News

Popular political commentator Steven Crowder has announced that his YouTube channel has been “effectively” banned until the November election, and is urging his audience to watch his shows on Rumble instead.

Last Friday, the channel received strikes on eight videos, including one from 2023. A screenshot of Google’s notices shows that eight of the videos received strikes for “harassment and cyberbullying” and one for “hate speech.”

Judging by the titles and descriptions, the videos deal with the upcoming election and are critical of the Biden-Harris administration – particularly of the latter’s past and present policies and conduct – as well as of mainstream media, and Google itself.

The strikes were issued on August 2 and will expire on October 31 – 5 days before election day.

According to Crowder, all but one of the videos were livestreams published since Biden had to withdraw from the presidential race, making Kamala Harris the Democrats’ candidate.

Crowder sees this as the beginning of the giant’s “election policy” where it is clearly taking sides, and not only that, but suppressing “any and all opposition to their narrative.”

He also revealed that his channel has reached out to YouTube in the hope of getting some answers. In the meanwhile, he accused Google of interfering in the election through censorship and withholding information that it doesn’t want to be easily available to users.

This is tantamount to Big Tech, possibly except for X, “doing their part” to sway, or as Crowder put it, “rig” the election.

He announced that on election night, his show will be covering the ballot by using the same news agency sources as legacy media, but also their own analysts in order to provide an alternative to the way elections are covered by those outlets often accused of open bias.

According to Crowder, this project has been in the works for months, and YouTube is aware of it – and not happy about it. So much so, that he believes the giant video platform will make sure it isn’t discoverable.

For that reason, Crowder called on his viewers to follow the show on Rumble.

The post Steven Crowder Promotes Rumble Following YouTube Censorship appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

AppCensorship, a project that monitors and reports about censorship on major app stores, is warning that Google’s decision to start removing what it considers low-quality apps could lead to consequences other than “improving quality and user experience.”

An article on the project’s site notes that while some users see Google’s move as a positive and justified step, others see the potential for censorship “baked in” the decision.

The second point of view is all the more important given the amount of apps that Google removes from the Play Store over a year. The giant’s newest transparency report cites the number as 2.28 million – 59% more compared to the 1.43 million in the previous period.

But AppCensorship writes that the transparency report itself – and large media outlets reporting about it – all focus on the numbers without engaging in what the project calls a complete picture that would include discussion around (removal) policy, analysis, and critical examination.

Otherwise, the article warns, we may be looking at the media “lending them (app removal statistics) a degree of credibility disconnected from substantive scrutiny.”

As far as Google is concerned, the activity around the Play Store is proof that it is improving security, but also the app review process, and incorporating “advanced machine learning.”

On the flip side are fears that, as the article put it, Google may be using “its influence and high market share to dictate the global app environment.”

Just like major media companies, Google is barely scratching the surface in its transparency reports. The numbers are there, but it isn’t clear what’s driving the huge rise in app removals in such a short period of time – the desire to increase security, or perhaps, “a heightened stringency in its own enforcement protocols” – AppCensorship wonders.

The transparency reports also don’t delve deep into what kind of apps get removed, with the media parroting Google by stating they are “malicious” or “privacy violating” and leaving it at that.

In this setup – much as it does when censoring content on its massive platforms – Google is able to remove apps without providing detailed explanations or justification to the public.

And this is where concerns that the policy of removal of huge numbers of apps could be another avenue to censor.

According to AppCensorship, the other part of the app store duopoly, Apple, is no better when it comes to transparency – specifically in its transparency reports.

The post Google’s App “Quality” Crackdown Raises Censorship Concerns appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

The post Google’s Monopoly Exposed: How the Sherman Act Took Down a Giant appeared first on Reclaim The Net.