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The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

taibbi.substack.com

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Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#91

Post by Vomzor »

titanomachy wrote: post #89
siliconc0w wrote: post #47

It is amazing to me that there are so many people, smart people even, that are adamant that we shouldn't have free speech in society.

You have a right to say whatever you want to whomever you want without fear of government retaliation, as long as it isn't "hate speech" in a fairly narrow legal sense. This is what "having free speech in society" has always meant. The government will also punish people who commit crimes against you merely because they dislike your words, which frees you to say things you might otherwise keep to yourself. What you do…

It used to be that the tech companies where champions of free speech, the ideal. It changed when generation woke entered their workforce. There has been a generational change brought on by changed values in American universities. That's what really is happening.

> We asked whether people believe that citizens should be able to make public statements that are offensive to minority groups, or whether the government should be able to prevent people from saying these things. Four-in-ten Millennials say the government should be able to prevent people publicly making statements that are offensive to minority groups, while 58% said such speech is OK. Even though a larger share of Millennials favor allowing offensive speech against minorities, the 40% who oppose it is striking given that only around a quarter of Gen Xers (27%) and Boomers (24%) and roughly one-in-ten Silents (12%) say the government should be able to prevent such speech.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/20/40-of-mille...

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#92

Post by bcheung »

krapp wrote: post #72
enchiridion wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a non sequitur. Free speech is an ideal. We would like google to preserve free speech, even though they are not legally obligated to per the Constitution. If their EULA does not uphold that ideal, then they should change it, not compromise the ideal.

But your desire for Google to host certain kinds of speech against their will doesn't supersede Google's own right to decide otherwise on their own platform. They have their own free speech rights, as well as free association and the rights of free enterprise.

I generally agree with this but YouTube is a communication channel and has a different set of expectations. Additionally they promoted themselves as an open forum in the beginning.

Ideally, discrimination should not exist in something that is promoted as a public forum.

If YouTube only wanted to serve a certain type of genre or they had the same censorship policies from the beginning then that is one thing. But they promoted themselves as open and free speech and then once they achieved critical mass they changed their mind to push their own agenda.

That is dishonest and an abuse of public trust.

As a contrasting example, censoring porn, while still not free speech, would be fine for YouTube to continue to do since they had this stance from the beginning and people chose to join the platform knowing this.

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#93

Post by JPKab »

katmannthree wrote: post #46
JPKab wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have the right to do it, and it will make the world worse off. Taibbi always has had a great guy instinct for normal Americans and how they react to elite condescension, and he's right here. My idiot brother got twice as radicalized when they kicked Alex Jones's crazy ass off YouTube. It made people feel better and more morally superior, especially employees. It hurt my brother. Now when he watches that asshole,…

Consider a utilitarian point of view. This is not about grounding people who already went off the deep end, it's about reducing the number of people who get radicalized. I think from that perspective deplatforming radicals is both ethical and effective.

Obviously I would agree if you're talking about Alex Jones. A thing that worries me is when people are banned or videos are removed when the facts in question are in dispute.

I was a very big proponent of wearing mask in the beginning of the pandemic back when the WHO and Dr Fauci had advised against it not because it was true but to manipulate the public for the purpose of preventing a rush on n95 masks.

If I had stated in a video the truth which was that the public was being manipulated to protect the masks, I would have been contradicting WHO and the video could have been banned. That's a problem.

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#94

Post by treeman79 »

gabereiser wrote: post #9
swiley wrote: post #2

If you reject the idea that people are intelligent enough to think about politics for themselves then you reject the idea that they're intelligent enough to govern themselves. Democracy and free speech are intrinsically linked.

YouTube can choose to keep or delete any content on their platform regardless of truth/free speech/or not. It's in the EULA. You want free speech, go outside and yell. No one is stopping anyone from free speech. What Google is doing is cleaning up content on their service according to their EULA. If you disagree with the EULA, you can gladly go use another service. I will add, targeting a specific genre of videos loo…

Alternative view point sites aren’t really possible.

Advertisers are attacked relentlessly if they advertise on non-liberal media. Been at ad-tech companies and seen this happen in person.

Even 20 years ago this was common pattern for talk radio.

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#95

Post by tschellenbach »

jiofih wrote: post #4

Then what? Allowing false information to fester is wrong, censorship is wrong. The way forward is to ban recommendation algorithms and go back to personal (as in, from other humans you know) recommendation systems.

This content actually does really well on whatsapp, signal and telegram.

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#96

Post by MaxBarraclough »

treeman79 wrote: post #94
gabereiser wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube can choose to keep or delete any content on their platform regardless of truth/free speech/or not. It's in the EULA. You want free speech, go outside and yell. No one is stopping anyone from free speech. What Google is doing is cleaning up content on their service according to their EULA. If you disagree with the EULA, you can gladly go use another service. I will add, targeting a specific genre of videos loo…

Alternative view point sites aren’t really possible. Advertisers are attacked relentlessly if they advertise on non-liberal media. Been at ad-tech companies and seen this happen in person. Even 20 years ago this was common pattern for talk radio.

> Alternative view point sites aren’t really possible.

They're certainly possible for alternatives to, say, reddit. These sites already exist. Are you referring to the high costs of serving video?

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#97

Post by krapp »

bcheung wrote: post #92
krapp wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But your desire for Google to host certain kinds of speech against their will doesn't supersede Google's own right to decide otherwise on their own platform. They have their own free speech rights, as well as free association and the rights of free enterprise.

I generally agree with this but YouTube is a communication channel and has a different set of expectations. Additionally they promoted themselves as an open forum in the beginning. Ideally, discrimination should not exist in something that is promoted as a public forum. If YouTube only wanted to serve a certain type of genre or they had the same censorship policies from the beginning then that is one thing. But they…

>Additionally they promoted themselves as an open forum in the beginning.

Was this before or after Google? Because Google's interest in the platform is definitely maximizing revenue and competing with first party streaming services.

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#98

Post by amadeuspagel »

gabereiser wrote: post #9
swiley wrote: post #2

If you reject the idea that people are intelligent enough to think about politics for themselves then you reject the idea that they're intelligent enough to govern themselves. Democracy and free speech are intrinsically linked.

YouTube can choose to keep or delete any content on their platform regardless of truth/free speech/or not. It's in the EULA. You want free speech, go outside and yell. No one is stopping anyone from free speech. What Google is doing is cleaning up content on their service according to their EULA. If you disagree with the EULA, you can gladly go use another service. I will add, targeting a specific genre of videos loo…

You seldomly see the ideals of people who believe in freedom of speech but stated so clearly. A world were corporations control all the information people consume but people can "go outside and yell" in frustration. This is the kind of freedom we must bring to Iran.

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#99

Post by treeman79 »

bcheung wrote: post #60
Spartan-S63 wrote: post #16

These types of articles are always insane to me. YouTube is a private company. They're pretty much allowed to moderate the content on their platform in an arbitrary way. I would argue that this is a good thing. We can't have it both ways, but we want it both ways. We want a non-government controlled way to communicate, but we want to mandate that they're liable to uphold the same First Amendment protections that the…

I think there needs to be updated thought leadership on what qualifies as "common carrier" and what doesn't. Whether gov't or private, if a platform is primarily promoted as an open communication channel then I think that some, if not all, aspects of "common carrier" laws should apply. Social media platforms would not have the trust and would not have been adopted as quickly if they started off censoring as much as t…

How about that google is a monopoly on search and ad tech.

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#100

Post by stordoff »

prucomaclu2 wrote: post #88

What's really sad about what Youtube is doing, is that Trump's lawsuits do have some legitimacy. Potentially enough legitimacy to win. I'm not saying there is enough to win, but the potential is there and it should be given a fair hearing by the media & judges. From day 1 of this election, the media has 50% of this country convinced that everything Trump's lawsuits are nothing except outlandish lies & conspiracies. J…

> Election laws have been ignored - on a large scale.

Do you have any specific examples? I haven't looked at the claims in any great detail.

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