I have written in the past a couple of blog posts about how messed up the copyright system on YouTube is (among other things, How to steal people's ad revenue from YouTube, and How YouTube helps big corporations steal your videos).
However, to be fair, and while there are many things that Google could do better regarding those problems, these are measures that Google is pretty much forced to do in order to protect itself, and its users, from copyright lawsuits. Some things could be done better (such as not automatically and irrevocably giving ad revenue to somebody who merely claims intellectual property on a video), but overall it's something that they just have to do.
There is, however, something that Google is, at least so far, doing that deserves a huge amount of praise. You see, so far, Google appears to be one of the very few social media corporations who are standing for the freedom of speech of its users, rather than placating to entities, media, and sometimes even governments, demanding censorship.
This whole debacle about hundreds of corporations pulling their ads from YouTube, in some kind of semi-collusion or semi-agreement (verbal or implicit, nobody but they know), started in part with Google actually refusing to trample over its users' freedoms and censoring videos. It started with Google saying "no" to such demands.
So far Google, very much unlike other social media giants (like Facebook and Twitter), has stood for the rights of their users, to freely express their opinions, whether good or bad, and they deserve a standing ovation for that.
Let us hope that Google retains their integrity and doesn't cave in because of the enormous amount of pressure and attacks it's receiving from the media and virtue-signaling corporations and governments, who are heavily pushing for an extremist leftist political agenda, censorship and silencing of people with "wrong" opinions.
Let us hope that YouTube remains the largest, and perhaps last, bastion of free speech on the Internet. Freedom of speech is for everybody, not just for the people with the "right" opinions.
However, to be fair, and while there are many things that Google could do better regarding those problems, these are measures that Google is pretty much forced to do in order to protect itself, and its users, from copyright lawsuits. Some things could be done better (such as not automatically and irrevocably giving ad revenue to somebody who merely claims intellectual property on a video), but overall it's something that they just have to do.
There is, however, something that Google is, at least so far, doing that deserves a huge amount of praise. You see, so far, Google appears to be one of the very few social media corporations who are standing for the freedom of speech of its users, rather than placating to entities, media, and sometimes even governments, demanding censorship.
This whole debacle about hundreds of corporations pulling their ads from YouTube, in some kind of semi-collusion or semi-agreement (verbal or implicit, nobody but they know), started in part with Google actually refusing to trample over its users' freedoms and censoring videos. It started with Google saying "no" to such demands.
So far Google, very much unlike other social media giants (like Facebook and Twitter), has stood for the rights of their users, to freely express their opinions, whether good or bad, and they deserve a standing ovation for that.
Let us hope that Google retains their integrity and doesn't cave in because of the enormous amount of pressure and attacks it's receiving from the media and virtue-signaling corporations and governments, who are heavily pushing for an extremist leftist political agenda, censorship and silencing of people with "wrong" opinions.
Let us hope that YouTube remains the largest, and perhaps last, bastion of free speech on the Internet. Freedom of speech is for everybody, not just for the people with the "right" opinions.
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