Content Poaching As A Silencing Tactic
The issue of people uploading Hollywood movies to Youtube has been a long time issue, every sense the creation of youtube itself. But after the election of Trump it started changing the dynamic considerably. Rather than simply uploading old movies you wanted to watch to preserve it ( because the choice to preserve some movies isn’t democratic as you might think ), it has become more a tool political extremist use to silence others, but attempting to pre-empt content.
Normally when we talk about censorship, what is being referenced are things like the Comics Code Authority. Rarely does this mean using things like content poaching and sometimes outright plagiarism to silence other users. But specifically on youtube, the motivation for poaching content is not out of anything like preserving things that would otherwise be lost to history, but rather as a subtle attempt at trying to discourse criticism.
The Left-Wing is usually more overt about such censorship, but outright dislike bombing people’s content, but rarely is content outright lifted from other people’s videos, to try to prevent other people from producing content about the topic. However the political right has adapted to this new left that has started uploading more content, but lifting content from anyone perceived as to the left of them, and using that as topic material.
Note that in this case, I don’t mean coincidental similarities. For example two different channels can talk about book binding and fine art. It’s more about the specifics. Such as, but not limited to, attempting to pre-empt a critique about a portion of the party line, but trying to discourage critiquing that thing by attempting to passify the person that would make the critique.
In general, this is more of a long term approach, and not something that is immediately obvious at first glance. Usually this happens in topics where channels upload upwards of 6-10 videos a day. Without calling any specific channels out, you know who I refer to. It’s time to stop trying to silence other people’s views on topics, and let them speak for themselves.