YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki receives Free Expression Award from pro-First Amendment group

"Ironic: YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki receives Free Expression Award from pro-First Amendment group
The awards ceremony was sponsored by YouTube."

"After an unprecedented year of YouTube censorship, the Freedom Forum Institute, a group which states that its mission is “to foster First Amendment freedoms for all,” has given YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki a Free Expression Award."

"The homepage for the 2021 Free Expression Awards and Festival states that it recognizes individuals “for their courageous acts of free and fearless expression” and lists YouTube as a “signature sponsor” of the event."

I"n a video promoting the award, Wojcicki proposed that removing content only becomes censorship when you go “too far”:

“We’re removing content that violates our policies. You can go too far and that can become censorship, and so we have been working really hard to figure out what’s the right way to balance responsibility with freedom of speech.”

"During an interview, she then discussed how censorship impacted her personally when her grandfather stayed in Poland after World War Two and was behind the Iron Curtain – a political boundary that divided Europe for more than 45 years and was infamous for the way open contact with those inside the Iron Curtain was heavily censored."

“I saw how difficult it was to communicate with him,” Wojcicki said. “To be able to worry about what you were saying to him and for him to have concerns about what was said or what was even sent to him.”

She added: “I’ve just seen the real benefits that freedom of speech has as well as representing all people of all different backgrounds and all different perspectives and that the freedoms we have, we really can’t take for granted. That we really have to make sure that we’re protecting them in every way possible. And I feel, because of my family history, a deep connection to those freedoms. And I’m very thankful for the freedoms that I have.” Tom Parker