YouTube is reframing its censorship policies as “responsibility.” In a new blog post, the company says that its censorship policy can be summed up with four Rs: “remove, raise, reward, reduce.” Or censor.
Johanna Voolich, the new chief product officer, says that YouTube will use AI to “reward” creators to “empower creativity” while also removing content that they claim violates their policy faster, raise up “authoritative voices” for news, reward “trusted, eligible creators” and reduce content that “brushes up” against their policies. Brushes up is a vague set of words that about summarizes what we face on Redacted. It does not have to violate their standards for them to downrank or bury it.
They are treating this like a responsible thing to do while not taking responsibility for blatant censorship during the pandemic. People were deplatformed on YouTube for merely suggesting that natural immunity might be superior to vaccine immunity. YouTube has never course-corrected for that. Responsibility is not a word that they should use with a straight face.
