Have You Been a Victim of Internet Censorship?

Have you ever wrote a great article, press release or posted a YouTube Video online, only to find out later, it was taken down for a so called, breach of their terms? Are you concerned at all about free speech and where its really going, when it comes to the internet? There seems to be a pattern brewing on the search engines lately, and its time, we spoke up against this type of censorship.

If you are conducting any business online, then you really need to be aware of internet censorship and the potential impact it can have on your business. For example, I recently learned about a situation that happened on YouTube, with a guy, by the name of Butch Hamilton, who lost all of his videos recently. The reason given, by some anonymous person at Google, is that, he violated their terms of service. Here’s the link by the way, if you want to view a video by Butch about the situation - internet censorship.

I will say this about Butch, he has always provided very high quality content, especially his videos. He provides real time information about a range of topics, like SEO, internet marketing, article writing etc. However, Butch did do a 3 part series on the topic – how to make money online. It wasn’t a sales pitch by him either. He was simply dispelling the myth, about how easy it was to make money, by all the so called guru’s. He was actually educating people, that to have success online, it takes a tremendous amount of daily and consistent effort and not to believe those guru’s.

This was the reason given, because he is not allowed to talk about making money type subjects on YouTube. Google simply dislikes affiliate marketers, but hey, its OK for them to make Billions every year. Here’s the problem with that, Google and anyone else reading this. Its called censorship and goes against any democratic society allowing free speech. Google had a fit when China told them what people could and could not access on their search engine. Google told the Chinese government – to take a hike. So, why then, would they censor, a how to make money online video? I get they are trying to clean things up, but, is this really what they want happening?

The same goes when you submit your content to so called professional press release sites and other places like, Ezine Articles. Any of these places have one thing in common. We the people – you, me and everyone else using those services, made them what they are today. If it were not for us promoting Google, they would be just another statistic in the search engine wars. Oh no, but they are high and mighty now and really don’t answer to anyone, other than their share holders. So, what happened with companies like Google and how did it all go so wrong?

My answer is simple – they got to big for their own good. No wonder, both the European Governments and now the United States government, are investigating their business practices. You see, they are too big for the average person to fight them. Just remember Google, someone will come along eventually and make a better mouse trap (search engine). When that day comes, look out and watch your market share plummet. Its an easy fix, treat people with a level of respect and you will get it back 10x.

Lets take a look at another example. Chris Knight who owns Ezine articles, has dramatically changed the rules, since they got nailed by Google and lost significant traffic for their site. Oh, but did they change the layout of all those ad blocks on the pages? Nope, not at all, however, they certainly made it more difficult to post content. Their argument, they heard Google loud and clear, and were going to clean up their act. Hey Chris, I got some advice, clean up all those ads on each page and that will dramatically make it, for a better user experience.

Interesting, that Google is OK to leave all the crap online, like adult content, but you can’t talk about making money? Do you see a problem here folks? Can you see the hypocrisy?

How To Avoid Internet Censorship

The easiest and best way to avoid being held hostage, as Butch would say, is to own all your own assets. You see, if you own your own websites and host them on your own servers, nobody, can tell you what you can and can’t talk about.

Instead of relying upon all those 3rd party places like, forums, Ezine articles, press release submission places etc., screw them too. Create your own video website, your own press release site, your own Ezine article directory.

By the way, all those places, that I just mentioned above, are just website blogs in reality. Don’t ever worry about your content being censored by another 3rd party ever again. Control your own assets instead.

Cheers

Darrell Lischka