are not the ones ultimately making monetization decisions. The advertisers are. The advertisers dictate which type of content their ads can and cannot be shown. YouTube has no say in this. They can't just go and show someone else's ads on video content that the ad's owner doesn't want. If they do that, and ignore demands to not show those ads, the advertisers will just pull their ads and stop paying YouTube.
This it's quite unfair to blame YouTube when a video gets demonetized. Yes, they might have programmed the logic behind the automation, and they may be making the decisions when manually enforcing or lifting the restrictions, but they are not doing it because they want to: They are doing it because they are being forced to, by advertisers.
The same goes for copyright claims and DMCA, obviously: YouTube's hands are tied by the law of the United States. The DMCA forces YouTube to provide copyright owners a mechanism for claiming copyright. YouTube has no choice in this matter.
All things considering, I think it's amazing and praiseworthy that in the current political climate YouTube is allowing such diverse range of political opinions in their platform. I don't think they get praised enough for that.
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