YouTube has changed. And not for the better. At one point, their slogan was “Broadcast Yourself”. It came with the suggestion that YouTube was a platform where you could find rising talent among ordinary people, and find user-contributed entertainment outside of established traditional media.

Of course, even at that time, you’d have a difficult time finding anyone new, as YouTube promoted their “partners” to the detriment of up-and-comers who deserved our attention.

But even before that, I remember sometimes having friends over, and we’d share the stuff we found. Like people who got frustrated at old video games because of how hard they were. Or marshmallow Peeps being microwaved to watch them expand. Or redneck science experiments like what happens when you drop Mentos into Diet Coke (tried it, you’d want to be outside for that one).

But now, your curated recommendations would likely consist of those who really didn’t need attention, and YouTube is propping up traditional media outlets whose videos get ratioed and flamed in the comments, provided comments are not shut off.

So, how come I’m waxing nostalgic? This was largely triggered by an upload by MamaMax (Warning: the YouTuber does nothing to avoid being disturbing):

What it basically comes down to is that the uploader was upset that a previous video, which exposed a child predator, was flagged by YouTube’s automated moderation. The same automated moderation that unfairly dishes out strikes because it sucks at detecting sarcasm and context.

When content creators attempt to contest these strikes, they have to fight to appeal to an actual human being, and oftentimes, their complaints are responded to by automated form letters. And, what’s frustrating beyond reason, at no point is the content creator informed what their infraction was, an apparent move on YouTube’s part to absolve them of any pressure to enforce their own community guidelines with any amount of consistency.

While calling upon your audience to become your own personal army is a very Twitter thing to do, where MamaMax went beyond is that he called upon numerous content creators to join him in speaking up, resulting in the video above. Which certainly goes to show just how frustrating YouTube has been to work with.

But there’s another concern that’s been brought up that I think should get some attention.

Right now, it seems like it’s a little too easy for creeps to meet up with and groom children online. This seems particularly suspicious when you consider that it’s the people exposing them that risk getting strikes on YouTube via their automated system. This is in pretty bad light considering that pedophiles have recently attempted to rebrand themselves as “Minor Attracted Persons” (MAPs, for short), and have been making moves to attempt to have themselves represented as part of the alphabet soup movement (LGBTQ+etc).

My concern is that they might actually succeed. And it might not even take that long. This is because, as many people as there are who don’t like pedophiles, most people don’t seem to be mentally prepared for some of the arguments that they might try, and on top of that, the people in establishment control don’t seem very concerned.

As I see it, if a person sexually abuses a child, throw the book at them. More than that, push the bookcase on them. I’ve known people who were sexually abused as kids, and I think people underestimate just how badly that it can mess them up, possibly for life. In many cases, it hampers the child’s ability to trust authority, or impair their emotional capacity for a healthy relationship.

Yet, from what I’ve seen, the system sucks ass when it comes to going after the people who actually commit these crimes, but for some reason, it’s great at going after people who are innocent. But we can get into some uncomfortable detail about that some other time.

As they are, the MAP community is poised to win. They have been waiting for an opportunity like the one they have for a long time, with a great deal of patience. Whether they intended to or not, the alphabet soup movement cultivated the environment necessary for them to succeed.

If the rest of us are going to be able to defeat them, we’re going to have to be ready to battle them on an intellectual level. You probably don’t want to confront them intellectually, you’d probably rather feed them to a wood chipper. But they know how to take that anger towards them, and turn it to their advantage, making you seem like the unreasonable one. So, don’t fall into that trap.

And don’t assume that, just because what a person is expressing is obviously wrong, that defeating their arguments is going to be an easy-bucket slam-dunk victory. In many cases, flat-earthers win debates simply because the other side wasn’t ready for the arguments that they present. It actually does happen that smart people take on flat-earthers and lose, because the person who is plainly wrong is really great at being wrong.

While it’s true that people have freedom of speech, that doesn’t mean that they have freedom from consequence. If someone expresses a desire to harm me or anyone I know, my inclination would be to keep a distance from them. And if anyone expresses a desire to harm my family, whether near or far, present or hypothetical, my inclination would be to air his ass out. So, when a person of the age of majority expresses a desire to have sexual relations with a minor, the inclination of people around them would be to treat the person as a pariah, and keep their children a safe distance from them. This being the case, to what end would a person express a desire to commit what is obviously a crime?

Sometimes, MAPs make the case that being against relationships with minors is ageist. As ridiculous as this sounds, it’s a position that many of them have. They might even make statutory rape laws appear arbitrary, and it’ll work, if you’re unprepared for the case they’re ready to make against the greater community. The fact is, just because a person is physically capable of doing something doesn’t mean that they’ve reached the age where they’re presumably fully-understanding of the consequences of their decision. Statutory rape laws exist to protect those people from those who are old enough to know better, but just don’t care. It’s based on similar reasoning that a person isn’t allowed to enter into a contract until they’ve reached the age of majority, which prevents many minors from starting bank accounts unless a parent or guardian is with them.

That’s just an example of the kind of knowledge that one needs to have to take these creeps on. Again, it’s important not to assume that just because someone is plainly wrong that intellectually overcoming them would be an easy victory. The reason why biological men are currently destroying biological women at their own sports after claiming to be “trans” is because most people who would have plainly seen what was wrong considered it too ridiculous to happen, and didn’t participate in the discussion by reason of the fact that they trusted too much in the better judgement of everyone else.

But this isn’t intended as a black-pill moment. There’s reason to hope. Recently, parents have expressed anger at discovering what’s been going on at public schools, which goes to show that where their children are involved, people actually do give a care.

That relates to another way that you can make a difference: participate in local politics. Find out who your local elected officials are, particularly as relates to education. Find out when your local elections are, and be sure you’re picking candidates that reflect your values. After all, these are the people who can make your life a living hell. Participate in primaries, and be sure to pick the candidate that best represents your ideals. This goes for whether you’re a registered Democrat or Republican. Get the rotten establishment out and replace them with populists on both sides.

And while you’re at it, participate in the culture war. Social media sites like YouTube are in the shape that they’re in because the corporate interests have way too much say. If you don’t even participate, then there’s not much expectation that we’ll win. From what I’ve seen, classical liberals would be much more powerful if more of them didn’t just sit back and let someone else do the fighting.

And while you’re at it, you can go beyond self-censoring on Twitter and find your fellow patriots on alternative social media. For example, Minds.com. The more people join and participate in alternative social media, the more powerful it becomes.

If we’re going to see social media change for the better, we need to be a voice that establishment outlets like YouTube know that they can’t afford to ignore.