YouTube Financially Deplatforms Swath Of Indie Media Accounts
February 5, 2021
These accounts could remain demonetized for months, or forever, writes
Caitlin Johnstone. This is censorship.
(CCO)
By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com
The Google-owned video sharing platform YouTube has demonetized numerous
independent media accounts, a jarring escalation in the steadily
intensifying campaign against alternative news outlets online.
Progressive commentators Graham Elwood, The Progressive Soapbox, The Convo
Couch, Franc Analysis, Hannah Reloaded and Cyberdemon531 have all received
notifications from YouTube that their videos are no longer permitted to earn
money through the platform's various monetization features, as has Ford
Fischer, a respected freelancer who films U.S. political demonstrations. No
explanation has been offered for this decision beyond the vague claim that
"your channel is not in line with our YouTube Partner Program policies" due
to "harmful content."
Like all large online platforms, YouTube's appeals process is notoriously
opaque and unaccountable. These accounts could remain demonetized for
months, or forever, without any clear explanation at all. Ford Fischer, who
has been in this situation before, said on Twitter that his account was left
demonetized for seven months before YouTube reversed its decision.
"Last time you demonetized my channel, I spoke out for seven months. I
didn't delete a single piece of content. You admitted you were wrong. I
forgive you. Please don't do this again," Fischer tweeted.
"No superchats, no ad revenue, no YouTube premium money," tweeted Elwood,
who also said "I have a call with my lawyers later today."
"You guys have destroyed my channel without legit explanation as to why,"
tweeted Jamarl Thomas of Progressive Soapbox. "No videos are given - and
frankly there is literally zero 'harmful' content on my channel. This is a
radically bad error that needs to be corrected."
The Convo Couch's Jonathan Mayorca tweeted the notification he received from
YouTube which gave the reason as "Harmful content: Content that focuses on
controversial issues and that is harmful to viewers," saying no specific
video or subject was named. Nobody receiving these notifications appears to
have any idea what is meant by "harmful" or "controversial" or why YouTube
is mentioning them in the same breath as though these two things are
connected or synonymous in some way.
YouTube has been providing template responses saying "We recommend making
the needed changes to your content and reapply in 30 days" while refusing to
specify what the "needed changes" even are.
I would not be able to create content at anywhere near the pace I do were I
not making enough money from it to do it full time. Life is far too
demanding with far too much else going on for me to be able to maintain
anything like daily output; being financially de-platformed and having to
get another job would force me down to an essay a week in my spare time, if
that. Anyone who works in independent media full time knows this, and so do
the powerful people who are steadily ratcheting up the campaign to silence
anyone who hasn't passed through the gatekeepers of the plutocratic media.
Censorship
Financial de-platforming is censorship. People were given an opportunity to
devote themselves to the vocation of creating media outside the gatekeeping
apparatus of billionaire news institutions, which is arguably the single
most important vocation anyone can give themselves to in our world right
now, and they built their lives around their ability to do this. Now it's
being ripped away from them; their literal jobs are being taken away. They
were offered a reason to think they'd be able to make a living doing very
important work, and then they were sucker punched with what amounts to
political censorship.
This has been a continually escalating trend for years. The general
population is herded onto huge monopolistic social media platforms offering
democratization of information where your voice can be heard, and then those
platforms proceed to censor an increasing amount of political speech in
increasing coordination with the U.S. government.
If the democratization of information online is successfully reversed and
the mass media gatekeepers are again the sole authorities on what's real and
true, people will be locked into forming their ideas on how to think, act
and vote based on what they are told by the same plutocratic media
institutions which have been deceiving them into every war and manipulating
them into accepting the status quo for generations.
If the door is locked to the possibility of a grassroots information
rebellion against the narrative hegemony of our rulers, we will remain
doomed to continue along the same ecocidal, omnicidal trajectory these
bastards have us on until it reaches its inevitable conclusion. This must be
resisted.
Caitlin Johnstone is a rogue journalist, poet, and utopia prepper who
publishes regularly at Medium.
