FreeSpeech and Censorship: Thread

[grarpamp]

Seems everyone is rushing to emulate China's destruction and lack of freedom...


Human Rights Groups Are Quitting YouTube Over Its Pro-China Censorship

https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-youtube-takes-down-xinjiang-videos-forces-rights-group-seek-2021-06-25/

In yet another glaring example of Google willingly doing China's
bidding, YouTube this month agreed to take down multiple videos posted
by a well-known China-related human rights organization.

As Reuters recently reported, YouTube initially tried to pressure the
group called Atajurt Kazakh Human Rights to censor its content in
several videos documenting disappeared Uyghur citizens in China's
Xinjiang province, which YouTube interpreted as a violation of its
anti-harassment policy given personally identifiable information was
present.

Despite the group's videos essentially including detailed news
reporting, the Google-owned platform said it had too many strikes
against it related to people featured showing their IDs. The
organization was asked to blur the IDs.

The IDs were shown on the videos to verify that interviewees were
indeed relatives of those believed to be missing inside Xinjiang's
vast 'reeducation camp' prisons. Instead of continuing to allow the
videos to garner millions of views, spotlighting the ongoing crackdown
against the Chinese Muslim minorities, YouTube instead "disappeared"
the videos. The controversy began within the past years as follows:

    Atajurt Kazakh Human Rights' channel has published nearly 11,000
videos on YouTube totaling over 120 million views since 2017,
thousands of which feature people speaking to camera about relatives
they say have disappeared without a trace in China's Xinjiang region,
where UN experts and rights groups estimate over a million people have
been detained in recent years.

    On June 15, the channel was blocked for violating YouTube's
guidelines, according to a screenshot seen by Reuters, after twelve of
its videos had been reported for breaching its 'cyberbullying and
harassment' policy.

While a number of videos have been reportedly restored on appeal,
Atajurt Kazakh was alarmed enough over the crackdown to announce it
would move its content to a less restrictive blockchain-based
platform.

YouTube later defended the move, describing that its harassment policy
"clearly prohibits content revealing someone’s personally identifiable
information, including their government identification or phone
numbers." It claimed to further be enforcing policies "equally for
everyone".

Meanwhile in related news...

    TIME magazine fails to disclose CCP funding for content in its
latest print edition.

    The mag struck a $700k ad partnership with China Daily, the
state-controlled propaganda outlet. @TIME has not responded to
repeated inquiries about the non-disclosure https://t.co/hFLb9zyWC1
    — Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) July 1, 2021

Following the media attention, YouTube began restoring the videos
while saying it would further evaluate its current policies. Reuters
documented that the social media platform still urged the human rights
group to comply, noting that "YouTube asked Atajurt to blur the IDs."

However, it remains that "Atajurt is hesitant to comply, the channel's
administrator said, concerned that doing so would jeopardize the
trustworthiness of the videos." So far close to 1,000 videos have been
moved to the blockchain-driven alternative side Odysee, in a move
which other rights and journalism organization may soon follow.