Disclaimer: I haven't read the full thread.
I disagree vehemently with Brand being demonetised by YT because these private companies Facebook, X, TikTok etc increasingly (well they do) operate as the Public Square and there is yet no hard evidence of him doing anything that violates their conduct code.
I do not like the increasingly close and pentagrammic collaboration of NGOs, Big Business, Big Tech, Big Media and Government. It is not a desirable thing to anyone with sense, and it is dangerous to the notion of democracy. Yet, over the years that collaboration has become increasingly and more overt. Where is the independence? The MSM publish allegations against Brand and in mere hours he is demonetised by a major online streaming platform. A platform he uses to make money. For me the resemblance to the punitive actions of social credit systems is too similar for comfort.
Sure, Brand doesn't depend on that money, but it takes little imagination to consider that increasingly many people's major source of income is generated online. Should a company be able to easily shut down your source of revenue on the basis of allegations? What's next, you say something the government doesn't like and your online income is shut down? What if you're not so rich and rely on that income to eat or pay your rent or mortgage? Should you have to consider the status of your personal life in order state your opinion? We saw protestors in Canada have their bank accounts frozen and we saw Nigel Farage have his account closed. Both cases involved unpopular political actions and opinions. Both resulted in threats to income and fiscal mobility.
There used to be a time that people jealously defended against any threats to their personal freedoms and liberties. However, in the last 10 years (and most definitely the last 4) I notice the strange phenomenon of people actually arguing for their freedoms to be curtailed, ostensibly on the basis of doing what seems to be bracketed as a 'good'. It is often a fatal exercise in short term thinking. Thinking generated by emotions such as fear, anger and dislike rather than objective logic.
We see this with climate change politics. People often argue for less rights for themselves and their children. They want a carbon credit system, they want to not be able to travel freely, and they want to not have the option of what to eat, or the option of buying new clothes in order to 'save the planet'. They effectively want tyrannical Big Government. It is very strange to me everytime I observe this, as it seems so counterintuitive.
You might hate RB at the moment, but arguing that private companies that operate as the public square should be able to demonetise anyone (on their platform on the basis of vaguely written clauses in their contracts, open to interpretation as they wish) instead of on the basis of solid, fair & valid principles of democracy, and thinking it won't come and bite you at some point in the future counts as such in my mind. Ultimately, self-destructive in the long term. It is interesting to see people being manipulated into legitimising it.