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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

#221

Post by metabagel »

Vomzor wrote: post #65
appleflaxen wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

was this presented in court? what were the courts' findings?

So far it has not. The courts have shot down the the lawsuits on procedural grounds without looking at the evidence. Several states have held hearings were a lot of these allegations are discussed in detail. The hour long hearings are on youtube. Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkqFTUEvMoU Wisconsin State Legislature Election Hearing is still live streaming when I post this. Second edit: Why is my first comment…

"The courts have shot down the the lawsuits on procedural grounds without looking at the evidence."

This is basically not a true statement. You can see for yourself here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-election_lawsuits_related...

Here's one example. It clearly wasn't decided on procedural grounds.

==========

Judge Matthew W. Brann dismissed the case with prejudice on November 21, citing "strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations," noting that "[i]n the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth most populated state ... [o]ur people, laws and institutions demand more". He likened the Trump team argument to "Frankenstein's Monster", and characterized the requested remedy to disqualify nearly seven million votes as "unhinged from the underlying right being asserted."

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

#222

Post by JPKab »

olefoo wrote: post #150

This is all the result of confusing 1st amendment rights with the right to access the audience that gathers at a particular URL. What Taibbi is asking for is that the guy who tells you that drinking rat poison is good for you should be allowed an audience and that even putting a warning alongside the video would be an infringement on his rights. Looking at the comments here I have to conclude that HN is no longer on…

Looking at your comment, I have to conclude that you think you are smarter than 95% of the population and that they need to be treated like children.

You aren't dumb enough to drink rat poison if you see a video telling you to do so, and therefore don't need this protection, but not others. No sir, the little people are too dumb, and need to be protected, guided, and fed a diet of information curated by people like you. The paternalism is as disgusting as it is arrogant.

Your kind of thinking is what created the War on Drugs. And you aren't even self-aware enough to realize it.

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

#223

Post by AnimalMuppet »

JPKab wrote: post #199
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eloquent, but... YouTube isn't an authoritarian (over anything except their own platform), and their policy, whatever it is, isn't going to "end democracy".

Obviously, YouTube has the right to do whatever they want with their servers. My point wasn't that YouTube's policy was the end of democracy, but that the ethos espoused by the parent commenter, if shared by a majority of the electorate and leaders, results in the end of democracy. Democracy requires trusting people to not be complete morons. Unfortunately, the polarized nature of political discourse in the US has ca…

I agree with you here. I would just add:

> This huge drive for censorship didn't occur when a large portion of the American left thought that 9/11 was an inside job, because the normal people on the left knew that it was a large, but still fringe, group within their own sphere. The problem is that the same normal people on the left don't know normal people on the right. Why? Because they don't know ANY people on the right.

I think to at least some degree, this is a difference between 2001 and 2020. Normal people on the left knew people on the right, and now they don't.

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

#224

Post by charonn0 »

MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #178
charonn0 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a reasonable analogy. a) Youtube's decision (wise or not) is not arbitrary. b) Neither video creators nor viewers are "customers" of Youtube.

The fact that we see ads says otherwise...

The fact that we see ads says we're the product.

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

#225

Post by missedthecue »

handoflixue wrote: post #136
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.

Question: Why is this a threat to democracy, but previous censorship wasn't? There's always been an expectation of truthfulness in communication: We don't allow people to go around claiming that Pepsi causes AIDS, or cures cancer. You're not allowed to claim you're collecting for a charity, and then keep all the money for yourself. I doubt you'd be terribly okay with me claiming that you're a murderer and asking how…

>We don't allow people to go around claiming that Pepsi causes AIDS, or cures cancer

I'm pretty certain you're 100% allowed to do this, though Pepsi inc may sue for damages.

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

#226

Post by tracerbulletx »

In one post you might have everyone absolutely berating Facebook for allowing the platform to be used to spread misinformation, in another you have everyone berating Google for trying to disallow it. :/ Is there anyone discussing what to do about this trade off and not just yelling? How do you protect people from weaponized information, should you, can you? It seems like there should be consequences to lying and spreading invalid information as fact, but who should do it and how?

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

#227

Post by matthewmacleod »

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.

I have encountered few people who have said “we shouldn’t have free speech in society”. Perhaps your argument needs more nuance to reflect the complexity of this issue.

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

#228

Post by d1zzy »

Spartan-S63 wrote: post #58
leetcrew wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

right, in principle there is nothing wrong (imo, at least) with a private company deciding what can/cannot be said on its online properties. we might, as individuals, pressure a company to change it's moderation policy, but we should not seek to outlaw moderation. of course, this doesn't work so well in practice when all the viable platforms are controlled by a few huge companies that are more or less ideologically a…

I don't disagree with this. It is a monopoly problem. However, what this article suggests and a lot of other solutions suggest is patching the symptom and not getting to the root of the problem. We've lost our stomach for stimulating competitive marketplaces and forgotten that a sufficiently competitive market will settle on an optimal outcome. That does mean regulation is required and it does mean that breakups are…

So solutions should be focused on lowering the power of Youtube by making it easy to have competition to it but instead it seems to me the opposite is being proposed: with every new regulation that companies like Youtube have to follow, the harder the regulation is to enforce the harder it is for competitors to get into the market (so essentially these regulations are building a moat around YouTube). That doesn't seem to me like the right goal here.

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

#229

Post by old-gregg »

olefoo wrote: post #150

This is all the result of confusing 1st amendment rights with the right to access the audience that gathers at a particular URL. What Taibbi is asking for is that the guy who tells you that drinking rat poison is good for you should be allowed an audience and that even putting a warning alongside the video would be an infringement on his rights. Looking at the comments here I have to conclude that HN is no longer on…

> What Taibbi is asking for is that the guy who tells you that drinking rat poison is good for you

No. That is not what Taibbi is saying. He articulated his point extremely well, he doesn't need your help with convoluted interpretations. You twisted his words sideways and upside down, then built irrelevant conclusions on top of your own nonsense, and diverted the discussion from the PROBLEM the original article was written about to your own misguided statement which bears no resemblance to Matt's argument.

> HN is no longer on board critical thinking

Indeed, otherwise your comment wouldn't be on top.

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

#230

Post by d1zzy »

will4274 wrote: post #211
titanomachy wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 Wrong twice. First of all, the United States doesn't have laws against hate speech. The US Supreme Court has said hate speech is protected by the first amendment. So, you're protected fro…

And so have we proposed laws to regulate newspapers on what they should be and what they shouldn't be allowed to decline for publishing?
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