Bizarre: Youtube CEO Neal Mohan Says Youtube Is A “Bastion Of Free Speech” – ReclaimTheNet

 Bizarre: Youtube CEO Neal Mohan Says Youtube Is A “Bastion Of Free Speech”

YouTube claims to champion free expression, yet it enforces selective silencing while mainstream outlets escape unscathed.

If you believe Neil Mohan, YouTube’s CEO, the platform is a modern-day Agora-a self-described “bastion of free speech” where the world’s most pressing debates thrive. Though, “just because it’s an open platform, it doesn’t mean that anything goes,” Mohan told The Financial Times in the last week.

Translation: Free speech is alive and well-until it isn’t. Because on YouTube, the marketplace of ideas comes with a bouncer, a velvet rope, and an ever-expanding list of banned words and topics.

This month, YouTube is eager to remind everyone it’s “committed” to free expression, a sentiment as convincing as a fast-food chain promising “health-conscious dining.” Over the last five years, the platform has turbocharged its content moderation policies, leaning on AI overlords and human censors to police conversations ranging from vaccine skepticism to who gets to call a virus a “lab leak.”

…Consider their “community guidelines,” a vague, shape-shifting set of rules that could find your grandma’s knitting tutorial in violation if it dares question Big Pharma.

Behind this rhetoric is an algorithmic enforcement machine programmed to flag, demonetize, or outright remove content at lightning speed-accuracy be damned. And when the AI overlords fumble, the human moderators step in, wielding their own biases like blunt instruments.

…. Questioning the CDC? Misinformation. Broadcasting claims about ivermectin? Censored. But when a mainstream outlet gets caught peddling unverified or downright wrong information, it’s business as usual.

The COVID-19 Information Iron Curtain
Of course, nothing showcases YouTube’s free speech schizophrenia better than its pandemic policies. To combat “medical misinformation,” the platform instituted a strict purge of dissenting voices, silencing everyone from epidemiologists to concerned moms armed with anecdotal evidence and Facebook memes.

Let’s not forget the lab leak theory, a hypothesis once relegated to tinfoil hat territory. When early adopters of the theory dared to post about it, their content was struck down faster than you could say “gain-of-function research.” Fast forward a couple of years and the lab-leak theory is now a “credible hypothesis,” endorsed by experts and even government agencies.

Oops.

But don’t expect an apology or even acknowledgment from YouTube for playing arbiter of acceptable science. They’ve quietly updated policies and moved on, leaving censored creators wondering why their “misinformation” turned out to be, well, information.

Advertiser-Friendly Speech Only

The real driver of YouTube’s overzealous content policing, of course, is money. Back in 2017, a wave of advertiser boycotts over “hateful” and “controversial” content sent the platform scrambling. The solution? Stricter guidelines are needed to ensure that only the most sanitized, brand-safe content remains..

What’s worse is the blatant double standard. Want to critique vaccine mandates or discuss alternative COVID treatments? Good luck. But if you’re a major network spouting unverified claims about weapons of mass destruction or “imminent threats,” go right ahead. After all, those ad dollars won’t chase themselves….

🔗SOURCE ➡️ ReclaimTheNet

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