Tag: youtube

Why Does YouTube Host This Channel That Teaches Kids About Porn And Abortion?

Amaze Org is a predatory YouTube channel that says it aims to “take the awkward” out of sex education for kids and boasts about its age-appropriate content for this digital generation of children. It has more than 220,000 subscribers and its free videos have a combined total of more than 60 million views.  

Why is YouTube allowing this organization to push its sexual agenda on kids? YouTube’s content policy clearly states, “Content that targets young minors and families but contains sexual themes, violence, obscene, or other mature themes not suitable for young audiences, is not allowed on YouTube.”

On Amaze Org’s about page, the organization says its mission is “to provide young adolescents around the globe with medically accurate, age-appropriate, affirming, and honest sex education they can access directly online.” They also provide curricula for schools, parents, and “allies.”

Their videos can be accessed on their website, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat. The topics covered in the videos are gender identity, sexuality, abortion, birth control, puberty, masturbation, pornography, abortion, and more. It’s all explicit and not appropriate for children.

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YouTube to shift video flagging powers towards NGOs and Government Agencies

Starting in May, YouTube will not allow individuals in its controversial Trusted Flagger program, instead focusing “exclusively on key partnerships with a variety of NGOs and Government Agencies.”

The Trusted Flagger program began in 2012 as a communal volunteer effort to remove content that violates YouTube’s policies. It worked with NGO and government agencies as well as hand-picked individuals that were never publicly disclosed.

Those participating in the program have access to a variety of tools not available to ordinary users. For instance, they can flag multiple videos simultaneously, their reports are prioritized, and they get to understand how YouTube makes content removal decisions.

Last year, Tubefilter reported that individual flaggers had begun noticing a decline in their experience within the Trusted Flaggers program. Additionally, those who reached Google’s global director of information policy, government affairs, and public policy Derek Slater were reportedly told that the program would no longer be available to individuals.

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YouTube CEO meets with group wanting curbs on Spanish-language “misinformation”

On Thursday, members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) met with YouTube’s CEO Susan Wojcicki to discuss Spanish-language “misinformation.”

In a press release, the CHC said addressing Spanish-language dis/misinformation was a priority as more Hispanics in the country are using social media to get information.

Chair of the CHC, Dr. Raul Ruiz said: “We appreciate Susan Wojcicki, YouTube CEO, for meeting with CHC Members today to answer our concerns on Spanish-language dis/misinformation. Lies cost lives, and the CHC continues to call for strengthened oversight and to push social media companies to bolster their infrastructure to combat dis/misinformation on their platforms. Addressing the rampant spread of Spanish-language dis/misinformation remains an urgent priority for the CHC as Hispanics across the country increasingly turn to social media for vital information.”

Member of the CHC, Rep. Darren Soto said: “In Florida, we’ve seen Spanish-language misinformation spread like wildfire and threaten our communities. With more and more people turning to social media to receive information, we must ensure that content is reviewed thoroughly before reaching mass audiences. As more and more bad actors purposely aim to spread lies to vulnerable populations, platforms like YouTube have a responsibility to prevent them from having the power to influence public opinion. I believe that our conversation with YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki was extremely productive, and I hope to see YouTube use ample resources to combat Spanish-language misinformation.”

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Police are Still Weaponizing Copyright to Prevent Transparency

YouTube and other social media websites have strict rules on playing copyrighted content. Police have been using that to prevent embarrassing videos from being posted on the platforms.

Residents in Santa Ana, California were woken up by blasting music around 11pm on April 4, a Monday. But the music was not a bass bumping rap song or a heavy metal piece with screaming vocals, it was “We Don’t Talk about Bruno” from the animated Disney film “Encanto.” And it was not being played by a teenage house party or an inconsiderate driver with a loud sound system, but a police vehicle.

Police responded to a stolen vehicle call in the neighborhood when an observer who runs the YouTube channel Santa Ana Audits started recording the activity. That’s when officers started blasting the Disney owned track, in an apparent attempt to prevent the video from being posted on YouTube and Instagram. Thanks to those platform’s algorithmic copyright enforcement, any video that includes a copyrighted song is susceptible to being removed. Its channel owners are also subject to warnings and even getting banned from the platform.

Unfortunately for Santa Ana Police, they happened to be in the neighborhood of city councilman David Penaloza who, like many of his neighbors, was awakened by the ruckus caused by the city’s police department.

Penaloza came outside and confronted the officer, who admitted that what he was doing was intended to prevent the video captured by Santa Ana Audits making its way onto YouTube.

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YouTube deletes entire back catalog of Pulitzer-winning journalist Chris Hedges

YouTube is at it again, this time setting its sights on Pulitzer-winning journalist Chris Hedges, whose entire video archive for the On Contact program published on Google’s platform has been deleted.

Hedges announced this in a blog post, saying that the show, which was broadcast for six years on RT America and RT International and even received Emmy nominations, is now gone from YouTube.

Hedges goes on to list some of the high profile people he spoke with over the years and explains that those interviews are now gone: Noam Chomsky, Naomi Wolf, Slavoj Zizek, Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, among dozens of others.

Hedges has been treated by YouTube like so many other creators over the years of stepped-up censorship that has little time, and sees little reason to explain itself: namely, there has been no explanation.

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YouTubers help find body of Pennsylvania man missing for nearly 20 years

A YouTube group reportedly helped find the body of a Pennsylvania man who was missing for almost 20 years. 

“It’s my brother,” the victim’s brother Stephen Amabile told The Philadelphia Inquirer when remains were found inside a car in a body of water Saturday. “They found him.”

The victim’s brother says a family member reached out to a group called Adventures with Purpose leading up to Saturday’s discovery. 

Adventures With Purpose runs a YouTube channel with over 2 million subscribers and is renowned for their ability to solve missing-person cases in bodies of water. They reportedly discovered a car at Darby’s Creek in Pennsylvania Saturday evening believed to be James Amabile’s. 

“I’ve gotten used to not expecting anything, and I tuned a lot of things out,” Stephen Amabile told The Philadelphia Inquirer. “But it didn’t take them very long to figure out there was an SUV down there.”

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YouTube Flags Tulsi Gabbard’s Criticism of “War Machine” as “Offensive” Content

YouTube flagged a Fox News interview in which former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard said war in Ukraine was good for the military industrial complex as “offensive” content.

Yes, really.

Apparently, upsetting war profiteering defense contractors is now grounds for censorship.

During the interview, host Laura Ingraham asked Gabbard why people were still demanding no fly zones, something that would likely cause World War III, when President Zelensky was “stepping back from his earlier NATO wishes and even demands?”

Gabbard responded by pointing out that Zelensky has said he’s willing to negotiate with Putin and “set this NATO membership thing aside.”

According to YouTube, such advocacy for peace is borderline content and needs to be hidden behind a warning screen. The video is also age-restricted.

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YouTube bans “denying, minimizing or trivializing well-documented violent events” about Russia-Ukraine war

YouTube has started removing content about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that violates its rules around “denying, minimizing or trivializing well-documented violent events.”

As part of this expanded enforcement of these rules, which were first introduced in February 2019, YouTube said it’s also “blocking access to YouTube channels associated with Russian state-funded media globally.”

Additionally, YouTube reported that it has censored over 1,000 channels and over 15,000 videos since March 1 for violating policies such as its “hate speech,” “misinformation,” and “graphic content” policies.

Not only has YouTube censored more than 15,000 videos in less than two weeks but it has also boosted “trusted sources” and its “breaking news and top news shelves” on its homepage have received more than 17 million views in Ukraine.

“Our teams continue to closely monitor the situation, and are ready to take further action,” YouTube tweeted. “We will continue to share updates as they become available.”

The ban follows YouTube blocking two Russian state-controlled media outlets, RT (Russia Today) and Sputnik, in Europe earlier this month after an order from the European Union (EU).

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YouTube to censor “new misinformation” preemptively

YouTube, the world’s dominant video sharing platform, has already removed over one million videos for violating its strict and controversial “misinformation” rules. But in a new announcement, the tech giant has revealed that it’s going to be getting even stricter and suppressing “new misinformation” preemptively before it has the chance to gain traction.

YouTube’s Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan described how the video-sharing platform will start “catching new misinformation before it goes viral” in a blog post. The process will involve continuously training YouTube’s machine learning systems with “an even more targeted mix of classifiers, keywords in additional languages, and information from regional analysts” to identify “narratives” that YouTube’s main classifier doesn’t catch.

Mohan added: “Over time, this will make us faster and more accurate at catching these viral misinfo narratives.”

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YouTube CEO wants governments pass laws to “have more control over online speech”

Susan Wojcicki, the CEO of YouTube, has acknowledged that the platform’s policy of censoring legal content that it deems to be “harmful” is controversial and urged governments to step in and pass stronger speech laws.

Wojcicki made the comments in an interview with the Hamburg-based independent broadcaster TIDETVhamburg where she was asked about how the platform navigates the “minefield” or complying with national laws while also keeping advertisers happy and users interested.

“We work around the globe, and you’re right, certainly there are many different laws and many different jurisdictions, and we…enforce the laws of the various jurisdictions around speech or what’s considered safe or not safe,” Wojcicki said.

She added that there’s been little controversy when YouTube enforces these laws. Instead, the controversy arises when YouTube decides to censor speech that it deems to be “harmful” but “not illegal,” particularly in relation to COVID.

“What has been the controversial part is when there is content that would be deemed as harmful but yet is not illegal,” Wojcicki said. “An example of that, for example, would be COVID. I’m not aware of there being laws by governments saying around COVID in terms of not being able to debate the efficacy of masks or where the virus came from or the right treatment or proposal but yet there was a lot of pressure and concern about us distributing misinformation that went against what was the standard and accepted medical knowledge. And so this category of harmful but…legal has been, I think, where most of the discussion has been.”

Despite admitting that the way YouTube censors legal content is controversial, Wojcicki pushed for stronger speech laws that would accommodate this censorship.

“Our recommendation, if governments want to have more control over online speech is to pass laws to have that be very cleanly and clearly defined so that we can implement it,” Wojcicki said.

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