"Say more conservative things or else we'll take regulatory action against your company" sounds to me like an extremely first amendment-violating abuse of government power.
Many YouTubers and many Twitter users would say more conservative things, but Google and Twitter actively discourage and ban users in a way which is pointedly biased. Some of those so targeted deserve such treatment. However, not all of them do. Many of them are simply in ideological disagreement.
It's a dilemma. If monopolies and near-monopolies are allowed to use corporate power to police speech, then this is allowed in the letter of the law, but it stinks to high heaven as far as the spirit of free speech goes. On the other hand, the government shouldn't be in the business of policing speech.
The way out of this dilemma is to break up near-monopoly power where it exists. Right now, there really isn't a good alternative to YouTube, and this near monopoly power lets them effectively police speech across the entirety of a certain kind of widespread culturally relevant media: That of personal video commentary.
Who is doing the editing is extremely important. If a newspaper declines to publish a white supremacist screed in their op-ed column, that is not censorship. The screeching racist can always try and publish somewhere else, or publish themselves (online or in print), or yell in the streets. But if the government intervenes and tries to force/prevent any of those things from happening, that's censorship and it's unconstitutional. Completely different ballgame. It drives me up the wall that people think those cases are "equivalent".
Free speech is an American value, not just a few words in the Constitution. I'm sympathetic when folks object to private censors. As an American, I'm offended as well.
The “platform” excuse is dead on the first real legal challenge. It’s past time for these publishers to be held to the standards other publishers have been held to for decades or longer. They can’t cry “free speech” on one hand while acting like publishers on the other. When it was just galling hypocrisy fair enough, but they’re big enough and have supplanted enough “traditional media” that their time has come.
The post office is more analogous to the transport layer, in which case you'd be making a solid case for net neutrality, and I'd agree with you there. The post office having an editorial board would be like Comcast having an editorial board.
The problem isn't with excluding "X" screeds. The problem is with dishonest actors who happen to have corporate power who label everything they disagree with as "X." The problem is with arbitrary corporate media power which can have an effect commensurate with government violation of the 1st amendment, but which skirts the law because it's "private."
In the 1960's the government sought to suppress the speech of students and large segments of the populace, then that populace sought to fight back using Free Speech. Now, in the 21st century, corporate media and tech power seeks to suppress the speech of large segments of the populace online. The question isn't whether or not it's the government. It's the question of whether or not coercive power is going against the will of a segment of the populace. It's the question of force vs. argument.
The issue is not the government shutting down media. It's with big tech shutting down small mom & pop media. If it's wrong for the government to censor, we shouldn't let the authoritarians skirt the constitution by gathering the commensurate power (in the form of a monopoly) to do just as much.
"Or tell them what to say." Is there anyone who actually thinks that what some random YouTuber says is the official word of YouTube? They probably exist and comprise only a sliver of a fraction of a percent of the population. Censorship on a media platform should not be a form of speech. The fact that this is such a sticky issue probably indicates that another category is needed.
If the government tells YouTube which YouTube videos to suppress, no matter how "unimportant" the "random YouTuber", then the government is restricting both the YouTubers' speech, and YouTube's right to prioritize information as it sees fit. Just the same as if the government told newspapers which articles were allowed to appear on the front page, or which op-eds it could select.
Let's turn your criticism right back around: Would that kind of regulation be tolerable to you if we were talking about conservative publications/websites, and it were a liberal government telling them what to do?
How is this not just more conservative persecution syndrome?
Fact: Google has hired humans to moderate. They've even spoken to the press about how it went a bit wrong at first.
How is this not just more conservative persecution syndrome?
Note that it's you who has the facts wrong here.
Put up or shut up. Show what you were referring to, or admit that you don't have anything to complain about.
There is no failure. I reject your premise that logic on a ToS is empty and idiotic, as most other people would.
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/16/books/chapters/what-liber...
As Google does not censor conservative content, what else would only GOP officials be upset about? If it was general election integrity, the other major issue cross tech/politics right now, why aren't isn't it a bipartisan meeting? Actually, the GOP has downplayed election integrity issues, which further convinces me that it is not a strawman argument to claim the GOP is pressuring tech companies to show more pro-conservative content.
There are certainly many anecdotal complaints about Google censoring or demonetizing conservatives on YouTube.
There have been a few notable instances where Google has promoted incendiary content against conservatives in their search results “answers” — although those cases seemed to algorithms picking up tainted UGC. [1]
Also anecdotally, Google News seems to present a highly scewed viewpoint (browsing logged off with no cookies, only inferred location from IP).
I’m not aware of rigorous studies, but by no means would I take it as a foregone conclusion that Google is not censoring conservative content.
[1] - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trudy-wade-google-search-result...
I appreciate your genuine approach here. The reason I'm being so militant on actual evidence is due to excellent coaching from many people I admire in my life to challenge assumptions and anecdote. Trust me, I'm great fun in design meetings.
In this case, I'd agree with you that Google News presents generally liberal news. Generally I'd say this is because there is 1 conservative media conglomerate (Fox) vs so many liberal ones (CNN, NBC, etc), and meanwhile the many ones I would consider "fair" (Al Jazeera, BBC, NPR, NYTimes, WaPo, NHK) seem so anti-conservative because, well, conservative politicians keep doing some pretty shitty things. That being said, Fox is a default source on my uncookied google news, and I've seen Breitbart and other extraordinarily conservative sources, so I don't think there is a Google-level explicit bias, rather a failure on the part of conservative-leaning media to present a perspective as level-headed as, say, NPR. When the best it has to offer is Fox, Breitbart, and InfoWars, I'm not surprised it gets churned.
Just checking through sources I had to block due to simply terribly ham-fisted propaganda attempts, here's other ones that show up on google news by default:
Investor's Business Daily
New York Post
RealClearPolitics
Screen Rant
The Hill
Washington Times
nationalreview