YouTube vs dTube: My video was widely blocked on YouTube

in #youtube6 years ago


YouTube restricts, in many parts of the world, our story about holocaust denier Arthur Jones running for US Congressman from Illinois


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As David states correctly, denying the holocaust is illegal in Germany (... a law which starts to become controversial even here where most people are not free speech absolutists. I personally believe in counter speech when it comes to bad ideas and I think bans can be counterproductive, even if they can easily be explained historically and come from a good place).

However, critical reporting about holocaust deniers is not only perfectly legal in Germany, but also completely accepted in German society and mainstream media.

If YouTube was trying to respect German laws or sensibilities in this case, they simply got it wrong.

Yeah, I don't think what took place actually had any connection to laws in the countries where the video was blocked.

Another explanation, at least for Germany, could be the "Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz", a law that basically requires all social media to ban "obviously illegal" content in 24 hours or less or these platforms paying a high fine in the hundredthousands or even millions of € if I'm not wrong.

Because YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. are very big it's not possible to check all content posted on them manually by employees. So all these platforms are either using an algorithm-based mechanism (f.e. YouTube, as is very well known and infamous) or a frequently abused user-based system via the report-function (f.e. Twitter) and therefore this law leads to overblocking. The german satire-magazine "Titanic" even was one of the first victims of this "Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz".

So the reason behind a video-ban in Germany could at the end be just mentioning the word "holocaust" in the title as @davidpakman did and the YouTube-algorithm overreacting to it to make sure that YouTube doesn't need to pay a high fine but I'm not sure about possible reasons in other countries like UK.

They don't really care about our laws, they care about legal costs. When the price of a Lawyer exceeds the profit potential, they will block the video. In the U.S. search engines like Google and YouTube are protected by law from liability for what others post. In Europe that isn't always the case and they could be liable as was proven in a 2015 case commonly known as the right to be forgotten. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten

I think it’s a result of YouTube’s algorithm automatically banning/hiding halocaust videos in certain countries/areas. Not a legality thing.

It's also illegal to argue that the scale of the holocaust was less than is reported... which is a platform of the guy... now that I think about it I bet that's it.

You're vastly underestimating the scope of Germany's laws regarding the Nazis... you could literally write a book on the subject. Suffice to say: they've got rules for every depiction, even historical ones.

Media for example can't include nazi iconography without very explicite guidelines, for example: video games essentially omit the swatstica et al

In any case, our video made in the US criticizing a Holocaust denier would not be impacted by those laws

I wouldn't be so sure... I forgot to mention that holocaust denial is illegal, holocaust denial INCLUDES arguing that it was on a lesser scale. I know you're not the one making the argument, but even depicting a person doing such a thing will offer you little protection.

Germany's very over the top on this subject. To the point that I think it's significantly detrimental.

Suffice to say: expect this to happen every time you cover such a topic like this. Either plan for it by removing all offensive materiel, or go into this understanding that you're probably going to get (unjustly) blocked in Germany.

yeah, the big Social Media giants censor where they can. Until last year it was certain critical videos and channels like for example the one of Styxhexenhammer666, that got completely blocked and you got this when accessing his channel (I'm not sure if he has "criminal" opinions, he just seems to be "dangerous"):

And since about half a year before the federal elections last year, the censorship became more extreme and is ran by establishment/leftwing organizations who allegedly censor with a political bias and suppress content from going viral (lot's of users confirm that impression) after Merkel did stuff to Zuckerberg et al:

And since about half a year, Germany has an extremely restrictive and hazardous law where you can get fined with millions as Social Media provider if you don't delete illegal content. The law is highly controversial and quite likely illegal.

So, yeah, we need proxies to access not just non-left information and sometimes even left leaning information that has the wrong impetus.

Bottom line: Under Merkel, Germany (and the entire EU) became authoritarian in the past ~half decade. Don't let yourself fool by the propaganda.

hmm, interesting post

Youtube abandoning its independent creators in favor of corporations will be its downfall. They are already driving people away and it seems to get worse all the time.

I noticed this joker was claiming to be part of or leader of "The America First Committee". So I looked it up, and there is a "America First Committee" on wiki, but somehow I don't think this is the same committee that he is claiming membership of.

Anywho, I think CNN's whole point in interviewing that guy was to associate the notion of 'America First' with racism. Dirty tricks, CNN loves their dirty tricks.

No one is going to take that guy's campaign run seriously. Also, if the democrats have damaged themselves so badly that they can't beat him; that would be both simultaneously pathetic, and rather hilarious to boot.

The Youtube bots picked up the words Holocaust and Nazi and put the video on a blacklist. I have seen some content creators spoofing the system by using letters with diacritical marks in words that might not be deemed appropriate for monetization or worse.

There is plenty videos containing both. Also plenty videos about Jones being a holocaust denier. And I am from country punishing denial of holocaust, so it is hard to believe where and how is it happening.

Take it from me, I like Dtube waaaaaaaaay better than youtube. I just wish they would fix the sign up process here. I have friends still waiting on their accounts to be approved.

ps please check out my page if you like sad music

It's only a matter of time before Youtube completely loses everything it had going for it and drives away the revenue generators it needs.

Thanks a lot for sharing your valuable post....
Carry on next
Best of luck..
I will still wait for your next post....

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