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Comment by staticelf | Hacker News Reader

I can't say I'm fond of the BLM movement, but hey at least I still think they should be able to advertise if they wish.

But I am kind of pleased that finally the censorship also hits left-leaning people as it previously was very dominated against more right leaning people.

Maybe now we can finally agree that censorship is bad, whomever it hits.

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They finally see it's a bad thing when it now happens to them. Which all the privacy and anti-censorship activists have been telling them for years and foreshadowed by the increased bans of the right leaning creators.

It's like the chickens are cheering on the wolves that ate the other chickens that disagreed with them and now complaining that the same wolves are now going to eat them too.

Google / YouTube are not on your side and are not your friends. They will not change and will only listen to their masters voice.

I'm sure this is just a mistake, an algorithmic mishap. It probably flagged the content as possibly racist. Alphabet's interests have always been in supporting social justice, BLM, etc, and censoring the other side. That's not likely to change soon.

Unfortunately that culture of protecting free speech for all, a classically liberal value, has been dying out. The ACLU used to be seen as the most staunch protector of free speech principles, but even they've changed (leadership, ideology) and now they don't value free speech either. See https://reason.com/podcast/2020/10/14/ira-glasser-would-toda... or https://reason.com/2018/06/21/aclu-leaked-memo-free-speech/ for more details on that. But when even the most trusted defenders of free speech are wavering, I'm not surprised to see pervasive censorship elsewhere, like on platforms owned by big tech companies.

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