This has probably been the shortest-lasting comeback I have ever made. I have my reasons: after I had posted the message of my return, I had posted a long post on the nature of what makes a character attractive, and why the then-current Super Bowl halftime show with Maroon 5 didn’t have the same response as the Janet Jackson issue. The post was long, and one of my best work, I’d say so myself.

That’s when Soup ate it in another of its outages. No, I didn’t have a backup.

Frustrated with many things in real life, I gave up and searched for another topic to write. And after a while, I looked up recent items in the news, and came across something very interesting. I think it’d make a good subject for this blog, given the on-and-off-again focus it has.

Another YouTube Armageddon has taken hold, one that happened over the comments of pedophiles negatively commenting on a channel of a wholesome family. Because of those comments, the channel was demonetized, as in, all income was removed, while YouTube’s only statement was that the comments of others could hold them liable.

Now, I can’t comment on the staff of YouTube, but these are presumably the same people who object to the common argument that a woman wearing a revealing outfit who goes into a bad part of town is asking for trouble.

And obviously, I object to that argument as well. When I ask that women choose their outfits to match their location, I’m not doing it to restrict upon their choice. I do it because they cannot chose the actions of the people who live in that part of town, and, unless they could handle it with some kind of defense against criminals, they should be careful because those people have already made up their minds, and nothing will dissuade them from doing it, even if it is legally and morally incorrect. That’s why it’s a crime, and why they are criminals. They know they’re not supposed to do it, they just don’t care, because their sense of desire and the ability to do whatever they want at that given moment is simply more powerful.

I am the last person to defend pedophiles. I don’t usually consider any of the kids I post or have posted “sexy” in any way. If I post a comment on a picture like the ones I posted, I find them more “cute.” And not cute in a way that suggests romantic or sexual attraction; parental attraction or platonic attraction, a desire to protect and hug, but not a perverted or romantic way. That’s because kids don’t understand what love or lust is, and so cannot reasonably act on it. It’s why one of my favorite novels, Brave New World, showed what a nightmare that world was through the way the culture devalues sex to the point where it’s seen as recreation for children.

So when I see cases where these videos are demonetized, and a channel’s only source of income is deleted not through the fault of their own, but because of someone who is already breaking the law, it puts a scowl on my face. That scowl is there for a variety of reasons, but chief among them is a very common argument I have heard for the defense of… well, the initial purpose behind the blog: to showcase young girls in situations boys go through and show how it’s unfair to do things to only boys.

“We can’t do this in television/the movies because it’ll attract pedophiles.”

Now, in the past, I’ve countered this argument through a number of common counterarguments: “Pedophiles are attracted to boys, too, so they have everything they need.” “You can show other things that accidentally trigger other fetishes just fine, why not this one?” “They’re drawings, and I would prefer a nonexistent person serve an outlet for pedophiles than a real one.” “The child is not being harmed because they do not exist.” Many arguments have been made, and all have been debated. This is natural; people will nonetheless find the drawings ‘icky’ and want to ban them. That’s been the nature of human history. Just as the mainstream right has banned such art when they held power because of moral reasons, the mainstream left now bans them with their newly-acquired power because of moral reasons.

But this situation requires more care than a catchphrase. A real person is now facing danger of stalking and harm because of a lecherous-minded individual or number of individuals. Even worse is that the one in danger is 8 years old. As such, I am going to approach the topic with a lot more nuance.

Obviously, one needs to block and report the individual in question who posts such comments, not just to the site’s authorities, but to the state’s authorities. These people represent a huge danger if they have such a lack of self-control that they gleefully proclaim their lust for these children in the public forum. Just as you cannot yell fire in a crowded theater, you cannot and should not state how you find an innocent family, one who is alive and in the state they are in currently as opposed to, say, an older film starring children who are adults in this era.

Demonetizing the video and even the channel because they were attracting the wrong crowd was the wrong choice in all aspects. This family should be protected from these perverts, because the perverts cannot be trusted. But the family is now having their actions restricted because of the actions of the criminal. If someone robs a store from a specific item, you would find it crazy if the management declared the item as contraband. If someone is abusive towards a person, you’d find it insane if the victim of abuse had a restraining order put on them to keep them away from the abuser in question. You are, in all three cases, hypothetical and real, punishing the victim for the actions of the villain. That’s not how justice works!

But if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that management of these large tech firms are little more than armchair management. They would rather let automated algorithms do the work that their own staff should take a critical eye to. And, of course, we all know the dangers of leaving enforcing right and wrong in the hands of machines that don’t know the difference to begin with. From Skynet to the Sentinels, fiction is filled to the brim with cases where machines, using nothing but logic, turn against the human race through the rigidity of their programming dictating that humanity as a whole falls under the umbrella of the threat they were designed to destroy. They cannot read sarcasm, and they don’t know when the cigar is just a cigar. So the algorithms falsely flag enemy targets that are not actually the enemy they were meant to fight, assuming the codeword is being said when it was never meant in code.

The management do these things because, in their words, “you can’t individually handle such a large crowd.” To a point I understand. As websites become more and more monopolistic, users from destroyed or untenable websites have to jump ship to the monopoly just to have a platform. That increases the number of cases you have to look at, that increases the number of violations or false flags, that requires a larger staff to work on the problem. But rather than expand the staff to a number that can handle such a large amount of users without being fatigued, the staff tends to stay small and rely mostly on close friends who share their biases. An algorithm is so much easier, so manpower can be put into other departments.

But logically, when you draw focus towards one side, you sacrifice others, remove things that would be considered nonessential. And at this point, YouTube has declared the customer, i.e. the first part of their name, nonessential. You have become less valuable to YouTube than large name celebrities from Hollywood, ones who claim to fight the 1% while being a part of it.

When these large companies began, they were but small forums for people to showcase their growth of talent. Draw something cool? Put it on DeviantArt. Edit a good video? Put it on YouTube. The whole point of them was etched into their names: they were deviating from the establishment, placing you in the spotlight. Now, as websites crumble and rules become more rigid, their name is little more than a contradiction. Disobey the central computer’s rules, and your account will be terminated. Make a counterculture platform and your mutation will be detected and expunged. And now you can be arrested not for committing a crime, but for being the victim of one.

Welcome to The Current Year. Enjoy your stay.