- cross-posted to:
- justpost@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- justpost@lemmy.world
Odysee, a decentralised YouTube alternative focused on free speech, is officially ending the serving of ads on the platform, starting today. The post:
"Dear friends of Odysee, Starting today, we’re removing all ads. We don’t need ads to make money as a platform and we are confident in the development of our own new monetisation programs that will help creators earn a living and at the same time keep Odysee alive. Ultimately, sacrificing the overall user experience to make a few bucks isn’t worth it to us and nor is it even sustainable for a platform that wishes to make something truly open and creatively free.
As we take this decision, one thing is certain to us, media platforms (even ones that market themselves as ‘free-speech’) typically devolve into advertising companies and end up becoming beholden to their paymasters. It’s been that way for centuries and is never going to change.
As we see YouTube become more aggressive with their ad deployment and ‘Free Speech’ platforms try to build their own ad businesses it’s apparent to us that we’re building a model for Odysee that will keep it sustainable not only financially, but in its ability to provide an incorruptible user experience.
Our approach may be considered niche or unconventional, that’s fine by us. Odysee will be used by the world on terms that are agreeable to its users, and we know our users don’t like ads.
Best, Founder & Creator, Chief Executive Officer. Julian Chandra"
Focused on “free speech”?
When I see that used multiple times by a platform operator it invariably means they’re right-wing wingnuts and/or the platform will devolve into right wing drivel while silencing dissent.
Yup. And on descriptive grounds, the whole thing falls into a false dichotomy: treating free speech as an all-or-nothing matter, instead treating freedom of speech as a scale. And that giving someone complete freedom of speech always means restricting the freedom of speech of someone else.
(I typically exemplify this through a guy with a megaphone in an offline plaza. Telling him to drop off the megaphone reduces his ability to reach willing listeners, thus his freedom of speech; but if you leave him alone nobody else can be heard, so their freedom of speech is lowered.)
Thank you, you put it better than I could. It’s not binary, it’s not all or nothing. You can have some freedom of speech and yet still not really have freedom of speech if you’re silenced by those who disagree.
Yes, your megaphone example is a special case of the paradox of tolerance. In this instance, tolerance of loud voices means quiet voices are drowned out.
It’s related - Popper’s paradox highlights that you can’t compromise with some people, while my focus is that you need to impose some limits.
It’s easy to tweak the example though, to be more like the paradox - if the megaphone guy is telling people to kick off the plaza some people, or saying stuff to make them leave.
Yes, or if multiple people get into a megaphone arms race and are all noise blasting each other so hard that no one can hear anything anymore.
Looks like you care zilch for free speech. If you and others with this opinion cared for free speech, you would promote your own alternative ideas on those platforms to even things out, instead of whining that there’s more opposing views to yours on the platform than not.
Did you specifically skip past the past where I said they silence dissent?
But thanks for telling me what I believe.
Do they? Do you have evidence?
Because I’m interested in YT alternatives. I pay for Nebula, and I’m interested in other platforms as well, especially if they champion free speech (like, actual free speech, not whatever Musk means by “free speech”).
Sure. Me. I’ve had comments deleted by admins when I criticized things like Russia feeding arms to Iran, operating misinformation campaigns, and generally trying to destabilize democracies.
That’s lame. Was that before or after LBRY’s bankruptcy? I’m wondering if they’ve changed their admins.
Dunno? It was about a half year ago.
“If you really cared about free speech you wouldn’t be using your free speech to call out Nazis”
Link to an example where the platform in question has silenced dissent?
I didn’t say it did.
I said it’s a behavior that platforms like this have a habit of doing so.
It remains to be seen.