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I saw the video as well.

> First of all, the video uploader is promoting a competitor to YouTube. This is not disclaimed clearly.

You are starting of by literally the last thing on the video which is the promotion of the uploader's income stream, a standard practice for full-time youtubers... to prove what?

> The video goes over criticism to the CIA, which are fair enough. But it takes some things as axioms, for example, that only the US are interfering/meddling in the world. He presents it as "the US is the bad guy and the world would be fair without the CIA." Which also is a form of propaganda.

There is no such claim in the video. Very dishonest of you to missinform people about it.

Apart from that, I agree with your overall conclusion. Youtube is not a public interest organization, they are a private company making money from ads, it is their right to do as they will on their platform. The sooner people realize that, the better. Beyond that, there is an argument here for having transparent practices. There is nothing preventing youtube from saying the truth about what they do.

>The sooner people realize that, the better. Beyond that, there is an argument here for having transparent practices. There is nothing preventing youtube from saying the truth about what they do.

Indeed.

About the criticism, it really sounds like that to me in the video. It implies in the way it is written, and I don't wanna go over details of the script, but pay attention to moments when he mentions "like a good democracy" and so on.

The current status of world dominance/power is an evolution of previous iterations (be it good or bad). But we never had a democratic system the CIA is breaking. The video is presented in a way that if you don't know all of that you will assume the CIA is making the world bad. It is just one more player amongst many, and just a continuation of something that is going on since the Romans.

> The current status of world dominance/power is an evolution of previous iterations (be it good or bad). But we never had a democratic system the CIA is breaking.

True

> The video is presented in a way that if you don't know all of that you will assume the CIA is making the world bad.

Maybe true, but this is an unintended consequence. In no point does the uploader make such a claim or presents evidence to make you think of that. It's only by absence of mentions one can derrive to this false conclusion (that cia is the only such player)

Final thought, although I get your criticism of the uploader, let's say "forgeting" other players as CIA, I would argue they are the biggest and most impactful contemporary agency. Thus, although not the only one, sure the one to be most concerned about. Thus his lack of mentioning other players isn't that of a con to me. My argument is based on what we publicly know of these agencies.

It’s not just absence of mentions of actions by other clandestine actors, it’s absence of even acknowledging what kind of world does cia operate in - everybody all the time is engaged in secret operations to advance their agenda. Everybody does that in multiple parallel projects, operated in different capacities with people of varying competency.

Any “storytelling” about single agency or project or a person is incomplete almost to the point of being misleading/disinformational. The legacy of ashes is one such example.

Does it mean one shouldn’t be (allowed) telling those stories? Certainly not. But without actively and profusely apologizing and warning that the story is definitely incomplete and almost certainly incorrect without proper context, which often is unknowable - the value to the consumer is negative.

The producer knowingly or not is acting as a propaganda actor for one or many competing agencies.

Asking out of curiosiry. Do you have an contemporary actors in mind that operate on the same level as CIA? Because it seems to me like there is much concern about other "conpetitors", but I do not know of any. Not to be missinterpreted, I don't say there aren't spy agencies from other countries trying to do similar things, I'm saying I am not aware of any that operate on a similar scale and range as CIA. Interested in learning about those

KGB did not go anywhere since USSR’s collapse. They literally operate a mafia superpower with nuclear capacity right now in form of Russia. They are also more sophisticated in terms of people operations since they’ve been at it for quite a bit longer and they were never restrained by even a facade of moral responsibility USA places upon itself by pretending to be democratic and leader of the free world.

Whatever China’s counterpart to CIA is can’t be small either be it in scale or sophistication.

Don’t underestimate those by comparing purely financial side of things, agencies that operate on ideology tend to have way more motivated and focused humans which more than makes up any financial shortcomings. The whole industry operates on the idea of asymmetric response and making the US waste so much resources is part of the goal.

Again, I appreciate the existence of others. Do we have any knowledge of them doing what CIA has? Have they organized dozens of coups on the other side of the globe or something?

you only have knowledge about CIA because they willingly declassify information after some time. KGB doesn't. people that talk suddenly get polonium in their tea or novichok on their door handles, and that's how they operate on UK's soil in freaking London, people in other places just disappear without a trace and investigation.

as for what have they organized.. well, let's check the last couple year: USA presidency - check, UK exit from EU - check, Catalania almost leaving Spain, Marine le Pen almost becoming president of France, huge rise of AfD popularity in Germany, hacking of various high profile corporations, olympic games and governments. destabilization of global alliances and international relations is what they do for decades.

> you only have knowledge about CIA because they willingly declassify information after some time.

Willingly declassify information? Ok this is hard troll teritory, I refuse to dig deeper.

The entire legacy of ashes book is compiled from such declassified documents.

> literally the last thing on the video

The video starts, "This video brought to you by Nebula, the streaming platform for content providers like you and me."

Apologies, my mind completely erased that for some reason. Although this detail is false the validity of my point still stands. The creator's sponsor doesn't have anything to do with the action youtube has taken nor with the content of the video.There is nothing to be prooved by pointing that out.

Wow, your post is beyond sinister!

1) He did not imply the world would be "good" if the CIA didn't exist. That's a ridiculous take and is smearing a very well researched channel.

2) Youtube didn't just stop promoting this piece. They are hiding it. You can't find it even if you search for it.

3) He's not just trying to "create a buzz", department of homeland security paid him a visit now his videos are disappearing - if you think that's not worrisome, well damn!

4) Implying that if you create an axiom that has not been "state approved" then you deserve to get delisted?

Insanely dystopian because you more or less don't seem to care and justify state intervention in private well researched but pretty bland political historical takes.

His views are not that radical. Almost standard in many European countries and that result in some state agency coming to his door and threatening him? Like what??

Replying point by point:

(1) He does imply that in the script yes, in several ways. Pay close attention to moments like "like a good democracy should never have interference".

(2) The bit about YouTube hiding is good point taken, I didn't notice that, I thought it was just not showing up in recommended videos.

(3) He is also trying to create a buzz, the homeland security visit is not related to that video. My point is not that it is not worrisome, but that this is nothing new. The US is like this since the beginning. Have you ever seen what happens to journalists that crack open the NSA and CIA?

(4) And it does not imply that, but implies that YouTube is not a platform for free speech, as it has never been. No novelty here. Surprisingly if it was the TV times this wouldn't even go live, no it is going live. The system is changing little by little, but doesn't mean it is 100% free speech. Never was.

There use to be a reasonable channel by a retired CIA employee. His many videos simply showed pictures of a country along with the declassified text about the mission. The channel one day just vanished. The "why?" is left up to our imagination. All I know is that making the channel took a good bit of effort and the content was historically significant.

Its not dystopian only because somebody has a difference of opinion. That is perhaps the opposite of dystopian.

I didn't see any claim in the video that the CIA is the only organization of such sort. It might make you feel this way because it's entirely focused on the CIA.

It didn't claim neither that the world would be fair without the CIA.

It's definitely one-sided and is just a quick overview of the CIA (but you wouldn't expect more from a short video on such a big subject), but I fail to see how it is propaganda.

My point is not that it clears all other organizations, but doesn't even mention one other. Which is an editorial choice.

edit: not only that, but also implies that the CIA actions are one-sided, as in other players were not trying to mess and do the same to harm the US in the same actions (let's say, Iran).

> but doesn't even mention one other. Which is an editorial choice.

That's some weird hot take on a 20 min video titled "The CIA is a Terrorist Organization". He's obligated to mention Moussad, KGB/FSB et al, because "both sides"?

Also last I checked, "we only did shady shit cause they did shady shit" isn't much os a defense anyway.

>First of all, the video uploader is promoting a competitor to YouTube. This is not disclaimed clearly.

If you're referring to the nebula ad at the end, he and other youtubers have been advertising it for months, if not years now. No other video with a nebula ad has been shadow banned like this.

Also, trying to paint this as "Youtube isn't promoting it" is disingenuous. Youtube is hiding it from people who've explicitly asked to be notified about his videos.

Not my point, my point is that because he has other sponsors that heads-on compete with Youtube, his views about YouTube are not unbiased. He gains something when he promotes Nebula, in hopes to gain even more than what he makes on YouTube.

Now about the promoting, it is my bad, I thought that YouTube wasn't showing it in frontpage, not that it was literally removed from search. I tried searching for the video and it indeed doesn't show in the results. That's a negative point for YouTube.

the video uploader is promoting his own competitor to youtube, a streaming service. that is mentioned in the end of the video, and it should really be mentioned in the thread title.

There are dozens of YouTubers on that platform who regularly advertise it in their videos on YouTube. Doubt that has anything to do with this.

It doesn't, but it also means the author has a bias against YouTube to promote the other platform.

There are many videos promoting competitors to YouTube that don't get shadow banned, nor visits from Homeland Security. For example The Legal Eagle channel always promotes a competitor to YouTube, as paid advertising in each video.

You're mixing the arguments.

I did not say he is getting Homeland Security visits because of a previous video, he got it because he is criticizing the country he lives in, and that country does not and never had opening to do that.

And I did not mean that his video is being unlisted because of Nebula, the reason is because of the kind of content.

My point about Nebula/YouTube is that his critics of YouTube are biased, since he gains something if people move to Nebula (in the long and the short run).

Legal Eagle fan here \o

Yeah, I did not mean that it's being shadowbanned because of it, but his criticism (to YouTube) are biased by definition.

> And at the same time, the buzz around saying "my video is being suppressed" get more views and is even a badge to prove the content "hits where it hurts".

The videos on that channel regularly have hundreds of thousands of views with many videos even having millions of them a long time before it had this "badge" to "get more views" [0].

So while it could be an attempt to utilize the Streisand effect for marketing, I consider that rather unlikely because the channel really doesn't need it and I can't think of a way the creator could force YouTube to reliably delist the video to make it a viable PR tactic.

[0] https://socialblade.com/youtube/channel/UCJm2TgUqtK1_NLBrjNQ...

> that only the US are interfering/meddling in the world

They didn't claim that. You inferred it.

>Youtube's goals is not the same as the authors, why would they promote something that is not what they want to be?

Because YT doesn't come out and say "We don't want controversial content on our platform. We don't want to question the ruling order of the country from which we operate". If they did, it would be a bit more honest. I don't see why you seem to be defending their quasi-suppressive behavior.

Don't get me wrong, it's a great video with lots of research in the most known CIA meddling like Cuba, Latin America, Iran, and so on.

But it's literally nothing new to anyone with any political knowledge that countries meddle in each other business all the time.

The difference is that it is exposed in a way to make it sensationalist.

The buildup to the Iraq war (WMD) was sensationalist. Propaganda propagated by powerful corporations on the American people to instigate a fake excuse for war. If it's sensationalist to speak truth regards power of the US propaganda machine, them yes, there is no other way. One cannot downplay the fact that the machine is all-powerful.

The internet was supposed to be the antidote to old propaganda, but corporations have taken over the mainstream internet, and wield even more power over our lives. Again, we should not downplay this fact.

> But it's literally nothing new to anyone with any political knowledge

It's therefore even more surprising and alarming that generally available information still gets shadow banned.

> It takes some things as axioms, for example, that only the US are interfering/meddling in the world

Where does it claim that? I'm not saying you are lying. I didn't watch it properly so I may have missed it.

> It's a bit näive to not see this as anti-government propaganda.

I don't know what that means. Are you saying that something in the video is untrue or just that it contains facts that make the US government look bad? Would you describe a similar video criticizing an enemy of the US government (whether another government, terrorist organisation, or something else) in the same way?

> Youtube's goals is not the same as the authors

I think the problem here is if YouTube's goal is to help the government who (according to the author) is Google's customer. YouTube is under no obligation to do anything to help spread the author's video, but they should definitely be criticised for working with an organisation committing horrible abuses and acts of violence.

>Where does it claim that? I'm not saying you are lying. I didn't watch it properly so I may have missed it.

All the conflicts are shown as one-sided. Like the Iran one, where he mentions US/CIA interference, but doesn't mention all other players that also wanted to interfere there, because Iran and oil were essential to the global scenario of Cold War (and eventually a not cold war).

>I don't know what that means. Are you saying that something in the video is untrue or just that it contains facts that make the US government look bad? Would you describe a similar video criticizing an enemy of the US government (whether another government, terrorist organisation, or something else) in the same way?

I'm saying the video does indeed make an extra effort to make the US government / CIA look bad indeed. The thing is, looks like there is an editorial choice to make that point, and the video went after it. No wonder it can/will raise eyebrows in the US government / CIA. Which is a completely sepparate problem from youtube/online censoring.

>I think the problem here is if YouTube's goal is to help the government who (according to the author) is Google's customer. YouTube is under no obligation to do anything to help spread the author's video, but they should definitely be criticised for working with an organisation committing horrible abuses and acts of violence.

Indeed. That's exactly what I mean. YouTube is in close ties with the government, and also led by advertisers, they explicitly want to make it more friendly to the most viewers possible. And that kind of documentary is not aligned with that goal, thus will not be promoted.

But it is important to notice the difference between promoting it and hiding it actively. I can't find the video while searching for the exact title.

> They have a huge infant audience,

And that's so wrong in so many ways.