Hi, spent alot of time watching flat earth videos last year then left it, was telling a friend today about it and I tried to find a video for them to watch, why have all the great videos disappeared? Are YouTube censoring anything that puts up a good argument for a flat earth? Every video that comes up is either trying to debunk or just making fun of it, that includes Google searches, it wasn't like this 6 months ago
YouTube recently announced they had changed their algorithm so that it would not recommend FE videos as often. That could be related to it, but I have not heard any mention of this aspect specifically from YouTube. It makes sense that this could be part of the same algorithm tweak - the algorithm that recommends your next video could be very closely related to the one used in the search algorithm.
I've also noticed the same issue. I sometimes try to search for a particular FE video I've seen before only to have it be very hard to find.
YouTube has become aware that the spread of harmful disinformation in recent years has been traced back to them. The algorithms they use to serve up content have led to a rise in this type of content, and that is something they don't want to be associated with. Therefore, they have tweaked their algorithm in an attempt to reduce the spread of the disinformation.
For now, they are not banning the content, and they aren't demonetizing it either. But they have made an effort to reduce the spread of it that has been caused by their platform.