At the early part of December (2023) I found myself in a bit of a pickle with Youtube; the short of the story is that they had kicked me off the platform for being a terrorist* “severe or repeated violations of our violent criminal organizations policy.”
*a terrorist is what my sister jokingly called me when I told her about this.
I hadn’t uploaded anything for about six months.
What I had done was, in 2021, I read a document published by a newspaper in 1995, that document is known generally as The Unabomber Manifesto (Wikipedia). I’d uploaded my reading over the span of eight audio files. And now, suddenly, Youtube had been flagged this as the above and my whole channel was removed because of it (along with 50+ videos of me riding my bike). I found the whole episode to be quite amusing. I don’t know how much of the Youtube process and communication with me was automated, perhaps all (although I like to imagine it was one pink-haired Karren bashing away at her/his/they’s keyboard deep in the recesses of AlphabetLand), but they (Youtube) claimed I had now received my third and final strike. Prior to the actual ban, however, I had not received any notification or warning (my emails from Youtube landed in an email account that was pretty much dedicated to Youtube stuff, so it’s not like I could have accidentally missed it). If there had been any such threat of my channel being removed because of this single aspect I would have likely been prepared to remove the offending uploads, although admittedly I would have then had cause to create a follow-up video about the situation, to, you know, let my million few channel viewers know (and anyone else that might have found such content to be entertaining).
Part of the reason for this content being an issue was that I had failed to give it a proper introduction. As I say, it spanned eight parts so it was the first of these that included an introduction of sorts, as was included with the original publication, but the communication from Youtube seemed to pertain, weirdly, to the third instalment. Beyond this I had put something or other in the video description box of each part and thought nothing more of it. It’s not like I expected anyone to listen to the reading and think I was “[glorifying] violent criminal organizations or [inciting] violent acts against individuals or a defined group of people…” as Youtube claimed further down one of their emails about my ban. I originally read the document because someone had suggested it to me and I thought it would be fun/funny to record, and possibly even insightful. For this last point I had submitted it under the section of ‘Education’ which may have been of further issue to Youtube, since, as they alluded, such content might be more strictly treated in this regard (again, I could have either removed the problematic content, or, given the opportunity, assigned it to a more appropriate section, and/or given it a more informative introduction, but I was not afforded this privilege).
The irony of Youtube’s actions is that it has resulted in me being more anti-Youtube (and more anti-Google, and more anti-big-tech along with it). A month or so earlier they had been running me through the gauntlets of their Ad-blocking blocking efforts, which they had been stepping up. I knew that, rather than subject myself to their incessant advertising (should the use of an Ad-blocker no longer be feasible), I would much rather avoid their platform entirely. I can’t understand the brains of people that sit and scroll though the likes of Youtube, or TikTok, and mindlessly subject themselves to minutes and minutes of advertising drivel (most of which, from my experience seems to be from people pushing pyramid schemes and feigned mentorship), but addiction coupled with brainwashing is what addiction coupled with brainwashing is. I was keen to give up my Youtube scrolling habits.
This has not been my first experience of being silenced online. A few years prior I found myself shadow-banned on another platform, and it is only more recently that the imposed restrictions have been quietly lifted (this being the nature of shadow-banning; you’re typically not officially informed) – there was no communication, or response, when I queried the odd behaviour of the platform (such as not being able to freely comment on things where I had before). However, even to this day I can see that my content’s ranking on that platform is at odds with where it should be. That’s a shadow-ban I’m aware of but who knows what happens elsewhere, whether it be even here on WordPress, or algorithms at play on other sites, I have my hunches and suspicions; get a few too many dislikes or have someone falsely (or be to easily triggered to) click a Report option, and who knows what happens.
Some people think (and push for) greater “safeguards” and “punishments” with regards to saying or publishing certain things online, but this system only plays in the favour of one side as long as the system and its overlords are having their agenda served. As soon as a new power (political or otherwise) takes over (and this has happened throughout history) you’ll quickly find yourself on the wrong side of things (that is unless you are easily, and unquestioningly, swayed by whatever is presently “the current thing”.) I’m not condoning hurtful comments online, let-alone threatening or aggressive conduct. Indeed, it might be the very tactics of these programmed entities are themselves acting in a harmful and aggressive way to us; take a look into the privacy concerns, data harvesting, advertising, and monopolistic tactics carried out by these large platforms – they generally don’t appear friendly to me.
Using the Holocaust as an extreme example; it is written that 6,000,000 Jewish people were shipped into concentration camps during the second world war, simply for being Jewish. But what if the Jewish people of tomorrow were to take over the world and do something similar to everyone else, just for, not being Jewish? This is not me being “anti-Semitic”, this is me playing a game of “what-if?” Witchhunts still go on today, I saw that during the big C, but as I have come to realise, witches in this regard are just people who fail/refuse to align with what they are being pushed to bend their knee to.
Today I heard news from the US (link below), that T-mobile have included wording in their Terms and Conditions to the effect that they will seek to fine their customers $500 for texting hate speech. Why call it a fine? Why not call it a fee for using naughty words… wait, that’s called a Swear Jar, right? It’s like a speeding fine is just the premium people with money have the luxury of paying to get to where they want quicker than the rest of us. T-mobile are not the first multi-national company to push such nonsense; as the video via the link mentions, PayPal rolled out some Ts&Cs a while back pertaining to fines for similar such behaviour. If I was with T-mobile I would consider switching providers, or looking into a hate speech checker, preferably one that underlines naughty words in my favourite colour, rainbow. Remember when, during the big C, people switched to using the carrot emoji? (I heard that was a thing).
Incidentally, over Christmas Dinner with family it was discussed (and I’m somewhat ashamed to mention this) how one adult family member had “called out” another on Facebook (not present at the dinner) for their unsatisfactory behaviour, calling him a something-or-other on a public channel. For this naughty behaviour (I think the bad word was perhaps automatically detected*) she received a week-long ban, I believe not her first. This is akin to telling a child to go and sit on the naughty step, don’t you agree? Yet, this is grown adults being subjected to this kind of punishment. I think this is partly why I found the wording of my Youtube ban to so amusing to me, which included an offer to be reeducated, something Jordan Peterson knows all about. (In January, the College of Psychologists of Ontario ordered Peterson to “undergo social media communication coaching, following concerns about his public comments.” An Ontario court unanimously upheld the college’s initial decision. Furthermore, the college ordered that Peterson should pay for the costs of his own training. [Wikipedia]). With regards to gossip, I’m of the opinion that 1) if you have nothing nice to say then don’t say anything, and 2) one shouldn’t talk trash about someone online (at least in public) unless you’d be prepared to say it to their face. Oh and 3) how are grown adults even tolerating being infantiled by a platform such as Facebook? By using these services one is condoning their practices.
*It must be recognised that for these systems to function, they have to read your messages. It may not be a person’s eyes doing the scrutinizing (at first), but once your communication gets flagged up, and should things escalate, messages you may have once assumed were private will very likely not be. It’s the same with Alexa; how do you think it detects when you say the magic word? (Hint: it’s always listening).
With regards to Youtube, it just so happened that I had been moving my viewing habits over to Rumble. This began in earnest as soon as Russell Brand was targeted by the media earlier in the year and demonetized on Youtube because of that attack. His was another example of someone being penalised for allegations when no prosecution for a crime was even sought. While I wasn’t prepared to support a platform of whose behaviour I didn’t agree with, there are others that similarly condemn it yet because it still serves them (such as giving them viewership and possibly an income*); they just squawk about it on the very same platform. It is said that one shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds them, but one should have morals too I think. These people I shall affectionately call Muppets (my Clippy suggested it – Marmite must be doing well these days…)
In a sense, I do think that actual children should be taught how civilised people are best to conduct themselves (and adequately safeguarded online), but once we become adults, we are that, adults (even if we don’t necessarily behave as such*) and should therefore not be subjected to punishment for nonsensical reasons (especially when there is no fair trial – in the case of Facebook suspensions it seems one isn’t even encouraged to apologise, as I remember having to do when child me was mean to another). The nonsensicalness of nonsensical reasons, is, however, subjective, and again dependent upon whichever narrative is at play.
*I think adults can only behave like adults (unless they have some actual disorder governing them otherwise), it’s just that this includes behaviours we might wish to only have to attribute to children that are still learning the ways of the world, but aren’t we all, always?
As soon as the system began down the path of policing words, we found ourselves under more and more of a dictatorship, not only with a diminishing freedom to express ourselves, but with a noose tied round our very thoughts, and a muzzle on our chins. One day, perhaps, we’ll be afforded neither our speech, or our own thoughts.
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Article image “muzzled and masked” c/o hotpot.ai/art-generator
Brian's Blog 
I’ve had problems with YouTube too. They did not like a 20 year old video of my then very young children playing in the bath.
I used to have a list of words that, if you use enough of them, draws their immediate attention. It was quite amusing.
As regards ads, I have an inbuilt ability to simply ignore them.
I also used different browsers for different purposes.
It is amusing when people make entire videos based around code words in order to supposedly avoid attention by the system.
I use a few different browsers, but I loath Edge and despise Chrome’s scroll bar.
The mistake is thinking that all of these social venues are ‘society’s’ venues. They’re not. They are corporate owned, $$$ driven entities, that are not compelled to honor any of our assumptions about access or content.
Want total freedom in publishing your material? Host your own server.
I agree with you on the first part.