Is it though? A lot of this self censorship seems to be a cargo cult thing where people just copy what they've seen other people do and assume it's necessary when it's really not.
Yes. There are countless stories from Youtube creators who had their videos taken down or demonetized or had to edit and reupload them, because the AI detected that words such as "suicide" were spoken. And it's common knowledge that requests for review are routinely denied (presented as "we reviewed your case and the ruling stands", a judgment often received in less time than the runtime of the video).
I don't believe you. I've never seen any evidence of that.
https://www.reddit.com/r/NewTubers/comments/18f7mas/question...
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2802245
https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/13qhtu1/...
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/youtube-co...
https://www.businessinsider.com/youtubers-identify-title-wor...
And there's a clear cause for it:
2) I find it completely inane that you are willing to self-censor yourself for an algorithm. I guess we no longer need a ministry of truth if the people just produced censored content to begin with, right?