We can't really tell what is going on behind the curtain but my optimistic view is that no one in the room realized that receiving this award would have some terrible optics and that the awarders chose YouTube genuinely - if you have a narrow view of the content on there (and nobody sees everything) there are some segments where youtube does try to reinforce free speech sorta... maybe I'm being too charitable though.

My cynical hope though is that Youtube pressured the award committee to give them one for hosting it - please someone in Youtube leak a memo about putting pressure on the committee it would be so absolutely delicious.