Odysee, a decentralised YouTube alternative focused on free speech, is officially ending the serving of ads on the platform, starting today. The post:
"Dear friends of Odysee, Starting today, we’re removing all ads. We don’t need ads to make money as a platform and we are confident in the development of our own new monetisation programs that will help creators earn a living and at the same time keep Odysee alive. Ultimately, sacrificing the overall user experience to make a few bucks isn’t worth it to us and nor is it even sustainable for a platform that wishes to make something truly open and creatively free.
As we take this decision, one thing is certain to us, media platforms (even ones that market themselves as ‘free-speech’) typically devolve into advertising companies and end up becoming beholden to their paymasters. It’s been that way for centuries and is never going to change.
As we see YouTube become more aggressive with their ad deployment and ‘Free Speech’ platforms try to build their own ad businesses it’s apparent to us that we’re building a model for Odysee that will keep it sustainable not only financially, but in its ability to provide an incorruptible user experience.
Our approach may be considered niche or unconventional, that’s fine by us. Odysee will be used by the world on terms that are agreeable to its users, and we know our users don’t like ads.
Best, Founder & Creator, Chief Executive Officer. Julian Chandra"
Is this like…an actual commitment to free speech, or is “freeze peach” I.e. the right claiming they are being silenced online with no evidence and demanding they never be held accountable for what they say?
Unfortunately, it’s probably the latter.
They have actively defended far-right content, even videos that have openly called for genocide.
For balance, though, they haven’t purged left wing content like some “free speech” people do (not that there’s much of that there anyway)
Do they also suppress left/socialist content?
If they did, then yeah it’s a shit service.
I am by no means defending Nazi content. But if they are allowing any speech, I’d say this is closer to being “free speech” than Twitter currently is.
Speech doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and all ideas aren’t equal. The libertarian idea of absolute free speech is a half-baked notion that holds that Nazi philosophies are equal to Humanist philosophies, and they each deserve the same megaphone and chance to thrive.
Fuck. That. And fuck anyone who thinks that or platforms Nazis. Libertarian free speech is a myth that only benefits Nazis and other bad actors.
Yes, it goes both ways. And they aren’t using the platform to push any of their personal believes either.
Why does that always end up being the case?
Because good people aren’t free speech absolutists, because we understand the danger of leaving violent or dishonest ideas unchallenged.
Anyone who thinks Nazism is an idea worthy of consideration is just a Nazi. That argument was concluded in 1945, and the only people revisiting it are people who want a different conclusion.
Are you seriously telling me that you think videos on YouTube and other mainstream platforms aren’t being censored? People need to stop calling it a “right” platform. People of all political ideologies are on the platform, you are just picking out the stuff you don’t like; the platform isn’t even political or meant for that purpose; it’s meant for all forms of content creation.
Why do you think they have the categories in their sidebar, "Pop Culture; Artists; Education; Lifestyle; Spooky; Gaming; Tech; Comedy; Music; Sports; Universe; Finance 2.0; Spirituality; News & Politics; Wild West – in that order… Notice Politics is second last?
I didn’t call it anything, I’m asking. I never said YouTube was a free speech platform. In fact I didn’t say anything about YouTube.
Please read what I wrote again. “Free speech” is a very loaded term now online so I was seeking clarification on what “free speech” means to them. It was a genuine question that is warranted when browsing online in 2024.
Sorry… I apologise for the misunderstanding and mini-rant.
You appeared to me to be asking a rhetorical question in a sarcastic manner and implying that they aren’t really committed to free speech, and the reason I was frustrated was because I’m quite sick of this platform being labelled as right/far-right when it isn’t. YouTube was just an example one mainstream platform that censors content.
If you’d like to see an example of how committed they are to free speech, I can’t really easily provide a direct source to a question that broad, but I do recommend taking a look at some of LBRY’s earliest posts on Odysee which you’ll find will highlight some of their original goals and vision (LBRY is the protocol Odysee used to use, and Odysee was created by the same team as LBRY). Otherwise, maybe just take a look around the platform, and try to see what kind of opinion or political-related content is on the platform that you don’t tend to see on others which have greater censorship.
Edit: Accidentally commented early, so had to edit it to finish typing. Edit 2: Clarified info about who LBRY is.
I’ll be mindful of my wording in the future. I want to reiterate that this was a genuine question.
I do think if a lot of people are telling you the site is right wing then maybe you should take a broader look around. You don’t have to be participating in that garbage for it to be occurring.
Well I know there’s a lot of right-wing content on there, but I also know there’s a lot of other content there, too. So I don’t think it’s okay when people call it a “right-wing” platform, just because it appears to have more of it on there compared to other platforms.
The creators of the site allow Nazi content and say that doesn’t break their terms of service. On every other site, Nazism and promoting that ideology is not allowed.
This is what you are arguing for. A site that differentiates itself from other video hosting platforms by giving Nazis a safe space.
While we are at it, lets cancel the postal service since they allow Nazi’s to send newsletters.
Not even a relevant comparison but I wont waste my time arguing with extremists.
Pretty much. Lets also kick all the Nazi’s outta the planet while we’re at it. Then will people see free speech as a good thing?
Oh wait, no they won’t, because they don’t agree with some rando on the other side of the planet who’s saying that chemicals in the water turn the frogs gay. Let’s not converse with them and determine whether its true or not; lets just exclude them from everything in society for saying something I disagree with and keep listening only to the voices echoing around us.
I hope people truly think about what I’m trying to point out.
Why is it not okay to call it what it is? If you openly allow nazis into your site, you have a nazi site. I’m sorry but there’s just no way around it.
Either you nip that garbage in the bud or your site is overrun by far right nut jobs, which is what happened with odysee.
Of course nobody wants to use the site. Why would they?
It’s the nazi bar problem. You allow one nazi to enter your bar, then that nazi brings his nazi friends, and before you notice it you have a nazi bar and no one wants to visit.
Odysee doesn’t “appear” to have more right wing content, it objectively does. The majority of people who migrate to it are wackos who got banned in other places for their extremist views.
No, they never said anything like that. Read the comment you’re responding to again.
Can you recommend me more than a few hardcore leftist content creators exclusively releasing content on Odyssee?