YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#551

Post by jfoster » Mon, May 04, 2020, 5:56 AM UTC

imgabe wrote: post #207

knzhou wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a standard in mind that's better than the WHO? Would you prefer content prohibited on the basis of whether it sounds right or wrong to a random Google employee?

I would prefer content not to be prohibited at all. Content is not a problem. Actions are a problem. Watch all the videos you like telling you to burn down a cell tower. Once you do burn down a cell tower, then you go to jail. Perhaps we should also then hold the people telling people to burn down cell towers responsible, criminally and civilly, for the people who listen to them. David Icke might not be so cavalier a…

They could even keep the content available but give it a ranking penalty. This way they stop short of full on censorship, but also prevent the spread of terrible quality information.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#552

Post by [deleted] » Mon, May 04, 2020, 5:56 AM UTC

fzeroracer wrote: post #182

jfnixon wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Therefore we should let those with power choose what everyone can say and hear? Sorry, I'm not following.

Here's a question for you: Do you believe HN has an obligation to allow anything to be posted here? If someone wanted to post about how much they hate a certain race, do you believe the moderators here have an obligation to allow that post to remain?

[deleted]

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#553

Post by danieltillett » Mon, May 04, 2020, 5:58 AM UTC

Isn’t the real problem that YouTube is basically a utility service, but one that makes a loss for the parent company.

The discussion we should be making is not if YouTube should censor people, but if it should be turned into a regulated utility like a phone or electricity company. Of course if this is decision we make don’t be surprised if Google shuts down the service.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#554

Post by ashtonkem » Mon, May 04, 2020, 5:59 AM UTC

jshevek wrote: post #542

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?

The degree of a corporation's control over the flow of information matters because the harm done to our society is different.

The problem I always have with this argument is that everyone is undervaluing the unintended consequences of holding companies like YT to the first amendment only. Most people like to image that what they’ll get is more free wheeling discussions on the topic, but in reality all you’ll get is porn.

See, YT bans all kinds of stuff that the first amendment protects, including pornography, violence, and a lot of other nasty stuff that they don’t want on their platform for entirely clear reasons. Eliminate YT’s right to clear those off their site, and it’ll be filled with the lowest common denominator very quickly, as regular users flee from the torrent of unwanted offensive material.

Of course, it’s easy to imagine that we can give YT the right to ban some “offensive” material, but who defines what “offensive” is? The Government? Giving the government the right to control what can and cannot be moderated on YT is kind of contrary to the entire point of this exercise.

If you believe that YT controls too much of the information in our society, then anti-trust or anti-monopoly law is a much richer area for fostering free speech.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#555

Post by ashtonkem » Mon, May 04, 2020, 6:00 AM UTC

jshevek wrote: post #544

ashtonkem wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

In a discussion about morality and the health of our society it is perfectly reasonable for decent people who are exploring the question of 'what ought to be' to set aside the decisions of the courts and the letter of the law.

That’s an interesting thing to do, but sans a means of enforcement it seems kind of pointless to me.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#556

Post by rahidz » Mon, May 04, 2020, 6:00 AM UTC

ryankemper wrote: post #46

I very strongly feel that we should be very careful to avoid adopting a legalistic attitude towards freedom of speech. That is, I am opposed to the argument that private corporations are not bound by the first amendment, and therefore it's okay for them to suppress content. I agree that they're not bound by the first amendment (I don't claim to understand the nuances of the "platform" laws so I won't address that), b…

>I don't believe in fighting "bad ideas" by suppressing them, I believe in shining a light on them. Let the truth fight for itself.

I mean, this is testable. Look at websites where "bad ideas" aren't suppressed, and instead anyone can chime in with their reasoned or unreasoned opinion and duke it out without any real-life consequences.

...and you end up with 8chan, the site where people discuss the best ways to murder Jews.

Science, facts, truth, those don't matter on chan boards, what does is virality, fear, anger, emotion. Or since it's Star Wars day, The Dark Side wins unless people are willing to stop it.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#557

Post by jshevek » Mon, May 04, 2020, 6:01 AM UTC

rahidz wrote: post #550

joshfraser wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Give your worst political enemy the power to decide what is "hate speech" and what is "disinformation" and then you'll realize that free speech isn't something we should ever compromise on". - Naval Ravikant

By this logic we shouldn't let governments regulate anything, for fear of Hypothetical Hitler one day abusing it.

No. Regulating the speed of cars on the freeway is radically different than giving a group the ability to decide what does or does not qualify as "disinformation" and regulating accordingly.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#558

Post by sjwalter » Mon, May 04, 2020, 6:03 AM UTC

knzhou wrote: post #500

sjwalter wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won't quibble the strange comparison between YouTube, whose second-most content producer is a man dubbed PewDiePie who talks about video games and anime memes, to news organizations, though it is quite tempting. This is what I find so strange. Literally zero people on this forum have indicated they are in sync with this dude's views (I hadn't heard of this guy until now, I have no idea what he's about), and from wh…

> So I gather that he's espousing a view that states that quarantines and lockdowns are terrible and ineffective, and encouraging people to ignore them and freely associate. > I understand that you believe the expression of that view could lead to many people deciding to ignore whatever orders or ordinances that have been imposed upon them. That is not at all a representative summary of his views, or mine. I see hund…

That is a really insane justification. Also strange that what I gather to be a right-wing internet figure would somehow inspire a shooter to go and try to kill a bunch of republicans as they perform baseball?

This week there were not just one but an entire carpet bombing mission's worth of bombshells about the case of general Flynn. Every headline about that guy, his guilty plea, was a total lie. There was no journalism done during the entire course of the process, and the FBI from director on down planned his destruction and did it, knowing full well he was innocent.

This is provable with court documents that are irrefutable.

So we can now throw WaPo and the fancy pulitzer they got for the Flynn fake news out with Icke right? I mean it seems to meet your standard--huge damage to a really loyal American and his family, bankrupt, house sold, son and family threatened to secure the plea the ratfuckers needed.

You'd throw all those people and all the conspiracy nuts like CNN and MSNBC and Fox News that pushed that dangerous propaganda, right?

Oh, wait, no you're saying those same people, or at least people in that same group, you want them to do all the censoring.

Oh. Cool.

(Btw, if you think the above bombshells are not true, I can provide you all the documents, which are easy to validate given they're hosted on various official DOJ servers, and I'm willing to bet you that Flynn's case is dismissed.

Team Elite are these kinds of people. They'll tear anyone or thing apart to fulfill their stupid goals.

Let's cheer them as they mindfuck us into thinking their censorship is a great idea.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#559

Post by jshevek » Mon, May 04, 2020, 6:04 AM UTC

DonHopkins wrote: post #274

ryankemper wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally agree that what David Icke is spreading is a bunch of nonsense. But I'm against suppressing him because otherwise I can't maintain a logically consistent belief system. That is to say, as soon as we can ban the lizard guy, we can also ban a lot more viewpoints that are not quite as controversial / outright crazy but straddle the line. And just to head this off, the dimension of palatability to advertiser…

>ban the lizard guy He's not "the lizard guy", he's "the antisemitic guy". Lizards = Jews. It's not crazy speech, it's thinly disguised hate speech. Got it? Understand yet? Because all the racists do. Are you against banning the antisemitic guy or not?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#560

Post by ashtonkem » Mon, May 04, 2020, 6:05 AM UTC

rlt wrote: post #549

ashtonkem wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yes. The First Amendment is one specific protection of freedom of speech. It does not equal freedom speech, which is a general concept that private companies can also uphold (but I think everyone here acknowledges they are not legally obligated to)

I think that the government coming in and telling companies what they can and cannot do with their private platforms is entirely contrary to freedom of speech. What would be better is a wider array of communication platforms, for which there is a entirely different set of regulatory tools available.