PragerU is known for making some excellent educational videos on many political issues. They rip apart the wage gap, take aim at climate change, and blast the mainstream media, just to name a few examples.
However, some time ago, YouTube placed the channel in a restricted status. What that means is that computers that have YouTube set on restricted mode — computers such as those found in schools and public libraries, for example — won’t be able to find the content.
PragerU filed a lawsuit, arguing that YouTube’s decision was a violation of their freedom of speech.
Earlier this week, they lost.
“PragerU’s videos weren’t excluded from Restricted Mode because of politics or ideology, as we demonstrated in our filings,” The Hill reported a YouTube spokesperson as saying. “PragerU’s allegations were meritless, both factually and legally, and the court’s ruling vindicates important legal principles that allow us to provide different choices and settings to users.”
That argument hardly holds water.
PragerU’s videos are educational and sedate. They don’t typically engage in name-calling or use offensive language. Meanwhile, social justice-driven content discussing things like sexuality and other topics some might consider sensitive are allowed on YouTube.
But that doesn’t matter. You see, as Judge Lucy Koh noted: “Defendants are private entities who created their own video-sharing social media website and make decisions about whether and how to regulate content that has been uploaded on that website.”
In other words, they’re a private company and they can regulate internally in any manner they see fit.
We are seeing something happen here that should scare the pants off of everyone. When technology companies get so big that they have little to no real competition, then they embrace social justice nonsense and begin to make moves to create that ideology as the norm.
As it stands, there’s no real competition for YouTube. Other video-sharing sites can’t offer content creators the same money YouTube does, which means there’s less reason to go to those video-sharing sites. YouTube can do what it wants and have a major impact on political discourse.
Don’t get me wrong, they can’t completely change it. Not right away, at least, but since kids will get access to social justice indoctrination but will receive few counterpoints, it’s not difficult to see it making a difference down the road.
Again, YouTube has that right as a private company, but this is still something we should all be concerned about, and we should start looking for alternatives.
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