YouTube suspends and demonetizes One America News Network over Covid-19 video
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
YouTube would not do this if CNN or MSNBC posted the exact same thing. The "fact checkers" would accept the video as new facts, or they would find some other way to be lenient.
Uneven enforcement is a great way to suppress an enemy. In terms of accuracy and bias, OAN is just like CNN and MSNBC, but on the other side of the political spectrum. (eh, maybe CNN is more extreme) Being a typical California tech giant, YouTube/Google has an obvious bias. OAN is the enemy.
Stuff like this happens far too often to be accidental or random.
It seems that their mission statement is not in conflict with their approach in this matter.
Information, rather than disinformation.
Proving disinformation wrong does not make it go away and the answer to malicious speech is not more speech.
As for credit card processing services, generally Visa and Mastercard are enforcing policies of the banks that actually provide the credit; they simply take the heat because they're paid to. But on that note, both the CEOs of Visa and Mastercard are...Republican donors...almost exclusively...and so would, if anything, favor right-leaning websites such as OAN.
Generally! I know at least one American comedian who is banned by both for taking jabs at you know who...
And no you just dont become a domain registrar like that. You need to be quite privileged to do that.
And becoming a domain registrar requires a demonstration of technical capabilities, but otherwise does not require any privileges. Literally anyone can apply to become a domain registrar if they can demonstrate that they actually know how to do it.
(If they want to prove that their claims are correct in the fact of everyone else saying they are wrong, the burden is on them to prove their claims, which they didn't even bother to do. They just claimed that something is a cure for COVID without evidence, and provided an affiliate link to a website where you could buy the supposed cure. That's not reporting, that's advertising.)
It's one thing to spread disinformation that leads people to harm themselves (for example, by encouraging them to drink laundry detergent or bleach). It's quite another to spread disinformation that harms third parties. Third parties have no say in what disinformation the gullible choose to consume but they will be subject to the consequences of the gullible believing what they've been told.
Every polity that has something resembling a right to freedom of speech imposes limits on that speech when it can harm others. Libel, slander, and incitement are not generally tolerated. Restricting the spread of disinformation that increases the impact of a deadly pandemic is no different.
I do agree, however, that the final arbiter of what speech is acceptable should not rest with Youtube or any other private entity. This is a question for elected governments and the judiciary.
We must hedge our bets and let disinformation be cut down wherever rational minds exist (for now).
This is just a private company taking control of information. Who is to say that they arent the ones spreading misinformation themselves?