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YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

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Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#531

Post by KozmoNau7 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #490
KozmoNau7 wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest issue is that the open debate is vulnerable to astroturfing with corporate influence and financial backing, which can completely drown out others and turn public opinion, through sheer exposure. And when it comes to subjects like human rights, there is a definite right and wrong, not a "truth in the middle".

> The biggest issue is that the open debate is vulnerable to astroturfing with corporate influence and financial backing, which can completely drown out others and turn public opinion, through sheer exposure. Meh. Money buys speech has been a thing since day zero. If anything the internet has made this problem smaller because you don't have to buy a TV station to publish video anymore. Then the corporate propaganda i…

The "marketplace of ideas" clearly doesn't work for the betterment of mankind and the world. Corporate interests throw vast amounts of money into astroturf campaigns, creating propaganda and misinformation, in order to discredit their opponents, who do not have the same access to funds and influence. Google, FB et.al. are part of the problem, with their deep influences in politics. They ban the token nutjob like Icke ever so often, so they can claim they're "doing something", meanwhile their algorithms continue to funnel people from completely ordinary videos to conspiracy theories and virulent content. It's disturbing how quickly this happens on a brand-new profile.

Misinformation spreads like wildfire because it doesn't need fact checks, it doesn't need to be based on research. As long as you can get enough spread, you can get a large number of people to believe anything, simply because they heard it from someone. People are not rational actors.

Witness the demonization of pipeline protestors, people who protest the clear-cutting of forests, people who argue for trans rights. They upset the corporate-run status quo, so they are suppressed by the authorities, who act on the whims of the rich and powerful.

Witness the rise of the alt-right, the so-called "intellectual dark web" and the influence of sites like 4chan and 8chan.

Armed people barging into governmental buildings, and basically being allowed to do so almost unimpeded by police, photo ops for the media, a show of force for their allies. I've seen them ridiculed as yokels, but it didn't matter. What matters is visibility and the "look at what we can do without being stopped" factor.

Imagine what would have happened if BLM, a group of Muslims or any left-wing group had tried to do the same thing. Think Kent State and the National Guard.

The message is clear: Act against capitalism and the powers that be and you will be suppressed, by unlimited force if necessary

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#532

Post by deminature »

rlt wrote: post #526
deminature wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deplatforming has proven highly effective at preventing bad actors from continuing to spread misinformation on Reddit and other social media sites [1]. I support free speech in principle, but internet platforms are such a powerful megaphone for spreading misinformation, the likes of which history has never seen, that platform owners may feel ethically obligated to act against those who would misuse their systems to c…

"Deplatforming" is some pretty great doublespeak for "censoring". We already have a solution to idiots vandalizing 5G towers: arrest them.

This board regularly ‘censors’ people who break the rules. It’s the price of having a reasonably nice board to post on. There’s a difference between censorship and punishing bad behavior.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#533

Post by ashtonkem »

rlt wrote: post #527
ashtonkem wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The courts have made it quite clear that they’re unwilling to consider companies to be similar to the “town square” unless if they’re doing literally what governments have traditionally done. There is no clear way to argue that YT is doing something that governments traditionally did, so you’re out of luck there. If you believe YT is a monopoly, then it would be far less harmful to everyone if it was just broken up,…

You're commenting about "the courts" in a thread that started with "I very strongly feel that we should be very careful to avoid adopting a legalistic attitude towards freedom of speech."

What’s your point? That we should ignore how the courts and first amendment law actually works?

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#534

Post by esoterica »

colordrops wrote: post #204
kiba wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

COVID-19 has added the additional element of this new concept of "disinformation". The argument is seductively simple: "being exposed to this information could lead you to engage in patterns of behavior that harm society. Therefore we can conceptualize this speech as being an indirect form of violence/negligence and therefore we have a moral obligation to remove such content". Some people, after being exposed to misi…

Do you have evidence that censorship wins over lies? Considering that one of the most fundamental and important US laws is freedom of speech, it behooves you to prove that censorship works, not that free speech works.

The fact that the first amendment exists is strong evidence that censorship works. If it didn’t work, why is it so important to prevent the government from censoring people? After all, censorship is futile right?

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#535

Post by teraflop »

JSavageOne wrote: post #522
ashtonkem wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should the size of the community matter? Under what rationale are you going to decide that HN can moderate but YT cannot?

Because Youtube presents itself as being agnostic to the content and letting anyone upload anything (excluding porn and dark stuff that any reasonable person would deem inappropriate like ISIS propaganda or child abuse). If Youtube presented itself as being a video platform for from the getgo, then I wouldn't see a legal problem with moderating videos containing opposing views.

How and where does YouTube present itself as being "agnostic" to content?

And if you think it's only natural that YouTube disallows "propaganda" that "reasonable people" would object to, why are you surprised that they would remove other varieties of propaganda? Of course, different people will have different definitions of reasonableness.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#536

Post by BurningCycles »

ashtonkem wrote: post #524
JSavageOne wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Youtube presents itself as being agnostic to the content and letting anyone upload anything (excluding porn and dark stuff that any reasonable person would deem inappropriate like ISIS propaganda or child abuse). If Youtube presented itself as being a video platform for from the getgo, then I wouldn't see a legal problem with moderating videos containing opposing views.

You’re implying that there is a legal difference between being a publisher and a platform, which is not actually a thing under US law.

Then why was this legislation introduced ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicati...

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#537

Post by WalterBright »

zimpenfish wrote: post #498
WalterBright wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure it is. All kinds of ideas died when information became readily available, even when the authorities tried to suppress them. For example, the idea of a nobility class.

> All kinds of ideas died when information became readily available > For example, the idea of a nobility class. America literally has a nobility class right now. The UK isn't far off.

> America literally has a nobility class right now.

Literally nope. For example, there is no law that says the word of one group of people is worth more in court than another group. There are no laws saying only certain people can be in power based on their ancestors. There is no law enshrining divine right.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#538

Post by ashtonkem »

BurningCycles wrote: post #536
ashtonkem wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re implying that there is a legal difference between being a publisher and a platform, which is not actually a thing under US law.

Then why was this legislation introduced ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicati...

Section 230 does not require that YT or any other service be neutral. It is extremely common for people to represent 230 as if it requires neutrality, but it absolutely does not.

Here’s the entire text of 230, it doesn’t have a “unless they’re biased” clause.

> No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#539

Post by james-mcelwain »

tomhoward wrote: post #503
james-mcelwain wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This either trivially true, in the sense that the Western canon builds on itself, or patently absurd, in the sense that you attempt to frame the 1918 revolution as being a mere effect of the invention of the printing press 500 years earlier. Neither strikes me as being particularly rigorous historiography.

> particularly rigorous historiography It was one-line discussion-board summation of what is widely accepted by historians (as you said, "trivially true"), but if you'd like to share an explanation of how the spread of ideas leading to the revolutions of Europe could have happened without an innovation that had the same effect as the printing press did, I'd be intrigued to to read it. > patently absurd So far, three…

> If you'd like to share an explanation of how the spread of ideas leading to the revolutions of Europe could have happened without an innovation that had the same effect as the printing press ded, I'd be genuinely intrigued to to read it.

History is more complicated than a single invention! It's needlessly reductive.

I could also say: "how could have the revolutions of Europe happened without mercantile capitalism challenging the economic structures of feudalism?" But that's just imposing a post-hoc narrative on history that happens to fit my existing views.

> So what is it you actually want to persuade us of, about the appropriate levels of constraints on speech in the modern world.

My sole reason for participating in this thread is to firmly reject idealism and the teleological view of history. Ideas aren't magic. Technology isn't either.

(P.S. it's kind of hilarious that you're invoking HN rules regarding my speech in the same breath as you are defending the merits of free speech.)

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#540

Post by occamrazor »

chrononaut wrote: post #485
JSavageOne wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is a niche community focused on startups and tech. Youtube is the monopoly on user-uploaded video content and has 2 billion users.

I am unsure of your argument. Are you saying that the size of the company factors into what policies it can enforce? i.e., smaller companies can have more freedom in policing content, but if an undefined critical mass is reached (perhaps market share), they should have less flexibility on curated content? Or is it a factor of what it's trying to build? e.g., if YouTube only focused on hosting political content, shoul…

GP argument is similar to the common carrier argument. Some communication channels (e.g. post, telephone, and maybe YouTube) are so pervasive, important, without comparable alternatives, that they should be considered as common goods and regulated as public services, rather than private companies. In particular freedom of speech applies to their users.
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