Despite Youtube’s founders' admission that their service was built on copyright infringement, Google vigorously refuses to proactively keep infringing material from being uploaded to Youtube, even after tens of thousands of notices about the same piece of infringing content appeared on the site.

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In recent months, dominant internet platforms like Google, Twitter and Facebook have experienced an identity crisis. 

On one hand, they falsely allege in the "net neutrality" debate that internet service providers will begin controlling what people can view online, unless the federal government regulates the internet like a public utility under Obama-era rules that weren't even imposed until 2015. 

On the other hand, guess who actually alters what people view online?  Content providers like Google, Twitter and Facebook. 

They arbitrarily block perfectly lawful and tasteful content, including a recent tasteful and straightforward political ad by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R - Tennessee). 

To be clear, these platforms possess discretion to exercise their own free speech rights and make values-based decisions about what content they allow on their services. 

But two recent announcements by Google further demonstrate that their business interests don't exactly comport with their professed principles in the "net neutrality" debate. 

First, Google announced that it will hire more people to review videos on Youtube, and remove content deemed to be extremist, hateful or dangerous for children, with the goal of bringing that staff to more than 10,000 people, in addition to automated tools. 

Second, in retaliation for Amazon’s refusal to sell Google products like Nest, Home and Chromecast in their marketplaces, or make Prime Video available for Google Cast users, Google announced that it will block Youtube from being available through Amazon services Echo Show and Fire TV. 

Both announcements contradict Google’s holier-than-thou assertions that content blocking is a threat to a free internet.  Their commitment to an open internet is obviously situational, waxing and waning based on business imperatives and public pressure, not principle. 

Meanwhile, Google turns a blind eye to intellectual property (IP) theft occurring on its platform.  Perhaps that should come as no surprise, since acting responsibly would deprive it of more eyeballs, and thus advertising revenues. 

Despite Youtube’s founders' admission that their service was built on copyright infringement, Google vigorously refuses to proactively keep infringing material from being uploaded to Youtube, even after tens of thousands of notices about the same piece of infringing content appeared on the site.  They rationalize that posture by claiming they can’t make judgments about what is and is not infringement. 

Instead, under intense pressure from copyright owners, Google developed the Content ID system, which gives creators a choice whenever infringing content is uploaded to Youtube:  Take it down or share any advertising revenue with Google.  That, or rely on the ineffective system of notice and takedown.

So why is Google willing to employ 10,000 people to make difficult judgments about what constitutes “extremism” or “hate speech,” but won’t do the same for copyright infringement unless they get paid to do it?  And why now? 

Google says it is because “it’s the right thing to do.”  But as Sarah Perez at Tech Crunch points out, Google is finally acting “[n]ow that its bottom line is being affected,” as advertisers pull their business and government regulators start to mobilize. 

Google’s feud with Amazon also directly contradicts everything it claims to stand for in the context of the "net neutrality" debate.  Thus, Google falsely asserts an absolutist approach to a “free and open” internet, in which ISPs are barred from blocking access to lawful content.  Yet, at the very same time Google is threatening to block access to a popular platform on a competitor’s devices to punish that competitor. 

Even the far-left Public Knowledge’s John Bergmeyer rebuked their hypocrisy saying:  “[p]latform companies should not cause harm to competitive processes and should live up to the values they claim guide their business.” 

In both cases, Google is acting in its commercial interests - advocating government regulation of the backbone access providers upon whom Google is dependent, while leveraging its market power to kneecap a competitor. 

It's natural for Google, Twitter or Facebook to pursue profits just like any other private company.  But when their behavior flatly contravenes their stated commitment to an open internet, freedom of speech and consumer access, skepticism and criticism are in order. 

During the Obama Administration, Google enjoyed a long string of successes in leveraging the federal government to regulate in a manner favorable to its bottom line. That includes the Obama Federal Communications Commission (FCC) deciding to regulate the internet as a "public utility" in 2015. 

But as their hypocrisy is exposed and their reputation begins to crumble, they're beginning to learn that, "Do as we say, not as we do” is an unsustainable public policy mantra.