We often make fun at stupid European regulations, like AI ones, but it is typically in such a case that it is useful. So to ensure that it could not happen when companies like that have such a monopoly that users have no power.
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The only exception I know of, for which there is some regulation where they can't just say "no", legally, are banks. And trust me, if banks don't want you as a customer they will do everything in their power to maliciously comply to the point your account is useless and perma frozen.
What is this lunacy about Google regulation about? If Google doesn't want Enderman, you can't force them to have him.
I get what you really mean is regulating so companies are forced to process and communicate via non-automated, non-AI systems for whatever a, b, c issue or reason, but this doesn't change anything because of how simple and cheap is malicious compliance.
All Google needs to do is "yeah, okay, we'll also review it with human", and put some intern to press a green button manually.
Unless you can prove discrimination, it's their house, it's their business, they can and should do what they want.
The issue is that Youtube is one of the strongest and hardest to break monopolies on the internet. It's the hardest part of the degoogling process.
That's just not true.
Up till now, no government has (to my knowledge) tried to dictate to a major American platform owner that they may not ban certain users or classes of users, but that doesn't mean that they can't.
It's really not the same thing as the issue of forcing an employer to rehire an illegally-fired employee—where the employee then remains there under a cloud, because they have to continually interact with the people who wanted them gone. In 99.999% of cases, when a platform removes a user, there's zero relationship between that user and the people involved in making that decision.
If Congress made a law tomorrow (laughable in the current environment, I know) that said that any public video platform provider with over X users couldn't ban anyone except for specific reasons, then YouTube would, indeed, have to keep such people on their platform.
If digikey decides they don't want to do business with me, I am not suddenly unable to buy from 30% of the world's manufacturers, unable to sell to 70% of my customers and locked out of my manufacturing line's plc.
If Safeway decides to decline my business, I am not locked out of eating bread from anyone who buys their flour from them.
If Cocacola doesn't want to renew our contract because I mentioned to my customers that we also stock Pepsi, I can still buy Cocacola from the wholesaler and resell it, and regardless I don't lose access to my accountant and mailbox when they terminate that relationship.
This is demonstrably false.
Where I live, stores aren't allowed to refuse a sale under most circumstances (barring some specifically-listed exceptions like selling alcohol to minors). Same for schools, we don't have a concept of "expulsion" unless it's court-mandated. There's no reason a similar regulation couldn't be applied to digital platforms.
Whether such a regulation should exist is a different matter entirely. Fighting fraud and scams is difficult enough already, making them harder to fight means we get more of them. Either that, or Google starts demanding rigorous ID verification from everybody who wants a Youtube channel.
That I agree 100%.
But Youtube really did nothing to become or preserve its monopoly really. It's really a reinforcing most creators -> most users -> most money -> most creators -> most users.
That's not only true for B2C, as most codexes have at best laws about public utilities (you can't be denied electricity for no reason), sometimes banks, and sometimes regulated professionals (lawyers, insurers, etc).
This is particularly true for B2B, as Youtube and creators transactions are.
Prove me the contrary: find me a single law that forces any business to have business with any other, regardless of them wanting to or not.
I'm 100% sure nobody can force me to do business with people I don't want and if you're a professional I can't force you either to do business with me. Why would you think this would be a good law to have? Only discrimination would be a valid reason.
If Google (business) doesn't want to platform a creator (another business), that's their right.
Of course we can question the morale or ethics, but that's about it.
> If Congress made a law tomorrow (laughable in the current environment, I know) that said that any public video platform provider with over X users couldn't ban anyone except for specific reasons, then YouTube would, indeed, have to keep such people on their platform.
But such laws do not exist in pretty much any part of the world: you can't force a business (Youtube) to do business with another one (a creator).
The reason why this is obviously different is because Youtube is a de facto monopoly on large parts of internet content.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anti-discrimination_la...
Sorry, but either you've phrased yourself poorly for what you actually want to say, or you're genuinely unaware of the many anti-discrimination laws in the US, a substantial number of which explicitly prohibit businesses from refusing service to people in protected categories.
> unless you can prove discrimination, it's their house, it's their business, they can and should do what they want
None of the links you posted, I skimmed quickly, says anything about my point: that you cannot refuse business if you don't want to (unless you can prove the reason you don't want to is illegal).
Yeah, I don't think that's a particularly strong statement anymore.
It's your problem to prove that it was racially or religiously motivated or something.
It's not a strong statement it's a fact.
You cannot force anybody to do business with you. Not me, can't force my brother, can't force my mother's laundry to have you as client.
Guess what? I can't force other companies to do business with me too! I can't force a lawyer to have me as a client, nor I can force a bank, nor an insurance.
Do you know how many countless "no"s companies I worked in got?
API companies unwilling to have us as clients because too small. Wanting to open the wallet? Not enough if we can't prove we can't ramp it up fast.
What could we do? Nothing.
Stripe or other payment processors can notoriously deny you services without owning you any explanation.
You just can't. Business is about trading and I can't be forced to trade with those I don't want to, nor they can be if they don't want me, for whatever reason (unless discrimination can be proven).
The only businesses that most laws force to offer a service are public utilities and even then, I can guarantee you 100%, that even banks if they don't want you as a client, even if they are among the few businesses that have, they still won't have you and rather drag this through courts and then maliciously comply to the point of effectively being unbanked.