YouTube has been making some changes and it will affect many of their affiliates.

Here is the notice YouTube recently sent out;

"Tougher standards: We’ll soon be applying tougher treatment to videos that aren’t illegal but have been flagged by users as potential violations of our policies on hate speech and violent extremism. If we find that these videos don’t violate our policies but contain controversial religious or supremacist content, they will be placed in a limited state. The videos will remain on YouTube behind an interstitial, won’t be recommended, won’t be monetized, and won’t have key features including comments, suggested videos, and likes. We’ll begin to roll this new treatment out to videos on desktop versions of YouTube in the coming weeks, and will bring it to mobile experiences soon thereafter. These new approaches entail significant new internal tools and processes, and will take time to fully implement."

I'm not advocating for hate speech or violent extremism on Steemit.

Please don't misunderstand what I'm saying here. I'm not looking to turn Steemit into the dark, back alley of the internet. What I am advocating for is a platform where free speech is respected. A "controversial religious" video, for example, shouldn't be blacklisted by YouTube simply because it offends a group of people. If these types of videos were actually a problem YouTube would delete them and ban the user, not just relegate the videos into a realm of obscurity.

Steemit should be a place for free expression of thought.

While there are many quotes I could reference, I think Dr. Ron Paul said it quite well;

"We don't have the freedom of speech to talk about the weather. We have the first amendment so we can say some very controversial things."

How long until Steemit launches their own version of YouTube?

I know there was talk, from the beginning, about how Steem's blockchain technology could replace not only Medium, but Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and others. My vote is that they start with a video hosting site with the ability to generate massive revenue for Steemers and compete with YouTube. YouTube's censoring of videos may be the crack in the dam we are waiting for. Hopefully, other Steemers who are interested in promoting these new endeavors will continue to speak up about the massive opportunity before us. Shameless plug for @voronoi, @hansikhouse, and @hitheryon, the team behind @sndbox, an incubator for Steemit and Steem technology. We need more community members looking to help create and further the opportunities before us.