Data Lords, Artificial Monopolies, and Duplicity
The Data Lords are Government-Created Monsters
YouTube, Facebook, etc. are Section 230 creations. Whereas other content creators and distributors are legally liable for their content (libel, copyright, etc), online platforms have immunity from liability. Some argue that the 1996 act that granted this immunity constitutes the largest wealth transfer in history as it enabled online platforms to effectively transfer trillions in wealth from other content creators and distributors to themselves.[1] All those regional newspapers and radio stations and television stations that had to spend substantial sums on vetting their content because of their liability were instantly put at a massive disadvantage — the online platforms had to spend nothing to protect themselves from this liability. And that immunity from liability proved to be an immensely valuable asset granted to the platforms by the government.[2]
So when conservatives argue against government intervention “into the market,” they should note that government intervention is what created social platforms in their current form. There’s no ‘free market’ when you have immunity from laws and others don’t. Google and Facebook are not the product of any free market.
And when liberals want to break up the tech overlords, it seems that they are failing to admit that government intervention caused the problem in the first place. While it would be easy to break up most of these companies — disgorge the DoubleClick purchase from Google or Amazon’s cloud service from its gift shop — the easiest thing to do is simply undo Section 230.[3]
YouTube does nothing for clicks.
No, YouTube doesn’t censor you for clicks or views. YouTube has enough of those. What YouTube wants is big advertisers — Proctor & Gamble, Ford, Bank of America. So YouTube’s problem is that it needs predictable, safe content because Ford isn’t going to spend their advertising dollars if their ads might show up on a video featuring a guy wrapped in cellophane arguing that the Soviet gulags would have been fine if only they had served burritos.
YouTube’s push for those big advertising accounts means that its content end-game is actually quite similar to the traditional content creators and distributors: safe, predictable content like CBS and NBC and The New York Times.
Censorship is Outsourced
No algorithm canceled your YouTube channel. A low-wage human in the Philippines did.
The big socials use machines to detect suspect content, and that’s sent to the Philippines (for U.S. accounts, generally), and a human makes the final decision. That human’s performance is judged on speed, so very little time is spent on each suspect. Only super-massive accounts are handled in the United States.
So that’s how a legitimate history channel with videos on WW2 gets canceled; the low-wage worker in the Philippines sees a swastika and clicks censor.
Socials Are Replaceable
I’ve written on this many times, but nothing is more obnoxious than a wealthy person complaining about the socials or the status of the national dialogue or online idiots in general. Stop complaining and fix it. The socials are vulnerable; their business models are weak. Do something.[4]
YouTube Criticism Has an Agenda
So when The Washington Post runs a headline like this, understand that its purpose isn’t to report the news. It’s to drive major advertisers from YouTube. Sure, The Washington Post (and all the legacy media) are fighting dirty, but they don’t have Section 230 protection. So legacy media’s narrative on YouTube will always be “look at what an unpredictable mess YouTube is,” and that narrative is directed not at you, the random Washington Post reader, but rather at the ad buyers at the Proctor & Gambles, Fords, and Bank of Americas of the world.
Of course, after The Washington Post ran this headline, YouTube did something.[5] I wonder if they got a call from Proctor & Gamble.
That said, with the New York Times article published on the heels of the Washington Post article, it looks like a coordinated hit on YouTube from legacy media, which wants to scare big ad buyers away from YouTube advertising … because, you know, YouTube will brainwash you. I suppose the next logical step would be for the New York Times to oppose libraries and bookstores. They might brainwash you too.
[1] The market cap of just Facebook and Google is currently about $1.2 trillion.
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communications_Decency_Act
[3] Amazon has the most amazing data because purchase data — data based on discrete action, particularly around spending — is more valuable that most of the kind of data Google has. That said, Amazon’s largely uses this data in-house.
[4] https://medium.com/@nathan.a.allen/seven-theses-1-648aac8dd1ab
https://medium.com/@nathan.a.allen/facebook-is-toast-57f890007ef9
[5] The article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/06/05/right-wing-youtuber-hurled-racist-homophobic-taunts-gay-reporter-company-did-nothing/
The NYT article: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/08/technology/youtube-radical.html
About Nathan Allen
Formerly of Xio Research, an A.I. appliance company. Previously a strategy and development leader at IBM Watson. His views do not necessarily reflect anyone’s, including his own. (What.) Nathan’s academic training is in intellectual history; his next book, Weapon of Choice, examines the creation of American identity and modern Western power. Don’t get too excited, Weapon of Choice isn’t about wars but rather more about the seeming ex nihilo development of individual agency … which doesn’t really seem sexy until you consider that individual agency covers everything from voting rights to the cash in your wallet to the reason mass communication even makes sense….
