Google does what it thinks will make the advertisers happy. I don't know if they're are reacting to advertiser complaints or doing it on their own.
I'm not a creator and don't know all of YouTube's rules. Is the three strike thing about actual content removal or just the current topic of demonetization?
Three strikes has been in place longer than this has. That's for account termination. If you do something like trademark/copyright infringement, defame, breach of contract, etc, even if unintentional, and are reported for it 3 times, you lose your account. There was a big explanation by The Cynical Brit (TotalBiscuit) about it when he did a video on Day One: Garry's Incident. The publisher reported his video because he gave the game a bad review. He went off on them in a followup video and explained the 3 strikes rule in great detail.
Let's use your analogy a little more accurately.
The best comedy club in town decides that "we're having open mic might from now on. If your jokes are family friendly, we'll even give you some money. If your jokes aren't family friendly, we won't pay you money." Youtube never said they can't post their videos on Youtube. It's seems ridiculous to make the claim that advertisers should pay for all content, not just the content they're in favor of. And, youtube IS giving these people a free platform on which to air their videos. Bandwidth isn't free - there are real, tangible costs to Youtube to even host this content. "Hey, you need to pay for my offensive videos, else you're oppressing me!" :roll:
And if the only reason the club is popular in the first place is because of these vulgar comedians? By the way, "advertiser-friendly" videos aren't necessarily offensive. If YouTube can't put their republican ads on your liberal video they won't pay you.
Here are two bullet points from the policy that are just completely open to interpretation:
- Inappropriate language, including harassment, swearing and vulgar language
- Controversial or sensitive subjects and events, including subjects related to war, political conflicts, natural disasters and tragedies, even if graphic imagery is not shown
Content creators now have to (or are at least now aware that they have to) consider everything they do or say in their videos so they don't incidentally cross the invisible line between appropriate and inapproriate as determined by a computer, or offend just enough of the vocal minority to get their video flagged.
I think the difference is that some people see YouTube as it was at its conception and not what it has become. In the early days it was just another place to upload stupid videos. Today it's a platform used to express viewpoints. Some use it as a business and user's profiles are literally called channels now. It's really no different than television. There are people who approve everything that you see on TV. There is literally a list of things that cannot be said. If it doesn't match their political agenda or the agenda of their advertisers, what do they do? They censor it.
The problem with your analogy is that in this case, the 'club' is telling the 'comedian' that they won't get paid unless they clean it up. If they don't want to clean it up they can go ahead and perform for free. The club is within their rights to do this thus no censorship. The club is telling the comedian that everyone is welcome to come to the club to perform but the club only pays for.clean material.
Not getting paid is not censorship, it's not getting paid. This is a business decision, not censorship.
So forcing the content provider to censor themselves if they want to get paid is somehow not censorship?