[haldean]

But they haven't robbed the anti-vaxxers of their platform: they've let them keep their platform, but have decided to not give them their money. They aren't silencing the group at all. That feels like a good way to walk the line (and I'm usually the last person to compliment Google).

[kodablah]

Comment you are responding to also said "or stifle". There's no need to wait until someone is 100% silenced to disagree with the lack of neutrality. Maybe neutrality isn't important to you, but it's ok that it's important to others.

[freeflight]

With the way many people are making a career out of Youtube these days, they might as well have "robbed them of their platform".

While in this particular case it might be "justified", imho it still sets a very problematic precedent. Because now YouTube has pretty much ascended itself as some kind of arbiter to decide as to what constitutes as "monetizable opinions" and "unmonetizable opinions".

The potential long-term consequences coming out of this are not that difficult to imagine and quite scary.

[amanaplanacanal]

So they can move to a different platform, if they can find somebody else willing to pay them for it. If they can't, then, so what? I doubt I could find somebody willing to pay me for expressing my opinions either.

If the line for free speech has moved from "you must be allowed to speak" to "somebody must pay you for your speech", I just don't know what to say.

[freeflight]

The "move to a different platform" is a cop-out excuse because YouTube's dominance in the sector is so extreme that you will have difficulties finding a "different platform" with a similar reach. The closest probably being Twitch but that's a tad bit a different of an audience and comes with its own set of issues.

> If the line for free speech has moved from "you must be allowed to speak" to "somebody must pay you for your speech", I just don't know what to say.

I never said anything like that, that's just assuming bad faith on your part. I'm merely pointing out that this sets a very troublesome precedent.

Particularly in the context of how dominant these companies are: For the vast majority of people Google, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter ARE the Internet. Giving this position even more power, without acknowledging it even exists, is a very dangerous thing to do.

I don't need nor do I want these companies to define factual reality, just because their stance, in this case, aligns with what's sensible, does not mean that will always be the case.

Because this will already further play into this "Silicon Valley censoring conservatives" narrative that's even peddled by the US president himself [0]

Note: I'm not saying that's actually happening, I'm merely pointing out it's a thing and how this will very likely further feed this notion.

[0] http://nrb.org/news-room/articles/ft/ifw/president-trump-den...