This video supports the thoughts that I wrote up in a September post:
[W]hat most websites are claiming is that Google is censoring only right wing/libertarian content. I am not sure that is the case.The advertiser boycotts are extremely destructive and make it more difficult for controversial commentary from the left or right.
What we are seeing is anecdotal evidence from the websites we are reading, I would really like to see a scholarly study done on who gets censored and why.
My guess is that what
Google censors is extremely controversial material from the right or left and that it is driven primarily by business decisions---or more accurately what its algorithms think is controversial content.
Since both the right and the left are big on boycotts, there is just no way a marketing department of a major ad spender is going to want to be associated with such material. And so, Google does what makes sense from a business perspective and sets its algorithms in such a way to detect controversial material and notify the publisher to take it down.
I really see the problem being lefties who, for example, called for the boycott of advertisers who sponsored Bill O'Reilly and righties who call for the boycott of sponsors of, say, CNN.
These kinds of boycotts, which I think are horrific, make advertisers gun shy. The point of advertising is to gain users not shrink them. If Google didn't come up with algorithms to detect controversial material they would lose advertisers---Big Time advertisers
Now, these algorithms aren't perfect. The algorithms will sometimes kick out material which is hard to understand why it was tagged, but that is the price that is paid for boycotts that harass advertisers. Personally, I think it is heroic for advertisers to sponsor controversial material. I know it doesn't mean the advertiser necessarily endorses the views expressed in the content but getting messages out is very important so we can understand how others think, messages from both the left and right.
This is why I am against such advertiser boycotts.
Now, I may be wrong on this and Google may be advancing a lefty agenda but I doubt it. It is really difficult for me to think that Google acts against its revenue flows.
It is not Google's fault. In order to keep revenue, they must deliver what the advertisers want, and because of the boycotts, advertisers don't want to spend money on controversial advertising.
Where are the heroic advertisers that will sponsor controversial YouTubes from both the left and the right to keep controversial debate alive?
You would think that the elderly Koch brothers have accumulated enough wealth so that they can be buried in some pretty comfortable coffins when it is time for them to depart this land of the big bank accounts. Why don't they spend some pocket change with YouTube to sponsor some of the controversial stuff (left and right) to show what real heroism is like, instead of putting $650 million into that dinosaur TIME magazine?
-RW
The left and the right agree on most everything in principle. To both libertarian content is radical. As such it will be targeted by the down voters, complainers, boycotters and so on from both so-called sides. As a result libertarian content or any content which goes against statism will be demonetized in much larger volume or at least much more quickly.
ReplyDeleteI'd bet 20 dollars that the Koch brothers don't even watch Youtube. Why ever would they put money into something that to them doesn't exist?
ReplyDeleteA really fun task would be determining and publishing who flaps the ears of the Koch brothers. My bet is people only 10 years younger than them that ALSO don't watch Youtube.
ReplyDeleteTime and People magazine, yup, that's what all the movers and shakers read. Really.
Since YouTube is solid SJW from top to bottom, I would guess that the drag queen doing a makeup show would rank higher in the search and discovery than the straight girl.
ReplyDelete