
Ask HN: Is YouTube ideologically biased? - arikr
Previously I would&#x27;ve assumed it was all about advertiser demands. And that YouTube themselves aren&#x27;t biased, but that their advertisers are.<p>But I&#x27;ve now seen smart people I respect question this (I think it was Eric Weinstein et al), and now I&#x27;m wondering.<p>Is there good evidence one way or the other, on whether Google or YouTube specifically (and not their advertisers) are ideologically influenced in their demonetization and video restriction actions?
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command
They remove/demonetize videos that contain pro-gun/2A content (some as simple
as footage at shooting ranges), meanwhile they allow for rap music videos
glorifying sex, drugs, and violence (guns included). Same goes for a fair
amount of right-wing content makers regularly having their videos demonetized.

I think it's easy enough to form a conclusion based on that alone.

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evanlivingston
Their removal of those videos is the exception, not the rule. There are many,
many, many gun videos and channels going strong, just like demolition ranch.

Also, isn't everyone feeling demonetized?

edit: I just did a simple experiment on youtube. I did two searches, one for
"guns are good" and one for "guns are bad".

"Guns are good" returned returns 11,400,000 videos. "Guns are bad" returns
11,500,000. Most of the top results for "Guns are bad" are reviews of guns or
satire against liberal views of gun regulation.

I do think youtube isn't unbiased, but against the 2A and conservative ideas?
nah.

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command
Right- sorry if that was communicated poorly. I know they don't just
automatically remove all 2A/conservative content, but there are more than a
few big names that have been picked at lately, more often than anything left
leaning. And since you mentioned Demo Ranch, I'd assume you're familiar with
Hickok45, and you know that several of his videos have recently lost
monetization.

Out of curiosity, where do you feel their bias lies?

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krapp
But if Youtube are demonetizing _some_ pro-gun and right-wing accounts, and
_not_ demonetizing others with the same politics, as well as demonetizing
other kinds of content such as anime and let's plays, wouldn't that imply a
lack of ideological bias behind demonetization?

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command
That's a fair argument. I'd question the motive behind stripping videos like
that: copyright issues or something deeper?

To be clear I'm not taking a political side, I just haven't really noticed too
many left-leaning content makers take hits at the same rate.

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krapp
> I'd question the motive behind stripping videos like that: copyright issues
> or something deeper

Probably copyright - I honestly think all of this is about "advertiser
friendliness," that YouTube is pushing this demonetization scheme ever harder
because they're increasingly more desperate to make a profit from the site.

>I just haven't really noticed too many left-leaning content makers take hits
at the same rate

How many of those left-leaning channels do you follow? If there were mass
demonetization of left-wing content as well, how would you know? Is there
objective evidence for a disproportional effect based on political bias?

It took me a second of Googling to find a thread on /r/socialism claiming that
Youtube demonetizes _left-wing_ content due to it's _right-wing_ bias[0], so
it seems both ends of the political spectrum feel attacked. Maybe it's just a
case of extremist politics not being advertiser friendly?

[0][https://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/comments/7somky/where_are...](https://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/comments/7somky/where_are_the_left_wing_youtubers_to_counteract/)

