The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire • Hacker News Board

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

#271

Post by travisoneill1 » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 1:48 AM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #258

travisoneill1 wrote: post #193

Thank god for all of the people at Youtube working on censoring misinformation. They are so much smarter than me and obviously better than me at figuring out what is true and what isn't! And isn't it great that they always act selflessly in favor of the truth and never in the narrow interest of Google? I don't know what I would do if I didn't have them there to protect me from the dangerous misinformation. I am so he…

I'll take the bait in the spirit of casual friday night internet debating and recognizing your tone as purely sarcastic. I would ask then... What if, there was in fact an organization comprised of people smarter than you and obviously better than you at figuring out what is true or not - and I would go further - one that can tell you how to make better/more optimal decisions than you would have made without them? Wou…

> Would you then cede your decision making to them if it were demonstrably better?

There are, and I use them constantly in the form of domain experts. So does everyone. For example, I would never assume a plumber is wrong and I am right about pipes, though I may get a 2nd opinion.

> Would you argue that you should be free to make measurably worse or less optimized decisions for yourself - by virtue of the value of you being un-baised was more important than you making a better decision?

Yes, and this is the case in most areas. There is nothing preventing me from representing myself in court, for example. I think this would be analogous to Youtube adding content filters to block different categories of potentially undesirable content, including their filter for misinformation, and allowing the user to opt in or out. If Youtube did this I would not object, even it the default was to turn the filters on.

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

#272

Post by gnusty_gnurc » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 1:48 AM UTC

int_19h wrote: post #252

gnusty_gnurc wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is literally the foundation of American govt structure namely the respect for unalienable rights of individuals to express themselves. It’s the first line in our enumerated rights. This isn’t “oh we should rethink things” this is a matter of natural rights and precedes anything we’ve constructed.

Given that the Alien and Sedition Acts took less than 10 years after the passing of the Bill of Rights, and were passed by many of the same people working on the original Constitution, I would dare say that it wasn't all that unanimous. But, and perhaps more importantly, relatively few people at the time could vote - in 1789 it was about 6% of the population as a whole. On the federal level, there was basically no pr…

It's a common way to dismiss Founding stuff, but I'm a fan of the Frederick Douglass view that the Constitution is a "glorious liberty document."

So what if the writers didn't always practice it? If it's been unequally applied - there's no stronger case than to hold people to account with the law of the land.

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

#273

Post by waterhouse » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 1:49 AM UTC

majormajor wrote: post #216

chordalkeyboard wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are making normative arguments, not legal arguments. We are aware that this is legal, just like it used to be legal to discriminate in hiring practices against black people. Taibbi is suggesting that if you can't trust the people not to post error and lies, how can you trust the oligarchs and officials? Especially if your access to alternative perspectives is limited. Read for yourself: >> Cutting down the pub…

Those with platforms have always had the opportunity to lie to large groups, but extending that ability to every single person seems like an EXTREMELY BAD "solution." Historically there's been a burden of proof for wild claims because it's been hard to get a huge mass audience. And people with those audiences were reluctant to repeat whatever wild bullshit was proposed to them if they couldn't vet it themselves. If y…

> Why those platforms shouldn't be allowed

The key word is "allowed". YouTube should be allowed to do everything they have the right to do. They have the right to stop providing all free services (unless they have contractual obligations). They have the right to ban all creators whose names start with "K". They have the right to add a 10-second delay to all page loads. They have the right to put Goatse on their homepage.

However, if they do any of the above things, the rest of us have the right to be disappointed, to think YouTube sucks, and to tell everyone else about it.

So, if they demonstrate that they have no respect for the principle of freedom of speech, we have the right to call them cowardly, un-American, probably unfair in their implementation, counterproductive even assuming their goals, etc.

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

#274

Post by int_19h » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 1:49 AM UTC

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…

What happens when all megaphones are either government- or large-corporation-owned, and whenever you try to speak on your own, the nearest megaphone just yells over whatever you have to say?

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

#275

Post by zionic » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 1:51 AM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #258

travisoneill1 wrote: post #193

Thank god for all of the people at Youtube working on censoring misinformation. They are so much smarter than me and obviously better than me at figuring out what is true and what isn't! And isn't it great that they always act selflessly in favor of the truth and never in the narrow interest of Google? I don't know what I would do if I didn't have them there to protect me from the dangerous misinformation. I am so he…

I'll take the bait in the spirit of casual friday night internet debating and recognizing your tone as purely sarcastic. I would ask then... What if, there was in fact an organization comprised of people smarter than you and obviously better than you at figuring out what is true or not - and I would go further - one that can tell you how to make better/more optimal decisions than you would have made without them? Wou…

I’m not going to answer your exact question and instead respond with an alternative: Nobody blames AT&T/Verizon when an absurd scammer calls you, or a grandpa wife’s money to a Nigerian scammer because of a phone call.

Think long and hard about why you blame Facebook/YouTube for the same. You’ll inevitably coalesce around the idea that these “platforms” did it to themselves by Arbitrarily banning legal content.

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

#276

Post by charonn0 » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 1:52 AM UTC

thorough wrote: post #240

charonn0 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allowing people to make up their own minds doesn't mean you have to provide a platform for views you don't share.

How would you suggest a company like YT can "allow people to make up their own minds" about an issue if they do not "provide a platform for views" of that issue that they "don't share"? Unless you are just making the point that YT censorship is more acceptable than government censorship (which I think everyone agrees with), then I'm not sure how you can have your cake and eat it to here.

I'm saying it's not censorship at all. Being denied by your preferred publisher is not the same as being prevented from publishing.

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

#277

Post by zionic » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 1:52 AM UTC

phailhaus wrote: post #188

Though I too am surprised that YouTube is setting such a precedent for fine-grained moderation, we cannot pretend as if this is an "infringement of our rights." YouTube is running a for-profit website, you don't have the "right" to a spot on their platform. YouTube has made the careful calculation that the people who are turned off by this ban are far outweighed by public support, and will reduce their contribution t…

For the record: please post “I support YouTube banning all BLM content because it is not profitable”

I’m just asking you to be ideologically consistent

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

#278

Post by int_19h » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 1:52 AM UTC

forest_dweller wrote: post #156

tibbydudeza wrote: post #54

Democracy will eventually die. “In sum, the majority of Americans are generally unable to understand or value democratic culture, institutions, practices or citizenship in the manner required”. “To the degree to which they are required to do so, they will interpret what is demanded of them in distorting and inadequate ways. As a result they will interact and communicate in ways that undermine the functioning of democ…

You make that sound like a bad thing? There are some that believe (as I do) that democracy will leads to oligarchy. But then again I've been reading a lot of Rothbard recently. https://www.britannica.com/topic/iron-law-of-oligarchy As for populism in a democratic system is a symptom of politicians/political parties not being seen by their citizens to be taking actions in regards to thorny subjects such as immigration…

Rothbard ended up as extreme paleocon, and his adherents such as Hans-Hermann Hoppe developed his line of thinking to its logical conclusion:

"In a covenant concluded among proprietor and community tenants for the purpose of protecting their private property, no such thing as a right to free (unlimited) speech exists, not even to unlimited speech on one's own tenant-property. One may say innumerable things and promote almost any idea under the sun, but naturally no one is permitted to advocate ideas contrary to the very purpose of the covenant of preserving and protecting private property, such as democracy and communism. There can be no tolerance toward democrats and communists in a libertarian social order. They will have to be physically separated and expelled from society. Likewise, in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin, there can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal. They – the advocates of alternative, non-family and kin-centered lifestyles such as, for instance, individual hedonism, parasitism, nature-environment worship, homosexuality, or communism – will have to be physically removed from society, too, if one is to maintain a libertarian order."

(Then neo-reactionaries took it from there, ditching all the excuses to present this state of affairs as "libertarian", and correctly calling it the new feudalism.)

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

#279

Post by gnusty_gnurc » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 1:53 AM UTC

8note wrote: post #259

gnusty_gnurc wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is literally the foundation of American govt structure namely the respect for unalienable rights of individuals to express themselves. It’s the first line in our enumerated rights. This isn’t “oh we should rethink things” this is a matter of natural rights and precedes anything we’ve constructed.

But that's not democracy. Go is arguing that free speech is required for democracy, and that democracy is why we want free speech. The founders didn't like democracy all that much though

> and that democracy is why we want free speech

We don't "want free speech," it exists and a government that represents free people will recognize that.

The founders arrived at a consensus with representative democracy. They realized the dangers of democracy.

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

#280

Post by grbgecllctr » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 1:53 AM UTC

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…

I'm struggling to understand the 1st amendment doesn't apply to private companies argument. Are you saying that Google, under its own volition, independently of the democratic party decided it was their ethical or patriotic duty to take this action? This is the company that built the platform that amplifies crazy ideas (many crazier than this) to hundreds a millions of people for profit. It's also well know that there's a revolving door between google and democrat administrations and campaigns. Or are you acknowledging that google and the DNC have a symbiotic relationship and that this is a valid loophole that the government can use to censor people?