Algorithms - why was an unheard song by an unknown artist BANNED INSTANTLY by YouTube?

YouTube is awash with footage featuring violence, misinformation, extreme views, inappropriate sexual imagery - you name it. It's perhaps no wonder, given the rate of uploads to the video-sharing behemoth. Who, or what, could possibly keep on top of this digital torrent of toxicity?

Sure, YouTube tries its best but it's fighting a losing battle. It's easy to find stuff that breaches the site's rules. Much of this footage has been clocking up views for months or years with no action taken against the offending accounts. 

So why was it, then, that a song nobody has heard, by an artist nobody has heard of, got thrown in YouTube's virtual trash can almost as soon as it was posted on the site?  

Maybe, just maybe, the answer lies in the subject matter. 

'Algorithms' is a Green Day-esque track that rages against social media's propensity to entrench and reinforce personal prejudices, polarising political discourse and leading to fury and, ultimately, violence.

The track doesn't pull any punches, likening our need to constantly check social media feeds on our smartphones to an addiction with the irresistible draw of crack cocaine.

The video is a montage of footage already available in other forms on YouTube. It shows angry protests from across the globe: manifestations of increasing political extremism and the spread of conspiracy theories and misinformation. It suggests, correctly, that the rise of QAnon and the attack on Capitol Hill are unthinkable without social media.

A detailed explanation, putting the song and video in context, was posted by the artist, making clear the track's lyrics are a warning about the consequences of social media algorithms, not an endorsement of violence or extremism. And yet YouTube still decided the content somehow breached its guidelines on 'glorifying or inciting acts of violence'. The artist appealed against this bizarre ruling but hit a brick wall.

A cynical might suggest it's little wonder that YouTube took the video down with such unseemly haste and ignored pleas for it to rethink its utterly perverse decision. 

YouTube positions itself as a benign, fun platform. In reality, it is a repository of some of the more egregious examples of mind-bending conspiracy theories, extremist views and plain disturbing content. 

YouTube is apparently content to leave all this stuff up: after all, it generates clicks and ad revenue. But woe betide anyone who attempts to draw attention to the way in which it, and other websites, are contributing to the end of civility, rising levels of political violence and extremism, and the undermining of western democracy itself!

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Algorithms from Bile Eye on Vimeo.