Or in other words “Megacorp reminds you that it can and will decide to pocket cut your income based on the court of public opinion”.
This is not a discussion about the allegations against him, this is about the fact that Google have decided to pocket the income they would otherwise be giving him (not taking down the videos, oh no, they’re probably bringing in even more ad revenue now!) without any convictions or similar. Not that Google is an employer (I’m sure they consider payments they make to video uploaders to be some kind of generous untaxable gift), but should an employer have the power to take away a source of income based on allegations, no matter how heinous?
Edit: seems they’re actually not putting ads on his videos at all now, which was a surprise to me
Maybe bad phrasing on my part. Innocent until proven guilty and all that, even if he’s looking pretty guilty. I didn’t want to duplicate chat that already happened on the other articles posted, I wanted to chat about the power that Google apparently has here.
Google has this power, and uses it quite often. And you don’t have to be famous, or even do anything wrong to lose access to your Google account, and your family photos, your email address, your phone number… or anything else you’ve trusted Google to handle for you.
Meet Mark (https://tech.slashdot.org/story/22/08/21/2148215/dad-photographs-son-for-doctor-google-flags-him-as-criminal-notifies-police). Mark’s young son had an infection on his penis and he was asked by the doctor’s office to take a photo so the doctor could evaluate it (this was during Covid). Google’s AI child porn detector flagged it, and started a process which got the police involved (they quickly realized that there was no crime), but Google still shutdown Mark’s account and hasn’t given it back.
If you have anything you value inside Google’s (or any other company’s) ecosystem, you should have a backup because this happens quite often (don’t even think about doing a chargeback against Google if they take money from you that they shouldn’t have).
“Innocent until proven guilty” only applies to the state. I wouldn’t want him chasing my daughter, would you? Private companies and individuals are fully entitled to treat him like he’s guilty based on their own appraisal of the evidence.
I agree with you about Google. Even though it’s good that the rapist doesn’t get to make bank by spreading conspiracy theories, it’d be better if they took the videos down. Whereas traditional media outlets and theatres are cancelling his shows and saying (as is their right) that they don’t want to work with him, Google’s like “we’ll work with you but we’re not paying you”. Not exactly the ethical stance they make it out to be, is it?