This argument doesn't really hold when you're discussing a monopoly/social network.
Referring to youtube as "just a private company" or "just a video hosting service" is almost to the point of being disingenuous. There are no alternatives that come even close to what youtube offers. You can't just replicate a social network, and even if you could, who has the hardware and resources to do what youtube does?
Vimeo is niche/specialized, it's not for general video uploads. Selfhosting via e.g. Peertube only really works in smallish communities, due to hardware limitations and word of mouth discovery. No other service has the social aspect that youtube does.
The reality is that this is a much more complicated discussion than "oh, merely switch to another private company".
> I swear, it's like people have never had to cancel a newspaper subscription before
This is such a blithe comment that I'm not sure if you actually use youtube to any degree. It is -the- place to put videos and content. Nowhere else has the sheer amount of educational content, etc, all in one place. There's an extreme wealth of content that is not replicated anywhere else on the internet, much less spread across random websites.
Youtube not only allows for discovery via topics/related youtubers, but it also incentivizes people to make content due to income both internally on youtube and externally as they build a brand. I'm not trying to be a shill here, but without youtube I wouldn't have been able to learn about topics like woodworking, chess, bass guitar, music theory, cooking, programming, etc, to the degree that I have , and discover great content makers as well. Not to mention discovering music that isn't necessarily on spotify/etc.
So it's not so easy as to say "just use a different site/company/etc". What site...?
So under what philosophical model do we justify forcing YouTube to host content that they find objectionable just so that content is more easily discovered using their algorithm?
I'm certainly not arguing that. What I'm saying is it's complicated, and we (the people & our governments) need to have a discussion around youtube/facebook/twitter and private companies that are basically used like public utilities. It's not their fault, but the fact is there is no real alternative to yt/fb/twitter unless one wishes to avoid a large part of the human population.
Of course youtube can remove whatever it wants, it's a private company. This doesn't mean that people can't find this objectionable, and it doesn't mean the only argument has to be "well, just use another company/site/provider".
I think people here are -reasonably- concerned about YT censoring particular information and the precedent it sets. In this case you and I might agree with YT's stance. Will we agree the next time YT decides to take a stance and censors a topic?
YT already flagged LGBTQ content as objectionable and demonitized it years ago, and I, for one, never questioned their right to do so. I think it's a bad look for them and will have consequences, but most of those consequences are of the form "LGBTQ companies are going to think twice about tossing ad dollars your way" and "People have solid questions about your actual dedication to LGBTQ inclusivity," not "We should modify the law to take away your right to flag that content objectionable."
I agree that ad dollars are where YT is hurt the most, and them making bad decisions ought to lead to corrections via advertisers pulling out.
However, a lot of people making content on yt are facing demonetization due to the same thing: advertiser pressure. For things like swearing, any sort of violence, etc. A lot of people have issues in some game communities for example.
So I don't think relying on the benevolence of Coca-Cola is the best solution either. Until relatively recently it would not have cared about appearances regarding LBGTQ+ issues either.
We prohibit discriminating customers on the basis of color. religion etc. Add one more clause: discrimination based on political/social beliefs or something along those lines however stupid those might be.
That's a terrible clause. Half the point of free exchange of information is so we can find which deeply-held beliefs (which are maleable, unlike color) are incorrect, detrimental, or even dangerous when acted on.
Black people and pedophiles don't deserve the same legal protections to have access to a playground or a private school.
I don't think it would make much of a difference. Are there pedophiles who publicly post controversial views without the cover of anonymity? How would you even know what their views are?
So you're whining that you can't make Youtube host your conspiracy theories for free? And that you can't ride of the back of their massive CDN infrastructure? Your biggest issue is that you are being excluded from someone else's assets and that you can't reach as many people through other alternatives at the same price point.
I don't even watch anything political on youtube. I use youtube for music and learning about hobbies.
I still think it's worth talking about the precedent that youtube is setting here, and it's not productive to be combative about it. Of course youtube can censor or remove whatever it wants.
My main point, anyway, was that I dislike the "just use a different platform/site/company" argument, for the reasons I outlined above. Not because I think youtube -has- to host any sort of content, nor did I ever state that.
I feel like YouTube is much less of a monopoly than Facebook. Facebook has strong network effects (i.e. everyone you know is already on it and you want to see what your friends post) whereas YouTube has much less of a social network element. Can't someone just host their videos elsewhere? I understand most random viewers are on YouTube, but if there was a niche video site for woodworking, chess, or bass guitar I don't think it would be too hard to convince YouTubers to go check out those sites
The way I see it, youtube is the facebook/twitter of generalized video sharing. There isn't any other site that people use to the same degree.
Sure, one -could- host their own peertube instance for a community. However the discovery probability drops immensely. One of the main benefits of youtube (at least for me) is easily discovering new content/creators. Also, having high-quality videos in one central location versus multiple different sites for cooking videos, woodworking videos, etc. Having something like a global search across federated peertube instances could work though.
At that point you also run into the issue of who has the hardware to power these new communities? Few people have that sort of data storage available, and fewer still have enough powerful servers + cdns across the world. The new owners of an instance could easily just as well decide to censor whatever they want, and if I had to trust a random person over youtube I'd most likely choose youtube. At least it faces public scrutiny, etc.
Referring to youtube as "just a private company" or "just a video hosting service" is almost to the point of being disingenuous. There are no alternatives that come even close to what youtube offers. You can't just replicate a social network, and even if you could, who has the hardware and resources to do what youtube does?
Vimeo is niche/specialized, it's not for general video uploads. Selfhosting via e.g. Peertube only really works in smallish communities, due to hardware limitations and word of mouth discovery. No other service has the social aspect that youtube does.
The reality is that this is a much more complicated discussion than "oh, merely switch to another private company".
> I swear, it's like people have never had to cancel a newspaper subscription before
This is such a blithe comment that I'm not sure if you actually use youtube to any degree. It is -the- place to put videos and content. Nowhere else has the sheer amount of educational content, etc, all in one place. There's an extreme wealth of content that is not replicated anywhere else on the internet, much less spread across random websites.
Youtube not only allows for discovery via topics/related youtubers, but it also incentivizes people to make content due to income both internally on youtube and externally as they build a brand. I'm not trying to be a shill here, but without youtube I wouldn't have been able to learn about topics like woodworking, chess, bass guitar, music theory, cooking, programming, etc, to the degree that I have , and discover great content makers as well. Not to mention discovering music that isn't necessarily on spotify/etc.
So it's not so easy as to say "just use a different site/company/etc". What site...?