YouTube CEO receives freedom of expression award sponsored by YouTube itself

In the US, outside of a few legally protected characteristics, a company is free to exercise its speech to choose not to provide service to customers it does not wish to.

The government forcing companies to provide service would be a violation of their speech rights.

Some companies go out of their way to try to be better than that because they recognize the influence they have on public access to platforms. (Zuckerberg cares a lot about this: https://zalberico.com/essay/2020/06/16/mark-zuckerberg-and-f...), but ultimately all of that is above and beyond what the legal expectations are.

In FB's case it wasn't so much a policy change that lead to them shutting down Trump's account, but that USG's position as a rule of law nation was in question after 1/6 and it no longer met their own policy requirements that give elected politicians in rule of law democracies a special pass to violate their moderation rules.

The irony is this is a variant of the same argument made in the gay cake case, but with the political partisanship reversed. The notable difference in that case is that sexual orientation is a protected characteristic.

ardit33• 5 years ago

"The government forcing companies to provide service would be a violation of their speech rights."

-- True, but the government can institute a bill of rights for digital platforms, and make it mandatory for companies that want to have section 230 protection.

Youtube will be free to choose between following the bill of rights, or becoming a regulated media like the TV, or being prone to defamation lawsuits and be responsible for its content.

What that bill of rights would look like? That's a different story... but google, or any tech company, having the power to just delete your gmail/email account, and erase all your stored data at will it is kinda scary.

There should be a happy medium. We do this for evictions already (i.e. there is a process for the eviction, we should do something lightweight for the digital space as well). Eg, if google has determined you have abused on your email, you will have 30 days to retrieve your data, and contacts and transfer them somewhere else. Losing access altogether is very disruptive.

throwawaysea3• 5 years ago

Some companies go out of their way to try to be better than that because they recognize the influence they have on public access to platforms.

If they have that amount of public influence they should be broken up, or heavily regulated as public utilities, so that they uphold freedom of speech online in the new digital public town square.

leereeves2• 5 years ago

a company is free to exercise its speech

It wasn't always like that. We used to have rules like common carrier restricting the phone company, the fairness doctrine restricting television networks, and campaign finance rules restricting other media.

We truly live in the golden age of corporate power.

Spivak• 5 years ago

It's basically an application of freedom vs liberty. You are less free as a result of having to follow the rules of the road but have greater liberty by being able to travel safely and efficiently.

This balance is governance's equivalent of "three hard problems."

When it comes to platform moderation it seems like HN at large overwhelmingly holds the opinion that for speech liberty is maximized with freedom. Which might be right but for me personally I've experienced the reality not being able myself on the internet because of all the hate I've received. The solution has been for my whole life has boiled down to "just pretend to be a straight white cis American man" to the point of having to use a voice-changer to play videogames online. Like it does work and solves the immediate problem. But the truth is also that it has gotten a lot better in recent years. We're finally out of the "there are no girls on the internet" dark ages and I don't know if the ends justify the means but something is working.

mellosouls• 5 years ago

The other far more notable difference is the baker didn't own all the cake shops.

ng12• 5 years ago

The debate is not whether there is a legal requirement for YouTube to provide freedom of speech (categorically, there is not) but whether that is harmful to society. The concept of freedom of expression extends beyond the bound of US law.

zarkov993• 5 years ago

I don't think the analogy holds. A mom and pop shop should be given more latitude on who they serve than a communication platform monopoly.

pnt12• 5 years ago

There's the law, and there's the principle.

Your platform may be legally allowed to censor everything, but it's clear it doesn't take freedom of expression seriously.

If we add some more mental gymnastics, we can say the Chinese government supports all legal freedom of speech as well. If this sounds ridiculous but the former does not, we should evaluate why one type of censorship means freedom but another means oppression.

jgalt212• 5 years ago

Almost as good as when Blythe Masters tried to be a regulator and a perpetrator (or manager thereof) at the same time.

On Second Thought, JPMorgan Executive Won’t Advise Commodities Regulator

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-02-07/jpmorgans...

modeitsch• 5 years ago

This is how the entire world of big tech works

hintymad• 5 years ago

I always wonder what makes YouTube/Twitter, in particular its so-called reviewers or fact-checkers, think that they are on the right side of the history? They are not necessarily better informed, they are not necessarily better educated, and they are not necessarily better at research, they are not necessarily better at interpreting stats. In fact, I question if many of them understand scientific research at all. Yet they had no problem banning a person for citing a research from Stanford that questions the effectiveness of masks. Yet they had no problem declaring Florida's governor was spreading misinformation in a round-table discussion. Yet they had no problem shutting down anyone a year ago who supported wearing mask or staying at home, and shutting down anyone now who claims the opposite now.

In fact, YouTube, according to BBC, bans any coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts World Health Organization (WHO) advice. Yet isn't it true that WHO gave really bad advice in the early days of Covid-19? Isn't true that Taiwan ignored WHO's advice and implemented strict containment policy to a great success? Isn't Thailand representative harshly criticized WHO for their dubious corroboration with Chinese government? What makes YouTube think that they possess moral superiority over other people?

linuxftw• 5 years ago

They know they're frauds pushing a political agenda, and they know if they and their conspirators repeat the same lies over and over, the masses will believe them.

zarkov993• 5 years ago

I think the reviewers are mostly low on the tech totem pole young people, as ignorant of history or anything outside of their neighborhoods as they are certain about their virtue. You know, as young people have always been. That they get to police what everybody else can say is a serious problem.

andrewstuart• 5 years ago

The sense of entitlement is sadly so expected these days.

athrowaway3z2• 5 years ago

My current theory is ' tragedy of the commons ' applied to debt.

Y_Y2• 5 years ago

Please explain that.

And please explain what's going on with those quotes.

spamizbad• 5 years ago

The citizenry support this stance. The cult of personality around people like Trump on the right, even center-left has a catch phrase "<center/left politician> doesn't owe you anything!" -- uh no, they do: they are public servants!

MattGaiser2• 5 years ago

The award website.

https://www.freeexpressionawards.org/

the-dude4• 5 years ago

Featuring : Colin Powell!

However, I searched but found nothing about the award for Susan Wojcicki, the YT CEO ( she is listed prominently on the site ).

MattGaiser2• 5 years ago

I assume that she just got a regular award.

himinlomax• 5 years ago

Lying to the UN security council is protected speech!

mudil• 5 years ago

We live in the through the looking glass world, where things are also upside down. What's next? Google and Facebook receiving Defenders of the Privacy awards?

bronson• 5 years ago

This appeared earlier on HN but got squelched: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26875971

colpabar• 5 years ago

more discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26875971

notably, the title of that post was changed to omit the fact that it was sponsored by youtube.

the-dude4• 5 years ago

Are you sure about that? Currently it is consistent with the Youtube title, which is the HN etiquette ( don't editorialize titles ).

ortusdux• 5 years ago

The last one linked directly to the video

nfrankel• 5 years ago

Colin Powell, Mr "weapons of mass destruction" himself side-by-side with Jimmy Lai of Hong-Kong fame.

I don't know whether to laugh or to cry.

turminal• 5 years ago

Reminds me of https://xkcd.com/250/ in a way.

vq• 5 years ago

http://www.viruscomix.com/page482.html popped into my mind.

ttt0• 5 years ago

Snopes? ok lol

https://archive.md/Wy4GT

https://archive.md/wrEXO

https://archive.is/AqkNf

http://archive.is/HNgc9

devmor• 5 years ago

I have decided to award myself with the Best At Irony Award.

duxup• 5 years ago

YouTube certainly allows for a heck of a lot of expression that could reach a lot of people...

As for industry awards I worked at a company that were members of a number of industry award groups. When we were acquired by another company maybe half a floor of people were left in what was a five floor building.

I and some others gathered up all the awards scattered across the building (there were a lot) and decorated our desks with them. To their credit when the acquiring company's CEO showed up, he thought it was pretty hilarious.

For the record, as long as I worked there I held the record for the most "President's Club" awards held by any given employee... at least if you count the trophies at my desk.

mdeck_• 5 years ago

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/510/176/e33...

toptal• 5 years ago

This must be some sort of objective measure of society entering into a new era.

Y_Y2• 5 years ago

The Cretinaceous.

tgragnato• 5 years ago

We got a movie about that! Idiocracy (2006)... I’m a huge fan

fullshark2• 5 years ago

The post shame era

melff• 5 years ago

YouTube CEO
freedom of expression

is that a joke? this gotta be some kind of prank right?

karmasimida• 5 years ago

This is ridiculous in too many ways. Don't know where to start.

xbar• 5 years ago

Congratulations!

grawprog4• 5 years ago

As utterly brazen, shameless and just completely and utterly unself-aware as this is, look on the bright side. A quick glance at the like/dislike ratio and comments shows, most people are not impressed with that kind of bullshit.

People aren't buying it and overwhelmingly seem to recognize what shitty hypocritical utterly bullshit behaviour youtube engages in.

ihsw• 5 years ago

Dislikes will not be possible in the future: https://nypost.com/2021/03/31/youtube-is-testing-removal-of-...

Also, somewhat interestingly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-disliked_YouTube_...

grawprog4• 5 years ago

I'm honestly surprised the comments have been allowed to remain on for this video. At this point, they're kinda damned if they do, damned if they don't. Turning off dislikes and comments on the video would prove their hypocrisy, but leaving it on shows just how much people hate it.

I've never seen that list before...apparently people really hate cocomelon nursery rhymes...it shows up 11 times in that list.

compiler-guy• 5 years ago

"may not be possible."

elliekelly• 5 years ago

I have nothing nice to say about any Google-owned company but is this really all that different from $city’s Best $business or literally any other corporate “award” that’s nothing more than thinly-veiled advertising? At least YouTube had the good sense to cut out the marketing middle man and just award it to themselves.

grawprog4• 5 years ago

Usually when that kind of corporate feelgood bullshit happens though, it's not publicized and isn't done in such an in your face, 'lol fuck you everybody' kind of way.

Like literally describes while receiving the award how censorship and pandering to corporate advertisers is free speech.

Also, typically, most of the time, the thousands of people directly negatively affected by the reason for the award aren't able to publicly display their disgust.

jjeaff• 5 years ago

No, it would be a lot more like a city creating a Best City in America award and then awarding it to themselves.

proc0• 5 years ago

So they're afraid people will think YT has no freedom of expression, I guess.

Don't they realize this is just them broadcasting an insecurity? Nobody who is really XYZ goes around saying "hey everyone, I'm XYZ :D", it instantly reduces your cred.

*:just to clarify, I neither agree nor disagree with the award, I think it's between really, some areas of YT have nice features, others need work.

gryn• 5 years ago

next step: youtube to be renamed 'YouTube: The free democratic republic of the internet'

young_unixer2• 5 years ago

""" Wojcicki said that the Google-owned video streaming platform would be “removing information that is problematic”.

"Anything that would go against World Health Organization recommendations would be a violation of our policy." """

April 2020.

https://www.verdict.co.uk/youtube-coronavirus-ban-who/

hn8788• 5 years ago

Considering that last year the WHO said that healthy people don't need to wear masks, that seems ike a pretty stupid policy for YouTube to keep.

young_unixer2• 5 years ago

Not to mention the contradiction between the CDC and the WHO regarding asymptomatic spread.

988747• 5 years ago

That recommendation turns out to be pretty good advice:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-facema...

rsanek• 5 years ago

Turns out, cloth masks are barely effective (2% reduction in case growth after 100 days!). They should have kept their original stance.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7010e3.htm

justnotworthit• 5 years ago

No need to link to past censorship: She celebrated and promoted youtube's content restriction in her acceptance speach.

Youtube unironically, whole-heartedly believes that "Censorship is Expression". Now the award makes sense. Add it to the "War is Peace" list.

BitwiseFool• 5 years ago

What a bizarre, two faced world we live in. On one level, the fact that an organization exists to give a "freedom of expression" award is peculiar in-and-of-itself. But that same organization which claims to champion freedom of expression doesn't actually do anything to advance the cause of free speech on platforms. In fact, it is awarding a CEO of a platform that expressly forbids the discussion of anything related to possible fraud or lack of integrity in the 2020 election. You can't even talk about it. So on the one hand, they believe YouTube "protect freedoms “in all possible ways” while also "noted that there must be certain limits". How can a contradiction be so blatant?

Ultimately, what is the point of this? Is it some kind of Potemkin award meant to normalize censorship as free expression? Is it some silly thing apologists of YouTube can point to when YouTube is criticized as restricting free speech?

Edit: Even if you despise the people who think the election was stolen, preventing those people from discussing it on your platform directly contradicts the principle of free expression.

libeclipse2• 5 years ago

https://twitter.com/GordonDimmack/status/1384067464368033800

calebm• 5 years ago

"Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips." (Proverbs 27:2)

throwawaysea3• 5 years ago

From Reclaim The Net's article on this award (https://reclaimthenet.org/youtube-ceo-freedom-of-expression-...):

One week before receiving this award, Wojcicki appeared at the World Economic Forum’s Global Technology Governance Summit 2021 to discuss how YouTube has ramped up its censorship and called for global coalitions to address content that’s “legal but could be harmful.”

Some recent examples of YouTube's support for free expression:

1. YouTube’s policies block ad targeting on Black Lives Matter videos https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/04/youtubes-policie...

2. Scientists From Oxford, Harvard, and Princeton Talked COVID With DeSantis. YouTube Deleted It https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tyler-o-neil/2021/04/1...

3. YouTube Is Wiping Trump’s CPAC Speech — Unless The Videos Discredit It https://thefederalist.com/2021/03/05/youtube-is-wiping-trump...

3b. Bonus round: misleading/gaslighting fact check trying to claim that YouTube was not censoring CPAC speeches: https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-did-youtube-ban-all-copi...

She definitely seems deserving of recognition for defending the freedom of expression /s

femiagbabiaka• 5 years ago

The lack of self-awareness from tech elites is somehow still astonishing.

mikaeluman2• 5 years ago

This award would have made sense when YouTube really took off.

Lately YouTube has engaged in unpersoning - deleting people from the social consciousness. Stefan Molyneux and Alex Jones come to mind. Others have their accounts and videos merely suspended or demonetized for inane reasons, e.g Louder with Crowder.

Even doctors merely expressing opinions contrary to WHO officialdom get taken off.

This process has happened very quickly over the past few years and is the reason why alternatives are set to prosper.

Awarding this CEO merely means the award is not to be taken seriously.

elmomle• 5 years ago

Yeah, the underlying concern is about the propagation of "alternative stories", which tend to spread because of well-documented behavioral feedback loops with such stories in social media ("controversial" takes get more engagement, incentivizing more sharing!).

The actual solution is to legislatively neuter the algorithms that power social media. It's harder to do so we're doing the awful, dangerous, strategically-unwise thing (censoring) instead.

zarkov993• 5 years ago

The problem is that they get it wrong, all the time, and always in the same direction. I think the solution is complex and includes at least 3 things: 1)treat it as a public health problem, that is have campaigns, just like we did for cigarettes, explaining how toxic online content can be 2) mandate that platforms cannot censor content that is not illegal, but also must provide tools so that users can protect themselves, if they wish, from content they are offended by. 3) and most importantly, start the hard work of building trustworthy institutions. We would not be in this predicament it it was not plainly obvious that our institutions especially media, have rotted beyond redemption.

joering2• 5 years ago

The biggest problem with starting YouTube competitor is bandwidth you have to pay for. Even Google has physical servers located inside ISPs all around the world with the newest version of their videos to save on transfer. But so does Netflix!

I am surprised we haven't seen NetFlix take on video social network. A YouFlix if you will...

r00fus• 5 years ago

I agree with almost everything you said, but the two people you mentioned are legitimately bad examples (other platforms have banned them as well).

throwawaysea3• 5 years ago

Other platforms banning people doesn’t mean much. Almost all of big tech belongs to either the Bay Area or Seattle - both of which are known for their far left politics. So of course their employees exhibit their same biases and censor the same content.

mikaeluman2• 5 years ago

Yes, other platforms have targeted freedom of expression as well. In the same situation, they would receive the same comment.

splistud• 5 years ago

because freedom of expression is only for those people you like?

rajacombinator• 5 years ago

Giving yourself awards is kinda awesome. We need more of this. Silicon Valley has been a bit boring lately.

CoastalCoder• 5 years ago

I'd be curious to see how Musk or Jobs executed on that idea.

smegger001• 5 years ago

Musk would do it as a joke and get crucified in the media for it. Jobs would somehow convince people he deserved it

ofou• 5 years ago

15 likes vs 15.000 DISLIKE, the ratio speak by itself.

https://youtu.be/xDcvPf78g1k

cosmodisk• 5 years ago

We discussed and I decided that the most worthy person in this room is me and therefore I award myself with this amazing award. Look at me,you little people,look!

At some point, she'll go home after a long day of executive meetings, crash on a sofa and there will be the award placed in the most prominent place in her home. She'll look at it, sight and say: 'well done me!'.

varispeed• 5 years ago

That's the spirit. Yesterday I won the man of the living room award sponsored by myself.

kobieyc3• 5 years ago

This is real pravda stuff

f430• 5 years ago

you cannot make this up

lrvick• 5 years ago

Am I the only one that finds it particularly scummy she selected a famous blind woman to introduce her sham award?

This feels begging for fan and sympathy likes, though it does not appear to be working.

itronitron• 5 years ago

Maybe subconsciously she knows that she should be embarrassed at receiving the award and doesn't want to be seen receiving it.

nix23• 5 years ago

His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, CBE, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular

the-dude4• 5 years ago

At 22:45CET this submission dropped from #1 to #26.

teddyh• 5 years ago

In the other thread about this topic here on HN¹, more than one commenter said that they didn’t comment or downvote this on YouTube since it they were afraid it could affect their Google account. I commented this on one of them:

This right here. Many people say things like “Google would never…”, and they might be right. But that’s not what matters, what matters is people’s beliefs about what Google would do. And this is why Google should have absolutely no influence over your web browser, your programming language, etc. Again, that’s perceived influence, not actual influence. The fear exists regardless.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26875971

Zealotux• 5 years ago

This is Galvin Belson level of narcissism.

rickspencer3• 5 years ago

I remember about 20 years ago, I was working at Microsoft, and Visual Source Safe won the best code Source Code Repository from Visual Source Safe Magazine. Quite the surprising outcome.

culturthrowaway2• 5 years ago

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been granted the title of marshal, state media reported Wednesday, cementing his status as the authoritarian nation's top military official as he makes key changes to the million-man force.

The decision to award Kim, who already serves as supreme commander of the Korean People's Army, was made Tuesday by the nation's top military, government and political officials, state media said in a special bulletin.

The formal move to bestow the title of marshal to Kim comes seven months into his rule and follows several days of reshuffling at the highest levels of the military.

culturthrowaway2• 5 years ago

https://old.reddit.com/search?q=youtube+shadowban

https://old.reddit.com/search?q=youtube+ban

Far from exhaustive, I'm sure this happens quietly to many more small creators who've crossed the wrong invisible line, asked the wrong good-faith question, or gotten too close to a forbidden subject even while covering something else entirely.

But it should be clear even from what little's made it to be documented that what YouTube will suppress has already quietly dipped pretty deep into your personal overton window, if you ever even pretended to care about real free expression.

the-dude4• 5 years ago

At 23:07CET, this submission dropped to #31, and off the frontpage. Finally!

StandardFuture• 5 years ago

This is one of those moments in history that future humans look back on and wonder how people were "so much more ignorant, stupid, gullible, corrupt, etc. than we are today".

Praising yourself for things that you did not actually do is analogous to how some ancient kings praised themselves for winning a battle that historians later realized they did not actually win. Like how did those kings really expect their people to just believe that? Because the king's fact checkers verified it, of course.

The many self-generated mythologies of the Kim dynasty of North Korea is a great example of this phenomenon.

Krisjohn• 5 years ago

The First Annual Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence was comedy, not a suggestion.

beaknit2• 5 years ago

The English in this article reads like it came from a GAN

beaknit2• 5 years ago

The English in this article reads like it was written by a GAN

throwaway19937• 5 years ago

To quote Sam Kinison, "It's like Christians against Christ."

ykevinator3• 5 years ago

Isn't this sergei brins wife?

notdang• 5 years ago

ex-wife's sister.

YouTube CEO receives freedom of expression award sponsored by YouTube itself

Related Stories