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

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

#361

Post by Orou » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 2:47 AM UTC

phailhaus wrote: post #303

The author theorizes that this ban will inflame tensions, but I don't believe that's true. Look at Reddit's ban on toxic subreddits. They found that banning toxic subreddits reduced the toxicity in the website as a whole, and that "post-ban, hate speech by the same users was reduced by as much as 80-90 percent." [1] Reddit is just a closed system of communities; YouTube is one such community in the larger system of s…

I see these reddit bans referenced every now and then as evidence that censorship works. I think it's important to emphasize these bans are not evidence they shutting down communities changed participants' minds about anything. Further, the paper states that "The empirical work in this paper suggests that when narrowly applied to small, specific groups, banning deviant hate groups can work to reduce and contain the behavior." Trump supporters are not a small group of people and they don't have a single 'meeting point' on the internet that can be banned to break them up.

Let's just be careful about comparing strategies used to target niche internet hate groups with tens of millions of Trump supporters.

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

#362

Post by amanaplanacanal » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 2:48 AM UTC

falcrist wrote: post #187

CharlesW wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I'm heartened to see that someone in this thread understands what rights the First Amendment actually guarantees.

People constantly conflate "freedom of speech" with the protection granted by the first amendment. That's right up to and including Randal Munroe, who said "The right to free speech means the government can't arrest you for what you say" That's not freedom of speech, that's the first amendment protections of freedom of speech... and it doesn't even adequately describe the protections. There are other things the gover…

Where is the line though? If I disagree with what you say am I allowed to call you an idiot? Am I allowed to no longer associate with you? Those could both be considered retaliation or sanction.

And am I required to publish your words even though I disagree with them? That would seem to infringe my freedom of speech.

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

#363

Post by jessah » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 2:49 AM UTC

wkjenjkwenf wrote: post #331

phailhaus wrote: post #303

The author theorizes that this ban will inflame tensions, but I don't believe that's true. Look at Reddit's ban on toxic subreddits. They found that banning toxic subreddits reduced the toxicity in the website as a whole, and that "post-ban, hate speech by the same users was reduced by as much as 80-90 percent." [1] Reddit is just a closed system of communities; YouTube is one such community in the larger system of s…

Sure, it reduced tensions on reddit , but what about tensions everywhere else? The author doesn't care about how toxic Youtube is, he cares how toxic the US is. Pushing these radicals onto radical websites only further radicalizes them. That should be an axiomatic fact, yet nobody seems to understand it.

Everybody understands that. But reach is taken from them. That's a extremely important effect. Way more important than the radicalisation, because if these people seek out new platforms to radicalize them self, they would likely have done so in every case. The danger of radicalizing a bigger part of the population is what is at stake here.

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

#364

Post by grecy » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 2:49 AM UTC

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…

Even more insane is the idea that YouTube are "blocking content" and therefore treading on people's "freedom" to publish whatever they want.

Until platforms like YouTube even existed the only way to get anything seen or heard by people was to go through a big TV or radio network, who of course filtered what they would or would not air. Just because you filmed a video about a crackpot theory DOES NOT give you the right to air it to millions, and never in our history has a person been able to do so.

If you want to stand in Times Square holding a sign about your theory, you're free to do so. If you want to buy your own TV channel and air it, you're free to do so. If you DEMAND some TV network run it, you're gunna have a bad time.

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

#365

Post by pnw_hazor » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 2:49 AM UTC

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…

It's okay. I have been informed that the pay is good and the work is interesting.

The pending dystopia is of no concern to Google employees.

It sucks that Google employees are going to be responsible for the shit world my kids and grand kids will live in.

(This type of comment usually gets me slowed or suspended for picking on Google employees so I will sign off for the evening)

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

#366

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 2:50 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…

[deleted]

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

#367

Post by prucomaclu2 » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 2:51 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #299

prucomaclu2 wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a fair point, which is why challenged ballots get marked as "challenged" and not "rejected". It is the duty of the observers to challenge ballots. It is the duty of the election workers to record these challenges, which wasn't happening. The only reason her challenge should have been denied is if she was shown to be challenging ballots indiscriminately or she was preventing the election workers from doing thei…

> Given the large number of affidavits that their team has provided of a similar nature, it seems reasonable that the case should be allowed to be heard in a manner that takes both sides seriously. Before presenting evidence, you have to present a legal argument for which the evidence would provide factual substantiation. The vast majority of the Trump- and Trump-allied-lawsuits have failed at that and been dismissed…

This is indeed a fair point.

Several of the lawsuits have been dismissed on the general basis that "election laws being broken is not evidence that fraud occurred".

It's logically a true statement, and I think it's a fair opinion to have.

But I do disagree with it: The laws regarding poll observers are designed to detect fraud. It is extremely hard to detect fraud when the poll observers aren't allowed to do their job, or when their challenges are ignored.

I get that the optics are bad: throwing out hundreds of thousands of ballots doesn't make anyone look good.

But what's the point of election laws if ultimately it doesn't matter when they are broken?

I'm not an expert in election laws, but I would be very curious if this standard of proving fraud has generally been applied for previous election cases in the same way.

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

#368

Post by jessah » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 2:51 AM UTC

Orou wrote: post #361

phailhaus wrote: post #303

The author theorizes that this ban will inflame tensions, but I don't believe that's true. Look at Reddit's ban on toxic subreddits. They found that banning toxic subreddits reduced the toxicity in the website as a whole, and that "post-ban, hate speech by the same users was reduced by as much as 80-90 percent." [1] Reddit is just a closed system of communities; YouTube is one such community in the larger system of s…

I see these reddit bans referenced every now and then as evidence that censorship works. I think it's important to emphasize these bans are not evidence they shutting down communities changed participants' minds about anything. Further, the paper states that "The empirical work in this paper suggests that when narrowly applied to small, specific groups, banning deviant hate groups can work to reduce and contain the b…

I's not about changing the participants minds. It's about keeping them to radicalize more people by taking away reach.

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

#369

Post by ipython » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 2:52 AM UTC

wkjenjkwenf wrote: post #338

ipython wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it that we have to ignore nuances in these arguments? We never had unrestricted free speech in this country. There is a whole Wikipedia article about it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_ex... In addition other democratic states have strict limits on free speech such as Singapore: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_14_of_the_Constituti... After all even “democracy” is nuanced here…

What a stupid argument. "Child pornography and obscenity are banned, therefore democracy does not rely on free speech, therefore we don't need free speech at all." Obviously "free speech" comes with the colloquially-understood fact that it doesn't include child pornography.

Be careful. Your hot air may just blow over the straw man you’re arguing with.

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

#370

Post by totony » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 2:54 AM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #321

travisoneill1 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 yo…

Should you be free to make (acknowledged) sub-optimal decisions for yourself that adversely affect others? Anticipating the "no - if it's illegal" argument, how would that be the philosophically consistent with freedom to choose free from having a group of people who are "smarter and better" choose for you? This is the challenge of externalities and market pricing.

>Should you be free to make (acknowledged) sub-optimal decisions for yourself that adversely affect others?

Yes, this is what personal freedom is about. Optimal-ness of decisions does not matter.

There are some things we agreed as a society are not only suboptimal, but harmful enough to warrant restricting some of that freedom. Note the enough, we hold freedom above (or at least used to hold it) some consequences that may result from its existance. Ideally this standard of enough should be pretty high.

The argument against censorship is that censoring what people discuss is harmful to both that freedpm (fundamental - according to how we base our society) and to society as a whole, seeding dissent from these groups that are singled out.

EDIT: I also think your assumption is wrong in that it is dubious if there are people whose opinion is better. Just look at science's history, where most of the (now recognized) big breakthroughs were first seen as absolute stupidity from the established experts.

>Anticipating the "no - if it's illegal" argument, how would that be the philosophically consistent with freedom to choose free from having a group of people who are "smarter and better" choose for you?

As for this, society is hardly philosophically consistent. At some point a concensus has to be reached. Here practicality forces us to abandon philosphical perfection in order to preserve social order.