Civil society to YouTube: stop helping Russia suppress free speech
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We really have nobody to blame but ourselves for this. Sure, video hosting is expensive, and most people can't be bothered to visit more than their default 6 or 7 apps, but we've had a decade of people shouting that from the wings and nobody has managed to fix it yet.
I don't think it's fair to blame network effects on the user. If you're a popular YouTuber it's very difficult to convince your audience to move to another platform just to see your videos there. What's in it for them? It's much easier for an audience to switch to another video creator than it is for a creator to find a new audience.
In other words, YouTube makes it a viewer's market by commoditizing content producers. This is the exact opposite of the old TV model where networks were king and viewers had to put up with whatever shows they decided to run. Unfortunately, this means it's very hard for content producers to do anything to unseat YouTube's stranglehold on the market.
Google wants YouTube to be a place for cat videos and shitty listicals
I think you're being unfair with this remark though. YouTube has tons and tons of educational and hobby-related content which makes it an incredibly valuable resource for anyone who wants to learn pretty much anything!
I think the parent's comment is about how a lot of this (even well-meaning) content is not aligned with Google's advertising profile and won't be promoted in order to increase ad-revenue. On a platform that is reliant on advertising to offset the cost of video storage, it's a sinister but logical move.
The struggle really does revolve around the network effect, and how inadvertently helpless the average user has made themselves. We have no choice but to play by Google's rules because we don't know of a better way. We swipe down to search something on our iPhone, and we get a YouTube video in response. What, are we going to ideologically oppose the default response? Are we "too good" for the ordinary privacy-destroying, time-disrespecting vehicle of YouTube? No, we watch a 15 second bumper ad and then someone shows us how to fix our sink. And you can damn-well bet nobody will ever know what DailyMotion is because they're not paying phone OEMs a king's ransom to show up before everyone else.
Before, the networks were king and viewers had to put up with what shows they decided to run.
Now, Google is king and viewers have to put up with what video creators they are both willing to platform, and palatable enough that they put their stuff on YouTube.
There will always be some viewers willing to follow a creator or show they like, in both of these scenarios (eg, when Buffy the Vampire Slayer moved from the WB to UPN in 2002), while others can't or won't—but there's much more difference, now, between moving from YouTube to, say, Vimeo than there was in the cable TV era moving from one channel to another, so long as you actually had that channel. (For some, these differences will not matter, and they may even claim they don't meaningfully exist; for others, they will be dealbreakers.)
...And I also agree that aftbit is being unfair with the cat videos remark. Google wants YouTube to be the place people go to watch videos on the internet, period. (Aside from, perhaps, porn.) That not only means that they get all your ad-watching eyeball time, it also means they get to control the narrative. Cat videos and shitty listicles are fantastic for Google, because they're an easy dopamine hit for viewers, but they absolutely want to be hosting more in-depth and controversial content, too. They just want to have unquestioned final say over what's actually allowed to be there, which sometimes means they'll remove things in order to make Russia happy, so Russia doesn't try to block Google/YouTube and replace them with a homegrown alternative.
The same result? The old network TV model gave users a choice of ~5 channels to watch. Cable TV expanded this to ~50 and later a few hundred. With YouTube there are effectively infinite channels to choose from (tens of millions). It's a HUGE difference.
A channel all about knitting would never had existed on TV. A quick YouTube search for knitting yields dozens of knitting channels, each with audiences numbering from thousands to millions.
Not sure what corner of Youtube the algorithm has been feeding your suggestions with, but I've found higher-quality educational content on Youtube in the last year than I've seen on TV in my entire life, and videos of that kind make up for the majority of my recommendations. (The rest are indeed cat videos, which I happen to also enjoy watching.)
Sure, there's also tons of content I don't care for at all, but I've so far found it pretty easy to just not watch that.
Other people have also noticed this
Don't get me wrong, YouTube is well within its rights to decide what content they do and don't want to host and distribute. Its clear that these companies are, in fact, for profit businesses though.
They aren't going to stand behind free speech and wouldn't even touch the idea of "absolute free speech" which is itself a confusing and misunderstood argument that we can somehow have free speech with limitations.
At best, YouTube will inconsistently protect free speech in some areas and censor it in others. The only real answer is for users to go elsewhere, ideally to something they themselves control, if they want to avoid most risks of censorship.
Most European countries have significant restrictions on what is "free speech", Google will censor those as well to follow local laws.
You can not ask a corporation to act criminally, that is an absurd demand.
This includes willing cooperation with any government they want to do business with, including Russia. This is one reason why I think China banning Youtube is a policy mistake (for them): they could exert more control over Youtube if they allowed it in mainland China.
I feel like every story like this is like Charlie Brown, Lucy and the football. Just how many times do we need to do a surprised Pikachu face?
Youtube, Meta and Twitter all suppress content related to a certain current Middle East conflict [1] and they do so largely to keep the US State Department happy.
My point here is that this "free speech" and "censorship" tends to get used very selectively by people in a way that oddly coincides with their world view on certain topics. If you're against Youtube censoring anti-Russian content as per this post (as I am) you should also be against suppression of Middle Eastern news and content too yet I so often find a complete double standard here.
Oh and literally nobody is a free speech absolutist (including me, except arguably for Noam Chomsky) yet many pretend to me but again, this tends to be self-serving in a way aligned with their own views on things.
[1]: https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/12/21/metas-broken-promises/...
China didn't ban YouTube, Google just refused to comply with the strict regulations. So China tried to do exactly what you said, but they can't exactly force YouTube to stay (it would involve a lot more than just seizing local physical assets).
Given the almost complete lack of foreign Internet companies in China, I'd say there's good evidence the effective ban is intentional. That's really what I mean when I say "China banned Youtube".
Also, Google has shown prior willingness to comply with Chinese regulation (eg participation before the pullout in ~2010 and Dragonfly [1]).
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(search_engine)
The ACLU used to defend the 1A rights of neonazis and left wingers alike. Wouldn't that qualify them as free speech avsolutists? Or did they not count because they didn't lobby for the legalization of libel?
Either way, I think you're projecting a bit.
Civil society would be better if people were not taking advantage of free speech and posting whatever non-sense that gets passed as legit causing chaos and turmoil within the masses.