Is Google working for the Chinese government?
The group Atajurt Kazakh Human Rights believes that pro-Chinazi partisans have been targeting its YouTube videos, triggering sanctions against Atajurt’s channel. Many of its thousands of videos provide testimony about how family members have been hauled off to internment camps in China’s Xinjiang region.
Alphabet/Google’s YouTube has penalized the Atajurt YouTube channel for alleged “harassment” because some of the videos provide proof of identity. Channel owner Serikzhan Bilash, an Atajurt cofounder, says this is important to establishing the credibility of the testimony.
On June 15, after a dozen of the channel’s videos were flagged for harassment, YouTube terminated the channel. After Reuters asked why, the channel was restored.
On June 22, YouTube locked another dozen videos and accused the channel of praising “criminal groups or terrorist organizations.” YouTube blames automated messages for such accusations. But it hasn’t stopped threatening the channel.
“There is another excuse every day. I never trusted YouTube,” Bilash says. “But we’re not afraid anymore, because we are backing ourselves up with LBRY. The most important thing is our material’s safety.”
LBRY is a blockchain protocol used by YouTube competitor Odysee, to which Atajurt has so far ported almost a thousand of its videos.
The large audiences of Google’s YouTube and other Big Tech social-media forums make them appealing as a means of getting out a message. But as Atajurt Kazakh Human Rights and many others are discovering lately, you better have backup.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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4 replies on “Good-bye, Google”
Yes, Google is working for the Chinese government.
It’s also working for the US government. And vice versa.
Personally, I’m more worried about the latter than the former.
Corporations and governments are mutual back-scratching entities.
I worry about both the US and China. And Google.
And sometimes I wonder if all three aren’t working together.
Can’t antitrust law be utilized to force Google to divest itself of YouTube? Furthermore, does YouTube have the right to suppress viewpoints? If businesses are required to provide equal access, why doesn’t this same standard apply to Big Tech?
We have this thing called “the First Amendment,” and with respect to the Internet that amendment is codified as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996.
YouTube has no right to suppress viewpoints. It also has no ability to suppress viewpoints. The only power it has is to decide whether a particular viewpoint gets to use the facilities it provides. Just like you can’t stop me from singing Auld Lang Syne, but you do get to decide whether I can sing Auld Lang Syne in your living room at 3am.