Unrepentant YouTube Decides to Suspend Mainstream News Channel Over 'Misinformation'
There are concerns that the barons of the Information Revolution, much like the barons of the Industrial Revolution, are exploiting their content producers at an unsustainable clip, and creating a very dangerous bottleneck in the world of free speech.
Given just how much of the internet’s traffic flows through just a few sites, it is imperative that we keep a keen eye on what platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are doing. They are the new gatekeepers of nearly the entire breadth of current information, and if they were to choose to keep us in the dark on any particular issue, it would be quite easy for them to do so.
That’s why the latest news from YouTube is so terrifying.
YouTube said Sunday it had barred Sky News Australia from uploading new content for one week, citing concerns about Covid-19 misinformation.
The move comes after a review of posts uploaded by the Rupert Murdoch-owned TV channel, which has a substantial online presence.
“We have clear and established Covid-19 medical misinformation policies… to prevent the spread of Covid-19 misinformation that could cause real-world harm,” a YouTube statement said.
With 1.86 million YouTube subscribers, the channel — which is owned by a subsidiary of Murdoch’s News Corp — has a conservative following well beyond Australia.
The mainstream media and the mainstream social networks haven’t always gotten their COVD info right, either, which makes their declarations regarding “misinformation” all the more laughable.
Early on in the pandemic, these platforms pushed back against the possibility that the virus itself may have been a part of some sort of lab leak, even going so far as to censor any such discussion. Over a year later, and as health experts began to suggest this yes, this was truly a possibility, the premature nature of these decisions had many platforms left with egg on their face.