Following that disgusting school shooting in Florida, people began searching for stuff to push their agenda, as it happens following any event of this scale. Obviously, the left began arguing for more gun control and began looking for bashing the right and looking for "white supremacists", that claimed the attack. The mainstream media and NGOs such as the ADL started running stories that the lunatic was as such. This appears to have been false, and it was a 4chan hoax, but I guess it's fine spreading false stories if you want to "bash the fash". Later on, independent journalist Tim Pool called them out on garbage reporting in the video below.

This did not sit well with YouTube apparently, as the video in question was removed. It was later reinstated, but why it was removed in the first place remains a mystery. I for one suspect that the reason might be the fact that the video is calling out the ADL itself, a trusted flagger for YouTube, in an effort to cut down on "controversial content". Tim Pool himself does not know what the reason his video was taken down, but explains his position and thoughts on the matter in this video.

Anyway, I cannot say for sure one way or another, but clearly YouTube is not doing a good job. Either they are censoring content, or do not have their algorithms set up right. I for one lean towards the former is because they removed a video that was first in trending, which was kind of claiming (video description, not content) that of one of the survivors of this attack was a "crisis actor", after him having been interviewed by a local news agency in California a year prior. Below is YouTube's response:

This video should never have appeared in Trending. Because the video contained footage from an authoritative news source, our system misclassified it. As soon as we became aware of the video, we removed it from Trending and from YouTube for violating our policies. We are working to improve our systems moving forward.

I for one, do not think this he is an "actor", but the video exploring this avenue should not be censored. Nutjobs have the right to speak their mind just as much as everybody else. And the fact that their system allowed it through because it contained footage from an "authoritative news source" is what scares me the most. Why is there such a category? A random person's footage is not considered real because they're not part of a large news corporation? And why are these corporations automatically given a pass without any scrutiny? They have been known to lie before. Regarding this, I again generally agree with Tim Pool in his video regarding this subject; I do think this is just a conspiracy theory, but there is nothing wrong with exploring these ideas, sometimes you can uncover actual conspiracies, and the trending tab should contain trending videos, not what YouTube wants trending.

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On top of this, as you can see above, certain views are put into limited state, even though the content is not illegal and it does not break their terms of service. In that screenshot, you can see that Barbara4u2c's latest video has effectively censored, even though it is stating facts. And I say censored because any video placed in limited state, though still up on the platform, has no like/dislike bar, comments are disabled, recommended videos are disabled, it does not appear in recommended or search bar. The only way for people to see it is if they know the video URL. Hence, "authoritative news sources" are being pushed, and independent creators, you know, the people that made YouTube what it is, are being silenced. I wonder whatever happened to Google's "Don't be evil" motto, or free speech...

Well, I won't stand for censorship, so above you have the video in its full glory. You decide if it's "hateful" or not. Not only is this against the you part of their brand, but this broad, nebulous term that is never defined, is used to shut down opinions that are very well sourced. It is just presenting a situation in Europe which haunts its citizens more and more. But I guess that stating facts and wanting a peaceful life, and trying to achieve this is "hateful", and such damning statements as "go vote!" are worthy of censorship in the eyes of YouTube.

What are your thoughts? Do you think these are good enough cases for censorship? Or do you think, lie me, that free speech applies to conspiracy theories and dissenting opinions as well? Share below, along with any feedback you might have. It is greatly appreciated!

Thank you for reading, and keep on steemin'!

(clicking any image will take you to its source)