|
What I got from the article was that system as a whole is consistently throwing roadblocks in the way of experimental/small-time science. The author focuses on YouTube, but also cites a government investigation as well as deplatforming by PayPal, Square, LinkedIn, Amazon, Facebook, and Patreon. These are private companies, with their own policies, but private companies are part of the system too. So I don't think the concerns are conflated. Regarding YouTube, I think the author would agree with you: > The problem is big tech companies making billions of dollars aren’t capable of doing basic analysis of scientific work, or hiring a team that can, which is why the best they’re capable of on the pandemic front, for example, is attaching a link to the CDC website on every post that mentions “Covid” or “vaccine.” I don't think we need to assign blame to YouTube here, but it's still the reality, and we should consider what it means for access to science. Maybe we (as a society) should in fact keep experimental science off YouTube. (I don't agree, but I can see an argument.) Even in that case, the decisions made here are disproportionate. The author starts the article by describing how he's banned from even logging in, not just uploading; he ends by saying how he has to worry about being locked out of his email. I agree with the author that we're in dangerous territory by giving companies unilateral control over this process, even if we do it for good reasons. |