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Because we live in the era of late-stage capitalism, the premiere destination for user-generated video content — YouTube, arguably a quasi-monopoly — happens to also be owned by one of the most powerful tech companies in the world. That by itself wouldn’t be cause for fuss were it not marked by frequent instances of the video giant not wielding its power responsibly–the platform has a ruleset it’s supposed to enforce, but it rarely does so with any consistency, often making carve-outs to its most problematic elements while the rest languish in neglect, only reacting to trouble when it threatens their bottom-line.
That YouTube is traditionally reactionary about much-needed changes to its regime wasn’t in contention–what’s egregious however is the way chronic violators of the platform’s rules keep getting away with it under YouTube’s philosophy of treating sunlight as a most-adequate disinfectant of rule-breaking content. This proves resonant in the platform’s treatment of hate speech, and while devising a federal doctrine for it in America has proven fickle because of 1st amendment protections, platforms themselves have not shied away from drawing their…
