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

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

#651

Post by rayiner » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 7:40 AM UTC

yew wrote: post #644

hackyhacky wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The half of the country that voted for Trump is already alienated. They're fully prepared to destroy every American institution, simply because Trump them that they should. As we've already seen countless times, there is no amount of rational discussion or documented evidence that will persuade them otherwise. The question is, do the rest of us have to go along with it, or are allowed to fight back?

Speaking as an American who didn't vote for Trump, either time, you've certainly alienated me. You'd (collectively) best hope you're making more friends than enemies. Hope's all any of us have at this point.

This. Trump will be gone. The trashing of our liberal values in the name of “moral clarity in the age of Trump” will remain.

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

#652

Post by rayiner » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 7:40 AM UTC

ceilingcorner wrote: post #628

rayiner wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, YouTube censored guns?

Demonetized.

Censorship by definition includes not only banning and deletion, but “suppression,” which fits denying monetization to particular content on a site otherwise designed for it.

For example, it wouldn’t get around the first amendment for the government to say “we’re not banning this book, you just can’t charge money for it.” (I understand that Google as a private actor is permitted to engage in censorship while the government is not. My point is that demonetization is clearly censorship because of the government did it it would be illegal.)

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

#653

Post by gd1 » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 7:41 AM UTC

ceilingcorner wrote: post #495

I find it really disconcerting how many people on Hacker News want a corporate entity to decide what information is deemed acceptable to know. Do you even know where that word came from? The irony is almost overwhelming. But I digress... The idea that banning certain information will somehow result in it disappearing has been shown repeatedly to not work. A cursory reading of history should make this clear. You canno…

>The idea that banning certain information will somehow result in it disappearing has been shown repeatedly to not work

Maybe it didn't work in the old days.

But now maybe the CEO of Cloudflare will wake up one morning, decide he doesn't like your politics and block your DNS.

Now you might wake up one morning and find that Mailchimp have terminated your account because they don't like your politics (Molyneux).

Now your social media twitter clone might be banned by the Apple/Google store because they don't like what people are posting on it (Gab). As if you're a publisher... which you're not under section 230...

Now your GoFundme gets pulled if whatever leftist running GoFundme decides they don't like you.

Now the payment companies won't process your payments (too many examples to name).

Now, despite being the fourth largest newspaper in the country, your twitter account will be disabled indefinitely for posting "hacked" "russian disinformation" that turns out to be neither hacked nor disinformation. And we find out after the election that the Attorney General of Delaware has been investigating this matter for over a year.

Now some dipshit moderator on Hacker News will shadowban you permanently on a whim.

Your google docs will be blocked for violating the terms of service.

Youtube will demonetize you.

There is nowhere to hide from the dystopia that every fucking retarded left-winger here is so eager to embrace. It's like being in the middle of the red scare, but everyone says they're ok with telephone companies listening to the bad people's conversations and disconnecting their phone lines if they mention communism. Because, you know, they're "private companies" or something. The only cold comfort is that it will surely be used against them one day.

AnD wHy dId PeOpLe vOtE fOr a RacIst??!!

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

#654

Post by indecisive_user » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 7:41 AM UTC

phailhaus wrote: post #297

zionic wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don't have to support it, I'm acknowledging that YouTube is allowed to do it. Framing it as being "against our rights" is fruitless. The article author claims that this will inflame tensions, but that's unlikely.

Who is framing the argument that way? No one is saying it's against our rights.

That doesn't mean we can't oppose it. People are allowed to oppose a company's actions, even if they're not illegal

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

#655

Post by jb775 » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 7:43 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…

Google/Facebook/Twitter have become monopolistic de-facto utilities. The you'll have to build your own megaphone argument is no longer valid. Especially when they're attempting to impact election results while cashing in on governmental protections that minimize their risk.

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

#656

Post by ceilingcorner » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 7:43 AM UTC

twentydollars wrote: post #649

ceilingcorner wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really can’t think of anything more alien to the hacker ethos than, “A group of unknown people at a technology corporation should be the ultimate authority on what I’m allowed to say, read, or share with my friends.” Disinformation is indeed a difficult problem, but there are enough smart people in the world to figure it out without resorting to authoritarianism. We can do better.

> “A group of unknown people at a technology corporation should be the ultimate authority on what I’m allowed to say, read, or share with my friends.” Literally nobody is suggesting this. It's about freedom of Reach, not freedom of speech.

Right now, at this very moment, Facebook and Twitter prevent you from sending certain links via private message.

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

#657

Post by cmdshiftf4 » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 7:43 AM UTC

ceilingcorner wrote: post #613

hackyhacky wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about banning disagreement. It's not even about opinions. It's about combating weaponized misinformation. It's strange for Americans to be on the business side of a propaganda weapon, as we're more used to using against our enemies. Technology has finally made it feasible for malicious actors to cheaply and effectively manipulate people with lies, here in the US. If you don't believe it's a weapon, you're wr…

You are assuming that the regular media is the default, the truth, and that propaganda didn’t exist prior to 2016. Read Manufacturing Consent for a brief overview of this history of widespread weaponization of information by innumerable actors. Weaponized misinformation has existed as long as human speech has existed. What is new is the democratization of it, hence the establishment’s hostility.

>Weaponized misinformation has existed as long as human speech has existed. What is new is the democratization of it, hence the establishment’s hostility.

Beautifully put.

Better get ahead of it lest the proles gain class consciousness and use it against us.

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

#658

Post by zimpenfish » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 7:45 AM UTC

jmnicolas wrote: post #645

rayiner wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, YouTube censored guns?

A couple months ago I watched a video of Wranglestar where he spoke about his "ammo dispersion units" in an attempt for his video not to be demonetized / banned.

Taofledermaus talk about their "mass accelerator" and "launch director" for the same reasons.

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

#659

Post by nickysielicki » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 7:45 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #652

ceilingcorner wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Demonetized.

Censorship by definition includes not only banning and deletion, but “suppression,” which fits denying monetization to particular content on a site otherwise designed for it. For example, it wouldn’t get around the first amendment for the government to say “we’re not banning this book, you just can’t charge money for it.” (I understand that Google as a private actor is permitted to engage in censorship while the gove…

Demonetization is not censorship, imho. They support YouTube through their advertisers, and their advertisers don't want to be affiliated with guns. It makes sense that they won't pay you for videos that they can't monetize -- they're just passing on the loss to the video producer.

Beyond demonetization, YouTube did categorically ban videos demonstrating how to install and/or fabricate an autosear. In practice, this also extends to purely educational videos explaining how an autosear works.

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

#660

Post by jmnicolas » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 7:45 AM UTC

awak3ning wrote: post #594

If I were a foreign actor with malign intent towards the US, I would be very pleased with how things are playing out. 1. Corrosion of formerly stalwart American Institutions 2. The majority of Americans being habituated to mistrust their fellow American 3. The ability for a few entities with concentrated power to harness and control the nervous systems of millions of Americans

> If I were a foreign actor with malign intent towards the US, I would be very pleased with how things are playing out.

Then you wouldn't have thought enough about it. Look at what happened when the USSR collapsed: the world became less stable and nuclear tech and scientists found their ways in unsavory countries.

There were some civil wars or frozen conflicts that are still a pain today (Transnitria, breakaway republics in Georgia, the whole Ukraine thing, and more recently Azerbaijan vs Armenia).

When the enemy has nukes you want him to be a known quantity, stable and predictable.