This article was about ads, not content. That's the distinction I was making.
Google is very loathe to remove videos. I haven't seen that often, outside of copyright infringement or something truly illegal.
Demonetization is different. It's basically saying "we'll let you talk... But we don't want to reward you and charge our advertisers for it". It's a hugely slippery slope, of course, but... It's one thing to demand free speech (which Google isn't legally required to allow), yet a completely different thing to demand Google pay people they disagree with.
The top parent comment was not making a legal "demand" but was expressing concern and hope for a fair competitor to arise which treated different viewpoints in a neutral manner.
> "ads not content"
Nevertheless many content producers rely on ads to sustain themselves, and so by unfairly demonitizing viewpoints google/facebook disagrees with, the argument can be made they are doing evil. And especially considering their power as gatekeepers of the modern avenue of public discourse, we should be very concerned about them picking sides, especially for topics with a political component.
Even former Rep Ron Paul's Youtube channel was demonetized--which is frankly just insanely ridiculous.
Meanwhile media reports extremist content such as Nazi propaganda is available?!
Another example is anti-Trump, conservative commentator Ben Shapiro.
I'm not exactly sure who can be said is being "protected" by retaliating against Paul and Shapiro?
It's their platform, but without either competition or regulation they're quickly becoming an unreasonable Thought Police.
1-https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xw5bxk/youtube-ne...