This is a big loss and it comes at a time where it will soon be more needed than ever.
The last years has been brutal to "free information". Ever since Trump became president it seems a lot of people has begged the tech giants to filter and censor. And now they do.
I remember early 2020 when rumors about a new virus in China came out. There were very little news about it. But on YouTube and Twitter you could find scary videos of Chinese police/military in hazmat suits welding shut doors to big apartment complexes. You could find pictures and videos of roads with huge piles of dirt on it to block any traveling. There were secretly filmed videos where people just collapsed on the streets and in the waiting rooms at the hospitals.
Contrast that with the glorious 2021 online experience.
Go to YouTube and search for "India covid crisis" and you'll be met with pages and pages of news reports from the big news corporations.
I don't know about you, but this is not the result I expect. In fact, it feels dystopian and scary and that YouTube has lost its purpose.
Maybe you are right about youtube in context of Indian covid. However, the coverage elsewhere in mainstream has been quite graphic in the current wave.
The generalization you're making is far from true, and with most of the comments you're talking about it's pretty easy to see why they'd get downvoted.
Also - the GP comment was about media and censorship, not China, so if downvoters were reacting to the topic of the comment or to the point it was making, it more likely had to do with that. Downvotes on comments making controversial points about divisive topics are to be expected anyhow.
The last years has been brutal to "free information". Ever since Trump became president it seems a lot of people has begged the tech giants to filter and censor. And now they do.
I remember early 2020 when rumors about a new virus in China came out. There were very little news about it. But on YouTube and Twitter you could find scary videos of Chinese police/military in hazmat suits welding shut doors to big apartment complexes. You could find pictures and videos of roads with huge piles of dirt on it to block any traveling. There were secretly filmed videos where people just collapsed on the streets and in the waiting rooms at the hospitals.
Contrast that with the glorious 2021 online experience.
Go to YouTube and search for "India covid crisis" and you'll be met with pages and pages of news reports from the big news corporations.
I don't know about you, but this is not the result I expect. In fact, it feels dystopian and scary and that YouTube has lost its purpose.