I dunno, this seems to be pretty consistent with YouTube's other policies. They aren't crossing any new boundaries here. Note:
1) YouTube isn't doing anything wrong. They obviously support in principle the rights of humans.
2) They are consistently applying their policies. This could reasonably be used to dox people (eg, holding up ID of your enemies so maybe they get rounded up eventually).
3) They are probably going to be forced to do stuff like this anyway in compliance with local government rules, so there isn't much they can practically do.
You might (quite reasonably!) want YouTube to be active in promoting some combination of human rights and/or free speech. But YouTube has made their in-practice policy quite clear. They are also going to defer to what the local authorities believe is acceptable.
> 3) They are probably going to be forced to do stuff like this anyway in compliance with local government rules, so there isn't much they can practically do.
Isn't YouTube banned in China? What "local government rules" are you thinking of, specifically?
I was thinking Chinese ones. Didn't realise YouTube was banned. But nevertheless, as a principle, they have made it clear that they don't want misinformation on their platform and the local government will be pretty clear that this is misinformation.
That wouldn't be a radical departure from policy for YouTube. This is well trod ground.
> ...they have made it clear that they don't want misinformation on their platform and the local government will be pretty clear that this is misinformation.
Come on. "not wanting misinformation on their platform" != kowtowing to authoritarian regimes outside of their jurisdiction.
How, as a matter of policy, do you expect them to make that distinction?
The obvious way to do it is to ask the local government what is misinformation. Google isn't an expert on the truth of everything, for all that their search index being impressive.
> How, as a matter of policy, do you expect them to make that distinction?
They make their own call on what misinformation is (or who to trust to identify it), which is how they actually do it.
> The obvious way to do it is to ask the local government what is misinformation. Google isn't an expert on the truth of everything, for all that their search index being impressive.
That's not the obvious way, that's a stupid way for reasons that should be obvious for anyone with any knowledge of history or current events. Keep in mind this is political information, not technical information.
>1) YouTube isn't doing anything wrong. They obviously support in principle the rights of humans.
YouTube is a company. The default for a company is indifference to every topic. And that's fine. YouTube doesn't "obviously support in principle" anything.
The people there will support things, but companies are not just the mathematical average of the people there. It's specifically about how those people choose to act when they're acting in the name of the company. Nothing about YouTube makes me think it's interested in using the platform supporting the rights of humans.
If there was some clickable and advertiser friendly content produced by people promoting human rights, I'm sure YouTube would be happy to host that. But they're happy to host almost all flavors of advertiser friendly content. I'm sure they would take credit for hosting that video as if YouTube itself was doing something that moved the needle on human rights. When all they're really doing is not prohibiting the content on their default-allow platform.
It's been known for years that YouTube removes evidence of warcrimes because those videos are too graphic.
>2) They are consistently applying their policies.
When videos about a topic they "obviously support in principle" runs up against the general purpose policies, what would "support" look like other than creating a special case in their policies?
>3) They are probably going to be forced to do stuff like this anyway in compliance with local government rules
What government is telling YouTube to make videos about human rights abuses unavailable worldwide? And why would a company that "obviously support in principle the rights of humans" choose to do business within that government's jurisdiction?
yeah, I get that I'm being really critical and holding youtube to a high standard. But it's also totally fine if YouTube chooses not to meet that standard. Most companies barley have the manpower and expertise to execute on a signal focus. YouTube doesn't have to try to move the needle on human rights issues. All I really mean is that we shouldn't default to giving them even a single ounce of unearned goodwill on their human rights record.
1) YouTube isn't doing anything wrong. They obviously support in principle the rights of humans.
2) They are consistently applying their policies. This could reasonably be used to dox people (eg, holding up ID of your enemies so maybe they get rounded up eventually).
3) They are probably going to be forced to do stuff like this anyway in compliance with local government rules, so there isn't much they can practically do.
You might (quite reasonably!) want YouTube to be active in promoting some combination of human rights and/or free speech. But YouTube has made their in-practice policy quite clear. They are also going to defer to what the local authorities believe is acceptable.