Censorship on YouTube

I have been saying for some time now that the algorithms on these social media platforms are clearly putting me at a disadvantage from reaching people with this Music. Usually, my words fall on deaf ears or people in denial try to convince me you can do it, you just have to do this or that to succeed in this culture. The social media platforms work for these people because they are no threat to the status quo. They play by the rules, they follow the crowd, that's why all their content eventually looks the same. In every field on any social media platform, have you noticed how uniform everything is? Surely, in a world of endless possibilities, infinite potential, we would see a much more unique and colourful world of expression. Yet even with this evidence right in front of them these people remain in denial and continue to insist we live in a free world.

Last night I made public on YouTube a short trailer for the song "Boots". Several hours later I noticed it still had 0 views. I'm used to my shorts not reaching a lot of people but usually after an hour or two there is an upsurge in views. As I write this, nearly 24 hours later, the "Boots" short has 2 views. This is the clip I'm talking about:

Let me first explain the background behind the clip. We were out filming shots for the "Through The City" video last November and decided to use some old telephone boxes as props. That's when we saw that someone had written the message you see in the video in the phone box. We filmed it because we recognised it might be a relevant clip for a video for another song, as we sometimes do when we come across something interesting. It wasn't appropriate for "Through The City". Once I'd finished "Boots", although we don't have a video out as I write this, we realised it would fit the line "Boots... concerned about our health. Or maybe something else" perfectly.

As an artist, isn't your job to reflect what you see around you back to people in order that they might realise something about themselves or the world around them that they would otherwise be unaware of. For those who are already aware, it offers comfort and a sense that you are not alone in your discoveries of reality.

Sure, it may be a controversial and blunt thing to put out there but it's just another point of view, and I thought we lived in a free world? You don't have to agree with me but lot's of people have had those experiences and can relate to the message since 2020. Is their voice not to be heard? Then we live in a dictatorship.

What was interesting for me to see in this is it shows the sophistication and cleverness with which these AI-controlled algorithms are censoring. It must have read the message within the video, perhaps along with the hashtags, and halted the video's reach. No doubt it classifies it as "hate speech". What is shocking is the extent to which they are censoring on YouTube. Just recently, I was watching some timeline videos on a history channel and in the 2001 video the narrator could only give a passing mention to 9/11 and actually acknowledged due to platform restrictions he couldn't go into it any further. This was not a spiritual or conspiracy channel, just a regular entertainment history channel. And yet still people defend this system? That is mind-blowing to me.

Back to the "Boots" clip, what it confirms to me is what I've long suspected. That even my other, less controversial videos are being suppressed in their reach on these social media platforms. And still people wonder why a timeline split is inevitable.

"Once you put selectivity and censorship in the computers, their usefulness is finished" - U.G. Krishnamurti