What makes this kind of censorship by YouTube of sincere, thoughtful, reasoned speech, even more galling is they make it very easy for people to post videos in which the poster or their associates literally torture terrified, defenseless animals to death for clicks, titillation, and monetization. And YouTube shares in the profits from those torture views and clicks. Often, not just psychos and sadists but actual criminal gangs, cartels, terrorists are involved in systemically staging, recording, and posting videos of said members committing actual torture of actual living beings, not only because they are among the vile people on the planet, but also because they know there are enough sick people out there that their actual commission and posting of violent crimes can make real money on a platform with such wide reach. In terms of “speech” this is in my view almost exactly like allowing equally violent psychos to actually torture children to death on video and post it for their own sick thrill and for the enjoyment of other sadists and sick people who find extreme infliction of terror and suffering to be titillating. In other words, these are among the most despicable violent crimes anyone can commit, they have zero meaningful speech content, and they deserve zero platforming let alone protection, let alone the enabling incentivization YouTube provides such people by creating such an easy means to post and share in the profits from committing extreme cruelty on the most innocent among us. But, try flagging such videos or looking for clear and relevant ways to describe and submit a complaint and you’re largely out of luck. YouTube makes it vastly easier to report and ban someone from their platform for simply departing in a reasonable and thoughtful way from the most recent trans or racialist orthodoxy than they do to flag and be able to clearly report why you’re complaining about the extremely graphic commission of actual torture of actual living beings and have it taken down, let alone get them to share any concern for how they’re supporting and monetizing such videos.
The above is one example via a Duck Duck Go search of “Lady Freethinker [and] YouTube”.
I volunteer with a grassroots animal welfare organization called Lady Freethinker or “LFT”. One focus of that organization has been trying to monitor and have videos removed which are the infliction of extreme staged violence, made and posted for titillation and monetized clicks. They’ve sued YouTube/Google (talk about David vs. Goliath) for, as I understand it, leaving up videos posted by the people engaging in and profiting from this cruelty, for often several weeks or even months or years, in spite of many complaints - and for essentially ignoring or violating their own policies against positing such videos.
Some of the most popular types include staged (fake) rescue videos in which a defenseless animal is placed within easy attack of predators with no escape. A slightly less directly sadistic version are videos mimicking the popular (and legit) feel-good Dodo animal rescue and adoption videos. Someone will show a tiny starving puppy or kitten begging for food and basically string it along narrating for the camera that they are going to give the puppy or kitten some milk - it’s just too hard right now with the camera. The animals are never fed or rescued. Their plight is just exploited for clicks. The directly staged torture videos often involve images like placing a huge constrictor snake on a mother dog while her puppies helplessly sit terrified nearby while she is strangled to death. Baby monkeys are a popular target of torture videos in areas of the world where they are more common. There are entire “monkey-hater” groups online who post videos of baby monkeys being tortured using blenders, vices, hanging, beatings, forced attacks by predators, etc. Where monkeys aren’t common, people use kittens and puppies.
People who have thicker skin than I have can I’m sure find staged videos by searching for images of animals. Many are quite transparently falsely presented as being “educational”, as if one were viewing a David Attenborough narration.
Just in briefly seeing some of the comments in reply to a mainstream track and field video, I noticed a poster whose thumbnail promoted a business called “Predator Pets”. This immediately raised an alarm - clearly this guy has a channel. So I clicked on his thumbnail and the first video I saw made clear what he was doing - it was immediately, extremely graphically visible in merely the still image of that first video - I didn’t even need to press “play”. The image was of a very alive and terrified domesticated pet rat (regarded as similar cognitively to at least a three year old human child) being “served” with bananas to a caiman which was in the process of biting the rat in half and eating him alive. That image was immediately indelibly centered in the still for maximum shock and titillation.
Forget about whether you happen to personally like rats (or monkeys - the head of the infamous Charles River Lab which buys, breeds, uses, sells wild monkeys for lifetimes of abuse in experiments has tried to justify this by calling them “nuisance animals”). The bottom line is these are either captured wildlife, or domesticated animals exactly the same as people’s beloved pets, being forced to endure the kind of elaborately, sadistically designed cruelty only human beings plan and showcase for entertainment.
Live feeding obviously shouldn’t be legal anywhere, in my opinion - it’s banned in the UK, but sadly still legal in the US and Canada. I’ve spoken with a noted herpetology vet and practice owner in Vancouver who assured me that live-feeding is not at all necessary for the well-being of predator reptiles and, in his view, the people who are into that are using (often illicitly-traded and themselves abused) reptiles as supposedly socially-acceptable proxies for their own sadism. They’re not reptile fanciers. They’re sadism fanciers who use reptiles for their own and others’ titillation.
Social media platforms like YouTube have given people of this bent who have a desire to profit from it a very easy platform in which to record and post extreme and entirely gratuitous cruelty for their subculture and any other sadists around the world. There is nothing “educational” about forcing an extremely gentle, small, soft pet into an enclosure and staging it as if it’s a plated entree being served for dinner and then unleashing a much larger and vicious predator on it for clicks and profit. But when I clicked on the thumbnail of someone promoting this business of “predator pets” that was the very first image I saw.
Admittedly, this is especially personal to me, as I adopted a young rat whom a friend had rescued from a teenager in Queens Village whom the teenager had intended to live feed it to a pet snake (he wasn’t a bad kid - just young and hadn’t really known better and he showed real interest in the rat’s well-being when she came to pick him up). I’ve scarcely known a sweeter, gentler, smarter (and prettier, cleaner, nicer-smelling) funnier, more engaging animal companion (and my friend isn’t half-bad herself). Once he knew I was safe and gentle and would be caring for him he bonded to me as closely as I’ve ever seen any animal do. I was his home and his only guarantee of safety. He was blissfully happy most of the time and as grateful as I’ve ever seen an adopted animal. But on the two occasions we had to move house he absolutely panicked in a way I’d never seen before: emptied his bowels and crawled inside my clothing and clung to me in panic and desperation. Because he thought we were being separated and he remembered very well what his life had been before. I’ve never seen such a fundamental sense of relief as when he realized he and his sister were still safe with me, just in a new place. I’m sure people who have adopted dogs or cats who were extremely abused have seen similarly heartbreaking panic when something triggers a memory or association of them being hurt.
The point of this long tangent is that every one of these vulnerable animals is a thinking, feeling, very highly-sentient being who wants on a fundamental level to be free from harm and safe with those who know and care for them, as much as we do, even if some of what makes us human is cognitively - or for some, spiritually - somewhat different. Every such video posted is of a real emotionally, socially, cognitively complex individual whose suffering is at minimum being exploited for money. In most cases, these individuals are filmed being tortured to death by the posters for monetized clicks. And YouTube makes it so easy.
When I’ve tried to report such videos, I’ve found there is either no relevant criteria I can select from a menu to label why I’m reporting it and/or there is no means to enter even a few words of text to describe why I believe a given video so grossly and obviously violates their own terms. In practice, this seems to be about the lowest priority that YouTube/Google has when it comes to violations of their policies and abuse of their platform.
They’ve moved very aggressively to dismiss the LFT suit and were successful in a lower court. That decision is currently being appealed. So they have plenty of resources to deploy to trying to swat away any criticism or efforts to hold them accountable to their own standards. I’d guess their basic claim is that none of these torture videos for profit are their responsibility (even though they profit from them, too) and it’s either impossible for them to monitor such things, or they’re already doing so as well as anyone can expect.
Which is why this hyper-vigilant reaction in censoring Glenn Loury and his guest, at lightening speed, then denying the appeal, with no specificity or redress, simply because the guest made a thoughtful argument about why he objects to having to validate an identity he thinks is based on an objectively false delusion, struck me as so farcical. I’m not a lawyer nor am I any kind of expert on the internal operation of sprawling and complex online platforms. But it’s readily apparent that YouTube/Google not only has the wherewithal (if any entity does) in money and staff and technology to police actual violations and harms. It also can and does act very swiftly and with extreme prejudice when it comes to the kinds of violations which matter to them. Depart an iota from last week’s latest gender theory orthodoxy and they’ll censor, suspend, demonetize, delete, ban any post or poster almost instantly. How do they have the resources, staff, and technology for that? As accomplished and esteemed an academic as Glenn Loury can be censored for his guest making an argument which evinced nor encouraged no hatred for anyone. And yet staged torture videos of animals continue to be left up to make money for their creators and YouTube itself.
And thanks to LFT for taking on this Kafkaesque monolith on an absolute shoestring.
What makes this kind of censorship by YouTube of sincere, thoughtful, reasoned speech, even more galling is they make it very easy for people to post videos in which the poster or their associates literally torture terrified, defenseless animals to death for clicks, titillation, and monetization. And YouTube shares in the profits from those torture views and clicks. Often, not just psychos and sadists but actual criminal gangs, cartels, terrorists are involved in systemically staging, recording, and posting videos of said members committing actual torture of actual living beings, not only because they are among the vile people on the planet, but also because they know there are enough sick people out there that their actual commission and posting of violent crimes can make real money on a platform with such wide reach. In terms of “speech” this is in my view almost exactly like allowing equally violent psychos to actually torture children to death on video and post it for their own sick thrill and for the enjoyment of other sadists and sick people who find extreme infliction of terror and suffering to be titillating. In other words, these are among the most despicable violent crimes anyone can commit, they have zero meaningful speech content, and they deserve zero platforming let alone protection, let alone the enabling incentivization YouTube provides such people by creating such an easy means to post and share in the profits from committing extreme cruelty on the most innocent among us. But, try flagging such videos or looking for clear and relevant ways to describe and submit a complaint and you’re largely out of luck. YouTube makes it vastly easier to report and ban someone from their platform for simply departing in a reasonable and thoughtful way from the most recent trans or racialist orthodoxy than they do to flag and be able to clearly report why you’re complaining about the extremely graphic commission of actual torture of actual living beings and have it taken down, let alone get them to share any concern for how they’re supporting and monetizing such videos.
https://www.newsweek.com/horrific-video-live-dogs-being-fed-crocodiles-stayed-live-youtube-5-months-1678919
The above is one example via a Duck Duck Go search of “Lady Freethinker [and] YouTube”.
I volunteer with a grassroots animal welfare organization called Lady Freethinker or “LFT”. One focus of that organization has been trying to monitor and have videos removed which are the infliction of extreme staged violence, made and posted for titillation and monetized clicks. They’ve sued YouTube/Google (talk about David vs. Goliath) for, as I understand it, leaving up videos posted by the people engaging in and profiting from this cruelty, for often several weeks or even months or years, in spite of many complaints - and for essentially ignoring or violating their own policies against positing such videos.
Some of the most popular types include staged (fake) rescue videos in which a defenseless animal is placed within easy attack of predators with no escape. A slightly less directly sadistic version are videos mimicking the popular (and legit) feel-good Dodo animal rescue and adoption videos. Someone will show a tiny starving puppy or kitten begging for food and basically string it along narrating for the camera that they are going to give the puppy or kitten some milk - it’s just too hard right now with the camera. The animals are never fed or rescued. Their plight is just exploited for clicks. The directly staged torture videos often involve images like placing a huge constrictor snake on a mother dog while her puppies helplessly sit terrified nearby while she is strangled to death. Baby monkeys are a popular target of torture videos in areas of the world where they are more common. There are entire “monkey-hater” groups online who post videos of baby monkeys being tortured using blenders, vices, hanging, beatings, forced attacks by predators, etc. Where monkeys aren’t common, people use kittens and puppies.
People who have thicker skin than I have can I’m sure find staged videos by searching for images of animals. Many are quite transparently falsely presented as being “educational”, as if one were viewing a David Attenborough narration.
Just in briefly seeing some of the comments in reply to a mainstream track and field video, I noticed a poster whose thumbnail promoted a business called “Predator Pets”. This immediately raised an alarm - clearly this guy has a channel. So I clicked on his thumbnail and the first video I saw made clear what he was doing - it was immediately, extremely graphically visible in merely the still image of that first video - I didn’t even need to press “play”. The image was of a very alive and terrified domesticated pet rat (regarded as similar cognitively to at least a three year old human child) being “served” with bananas to a caiman which was in the process of biting the rat in half and eating him alive. That image was immediately indelibly centered in the still for maximum shock and titillation.
Forget about whether you happen to personally like rats (or monkeys - the head of the infamous Charles River Lab which buys, breeds, uses, sells wild monkeys for lifetimes of abuse in experiments has tried to justify this by calling them “nuisance animals”). The bottom line is these are either captured wildlife, or domesticated animals exactly the same as people’s beloved pets, being forced to endure the kind of elaborately, sadistically designed cruelty only human beings plan and showcase for entertainment.
Live feeding obviously shouldn’t be legal anywhere, in my opinion - it’s banned in the UK, but sadly still legal in the US and Canada. I’ve spoken with a noted herpetology vet and practice owner in Vancouver who assured me that live-feeding is not at all necessary for the well-being of predator reptiles and, in his view, the people who are into that are using (often illicitly-traded and themselves abused) reptiles as supposedly socially-acceptable proxies for their own sadism. They’re not reptile fanciers. They’re sadism fanciers who use reptiles for their own and others’ titillation.
Social media platforms like YouTube have given people of this bent who have a desire to profit from it a very easy platform in which to record and post extreme and entirely gratuitous cruelty for their subculture and any other sadists around the world. There is nothing “educational” about forcing an extremely gentle, small, soft pet into an enclosure and staging it as if it’s a plated entree being served for dinner and then unleashing a much larger and vicious predator on it for clicks and profit. But when I clicked on the thumbnail of someone promoting this business of “predator pets” that was the very first image I saw.
Admittedly, this is especially personal to me, as I adopted a young rat whom a friend had rescued from a teenager in Queens Village whom the teenager had intended to live feed it to a pet snake (he wasn’t a bad kid - just young and hadn’t really known better and he showed real interest in the rat’s well-being when she came to pick him up). I’ve scarcely known a sweeter, gentler, smarter (and prettier, cleaner, nicer-smelling) funnier, more engaging animal companion (and my friend isn’t half-bad herself). Once he knew I was safe and gentle and would be caring for him he bonded to me as closely as I’ve ever seen any animal do. I was his home and his only guarantee of safety. He was blissfully happy most of the time and as grateful as I’ve ever seen an adopted animal. But on the two occasions we had to move house he absolutely panicked in a way I’d never seen before: emptied his bowels and crawled inside my clothing and clung to me in panic and desperation. Because he thought we were being separated and he remembered very well what his life had been before. I’ve never seen such a fundamental sense of relief as when he realized he and his sister were still safe with me, just in a new place. I’m sure people who have adopted dogs or cats who were extremely abused have seen similarly heartbreaking panic when something triggers a memory or association of them being hurt.
The point of this long tangent is that every one of these vulnerable animals is a thinking, feeling, very highly-sentient being who wants on a fundamental level to be free from harm and safe with those who know and care for them, as much as we do, even if some of what makes us human is cognitively - or for some, spiritually - somewhat different. Every such video posted is of a real emotionally, socially, cognitively complex individual whose suffering is at minimum being exploited for money. In most cases, these individuals are filmed being tortured to death by the posters for monetized clicks. And YouTube makes it so easy.
When I’ve tried to report such videos, I’ve found there is either no relevant criteria I can select from a menu to label why I’m reporting it and/or there is no means to enter even a few words of text to describe why I believe a given video so grossly and obviously violates their own terms. In practice, this seems to be about the lowest priority that YouTube/Google has when it comes to violations of their policies and abuse of their platform.
They’ve moved very aggressively to dismiss the LFT suit and were successful in a lower court. That decision is currently being appealed. So they have plenty of resources to deploy to trying to swat away any criticism or efforts to hold them accountable to their own standards. I’d guess their basic claim is that none of these torture videos for profit are their responsibility (even though they profit from them, too) and it’s either impossible for them to monitor such things, or they’re already doing so as well as anyone can expect.
Which is why this hyper-vigilant reaction in censoring Glenn Loury and his guest, at lightening speed, then denying the appeal, with no specificity or redress, simply because the guest made a thoughtful argument about why he objects to having to validate an identity he thinks is based on an objectively false delusion, struck me as so farcical. I’m not a lawyer nor am I any kind of expert on the internal operation of sprawling and complex online platforms. But it’s readily apparent that YouTube/Google not only has the wherewithal (if any entity does) in money and staff and technology to police actual violations and harms. It also can and does act very swiftly and with extreme prejudice when it comes to the kinds of violations which matter to them. Depart an iota from last week’s latest gender theory orthodoxy and they’ll censor, suspend, demonetize, delete, ban any post or poster almost instantly. How do they have the resources, staff, and technology for that? As accomplished and esteemed an academic as Glenn Loury can be censored for his guest making an argument which evinced nor encouraged no hatred for anyone. And yet staged torture videos of animals continue to be left up to make money for their creators and YouTube itself.
And thanks to LFT for taking on this Kafkaesque monolith on an absolute shoestring.