In this episode, we dive deep into the recent changes in YouTube’s moderation policies and the impact of AI (specifically Gemini) on content creators. We discuss our own experience with video takedowns, the challenges of addressing controversial topics, and the shifting landscape of online discourse.

We explore how algorithmic moderation and trust scores are affecting discoverability, the narrowing of acceptable narratives, and the broader implications for free speech and cultural diversity on major platforms. The conversation covers historical context, political bias, and the difficulties of maintaining a channel that challenges mainstream perspectives.

We also talk about alternative platforms like Substack, Rumble, and Patreon, and what the future might hold for creators who want to push boundaries and foster open discussion.

If you value independent thought and nuanced conversation, make sure to subscribe and join us on Substack for more content that you won’t find anywhere else.

Subscribe for more episodes, and let us know your thoughts in the comments!

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00 ] Hello Simone. I am honestly very bummed to be here with you today because today we are gonna be like, I literally, like today, I’ve been thinking, does it even make sense to continue to. Does it make sense to continue to make this podcast because the vast majority of our user base is on YouTube.

Like that’s where our discoverability has been historically, and we had finally made it to a place was this podcast where we were getting you know, our most overlaps for like asthma, gold, and nuts and shoe on head, and. Really big players, that meant that we had room to scale. Like if that’s who is similar to our viewer, it means that our scale rate is, you know, in the millions, right?

If we’re playing by the traditional algorithm, we had won the algorithmic game and we just needed to keep producing consistently, and then something horrifying happened and it shows that. Our entire informational ecosystem. And I would say, you know, if you’re in the administration, something needs to be done about, this is about to be overturned and this is something that has happened in the past few days.

[00:01:00 ] So we did a video and you can go find it on our substack, and I’d suggest that people who like our channel and Patreon. Well, apron is less relevant because it’s not free. But what’s important is if you like the channel, subscribe on Substack. Because that could give us a way to continue doing the types of videos we like to do which challenged mainstream narratives.

And we did a video where we argued that in a modern context from the fact that he was a. You know, a failed har art student who was mad that his father told him too many rules and he whined about that. And that he had many leftist ideas. You know, whether it was his environmentalism or his animal advocacy, or his army’s literally marching under.

The sign that swastika, which was the sign of the theosophical, you know, a pagan society that later became modern wickedness, or that wicked was derived from because the a lot of the new age movement was derived from this. So we’re basically arguing you should not. Look up to Hitler in this [00:02:00 ] episode.

If you are a, a right-leaning young edge Lord there are better figures to look up to than Hitler who would not look like many right-leaning heroes in like the modern media landscape, and it wanted to ban that episode. Right. Like this was the first time we’ve been banned and this is like an official ban.

Like if it happens again for the same reason our YouTube is taken down for like a week or and then if it happens again, I think it’s a couple months. And then if it happens again, it’s erased entirely. Just delete really all our videos. Everything. Yeah. When Simone, when you’re like, oh, we should just test.

No, we can’t just test Simone. Like the situation is really bad. And what’s interesting is we can see. Why it was taken down. Because what has happened to YouTube is YouTube moderation. This happened about three days ago, has gone almost entirely over to Gemini. Or that’s like the rumor on the street.

Again. I have to have qualifications and everything now. And, and you can go watch that video. By the way, if you go watch the video, you’ll see it’s an incredibly. Inoffensive anti Hitler video, [00:03:00 ] right, like a video saying Hitler is bad, is taken down because it doesn’t follow mainstream narratives about why Hitler is bad.

Think about that. Think about how narrow that means the conversation is. And it’s not just that our videos have been doing uniquely bad since this changeover happened. And so it’s why, so what happened with the Gemini changeover is mm-hmm. Now the, the. Blunt algorithm, which used to determine like people who watch videos like yours.

Oh, somebody watches a lot of your video. They watch a lot of other videos. Yeah, let’s show them that. No. Now everything is reviewed by Gemini and given a trust score. And so what’s really cool is we can go over what the live model of gen and I. Thinks of our video transcripts and whether or not it would flag our transcripts.

And this is what’s really gonna get you, because I’m gonna go over why it flagged our transcript. Okay. And when you see why it flagged our transcript, what you’ll realize is it’s really just this is not part of the mainstream narrative. Then I’m very

curious to see [00:04:00 ] what it says about the episode that we’re recording right now.

Right. Well, I, yeah. Who knows if it’s gonna be able to stay live either and, and when I talk about, like this completely changed, this channel is we do episode, you know, like, like, drafts, right? Where we’re like, oh, this would be a good episode, or this would be a good episode. And I literally had to like, go through our drafts and nix about 80% of the episodes that we were planning to record.

Just because I’m like it, it challenges dominant narratives and YouTube will not allow that anymore. So let’s go over this. Alright, so, one. Read it, said it would likely ban it. And keep in mind, we appealed the ban on this episode. The episode saying Hitler is bad, and it doubled down saying, no, we won’t unpeel this ban.

So. And, and even when I asked the live model, it’s like, oh yeah, I would’ve banned this episode. So you can see why the episode was banned, which I really like, like the logic here. Harassment and cyber bullying, use of slurs, right? So, the, one of the things that says is YouTube has a strict policy against the use of [00:05:00 ] prolonged name calling, are malicious slurs based on protected attributes including disability.

Okay? So we used the R word and that was not okay.

The, the, the r word being mentally disadvantaged, right? Mm-hmm. Now, what’s notable about this is Trump the leader of one of the two dominant political parties in the United States. The country where YouTube is based used this word in that context.

Trump. Yeah. Like this, this

week, at least the week of the recording of this episode that got taken down that very same week, the president of the United States used that word. In public addresses, however, and,

and hold on. Andy was questioned by the press about this, and he doubled down.

Yeah. But he’s also famously been banned on mainstream platforms in the past.

Maybe we’re just going back to that somehow. Well,

that was. A horrifying thing that happened. Trump won with over 50% of the popular vote in this country. Mm-hmm. Right. To say that [00:06:00 ] something he’s doing is a sign of political extremism. Right. Or the targeting of specific individuals when the very word that I chose to use.

Itself was coined by medical professionals to be in offensive when the previous word, by the way, do you know the, the story of this,

the previous word was idiot, right?

Yeah. And they decided, oh, that’s offensive. So we’ll use a word that nobody could think is offensive, because it’s literally just saying that they have a.

Developmental delay. Mm-hmm. And then they decided to move the goalpost again. Right? Like you, what are we supposed to do as a society? Like constantly move goalposts. Constantly move goalposts, constantly move goalposts. Just churn through words. Churn through words. Like, come on, get realistic here. Like, and this is something the president was doing and I, and so I point this out.

If you are framing something that Trump is doing as politically extreme, then your definition of political extreme has an extreme amount of political bias. To the point of it being [00:07:00 ] bigoted in itself because it is disenfranchising 50% of the population of the United States. And note it is the 50% of the population that earns less money, has less control within large corporations, is from often economic, not often statistically economically disadvantaged regions.

So like it is literally. Victimizing the lower classes in the United States who are more likely to vote Republican, the less educated who are more likely to vote Republican. It is bigotry and disenfranchisement to attack something like that. But I’ll note here, right before we go further, before we go further.

That, that and, and this is normal within those communities ‘cause they don’t share your cultural norms, right? They, they would say, yeah, we agree that you shouldn’t attack or dehumanize people with disabilities. And we don’t think that this word does that. That’s why we use it. Right. If I thought that that word was actually doing that, I wouldn’t use it that way.

This is a difference in cultural norms. Yeah. Well, and also

that [00:08:00 ] word is never used anymore to refer to people with disabilities. Not same with idiot. It’s not like people are like, oh, look