[atlanta90210]

Mr Brand is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law or he admits his crimes.

Google taking down his YouTube income before a guilty verdict is horrible.

For some reason Google/Youtube have not demonetized R. Kelly, and he was found guilty. Or Cardi B. She admitted to drugging men and stealing from them.

[MisterTea]

They don't care about mr Brand, R Kelly, Cardi B or their victims. They only care about their bottom line so if negative press comes out then it's damage control time. The accused is nothing more than a liability to cut loose. R Kelly and Cardi B not liabilitys because they're not currently generating negative press. There guilty but no one cares enough to rage against them. So they are in the clear. When the smoke clears for Mr Brand he will likely get to make a new account and no one will notice because they're raging against whatever they read on their social media feeds.

Blame societies social media attention span and business as usual for this failing.

[renegat0x0]

I heard quite often that "a company can do whatever it want with their content". I was working through this topic a very long time. Can YouTube host whichever content it likes, and not others? If I was a small shop owner I would like to be able to serve whoever I like, but I recognize the power of big corporations who can make you disappear from the Internet.

In my opinion it all boils down whether the company is a gatekeeper, or not. I would like the small owner to have some ability to decide, but Amazon should not be able to decide who can buy/sell based on their skin color, preferences, political biases.

[calciphus]

In the US, there are protected classes (skin color, political biases from your list, as well as others) that you cannot discriminate on. Being accused of a crime (not convicted) isn't one of those.

More importantly though, Google hasn't banned Brand, they've removed ads from his videos. Advertisers are very sensitive about where their ads show up. This is why X/Twitter has struggled so much under Musk - major companies don't want their brand next to certain kinds of content.

Not serving ads along Brand's content isn't gate keeping. It's not sending advertisers (and their dollars) to someone embroiled in a scandal. Just like how he's probably not getting lots of calls right now to host award shows, star in films, or be the face of company advertising.

Google is protecting their revenue stream, which is completely unsurprising to me.

[Joeboy]

Cursory googling tells me Youtube removed two of R. Kelly's channels.

[braza]

Specific for the residents of USA: What's the current status of the Section 230 debate? Due to that, the platforms cannot have editorial decisions, right?

[pjc50]

Youtube serving videos about a UK national to residents of the UK is probably covered by UK law, regardless of your section 230.

On the other hand, no UK law has been invoked here, it's just a letter.

[krapp]

> Due to that, the platforms cannot have editorial decisions, right?

Incorrect[0]. Section 230 allows platforms to exercise editorial discretion, even political bias, when moderating content.

[0]https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-referre...

[pjc50]

It is unusual that they've done it to him and not a whole bunch of other far worse behaving people.