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

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

#711

Post by tomjen3 » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 8:52 AM UTC

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…

For one thing, rules for thee and not for me is simply terrible, and the left argued that there was fraud last time.

But more importantly, I don't even think your charity example works. Like you can be charged with fraud if you just put the money into your bank account, but if you collect for a charity and charge a 75% collecting and handling fee? Are you then collecting to a charity?

In this case it is more that somebody claims you are not collecting for the charity, you show the bank statements that conclusively prove (according to yourself) that you were collecting to a charity. Then somebody starts looking into it and claims they have evidence that you play golf with the bank teller. And that their manager is your college buddy.

And now you try to suppress the (alleged) photos.

To be clear, I don't think there was widespread fraud or voter suppression in favor of Biden. But the key difference is that normally there are disinterested parties (in particular courts) that can rule on the evidence, in politics there are by definition no disinterested parties in the US. And because of the superpower status of the US, it is even worse outside it.

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

#712

Post by stale2002 » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 8:56 AM UTC

scoopertrooper wrote: post #590

stale2002 wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but rather it was ended by the checks and balances within the government belatedly stepping up to the plate. Ok, and regardless of that, anonymity still helps people avoid consequences for their speech. Which is a good thing, given that the government has in the past done things like that. > This is how such matters should be tackled in a free society Well that is cold comfort to the people who suffered real harm,…

> Ok, and regardless of that, anonymity still helps people avoid consequences for their speech. Which is a good thing, given that the government has in the past done things like that. Perhaps, but there is now firm legal precedent that greatly limits their ability to do it again. > None of this stuff is exclusive. Feel free to try and stop government consequences some other way. But regardless of that, anonymity stil…

> but there is now firm legal precedent that greatly limits their ability to do it again.

There are also the situations of highly targeted minorities that would now be unable to protect themselves, because you've made anonymity illegal. These people really do need anonymity to protect themselves.

And no amount of laws can protect someone from a hate mob attacking them, that doesn't care about the consequences. One of the only ways for many of these people to protect themselves, is to be anonymous.

> Some people should not be able to avoid the consequences of their speech.

I have given pretty good examples where people absolutely should be given immunity from consequences. Specifically people should be immune from consequences if they are engaging in government criticism.

The examples that I gave are great reasons as for why anonymity is important for people.

> It's possible with enough tech savviness

Actually, it is possible with basically no amount of tech savviness. All you have to do is click the create new account button, on twitter, and you have just been given a pretty large amount of anonymity.

In order to have your twitter account de-anonymized, the government has to take pretty extreme actions, such as court orders.

Even if a certain anonymous situation is not 100% foolproof, it is still important that it is available, as it can help most people, most of the time.

It turns out, that simply being able to create an anonymous twitter account, is pretty anonymous, most of the time, for most people.

Also, the original point that I was countering was this "pseudo-anonymous political discourse on open mainstream mass-broadcast social media".

So I am talking about specifically why anonymity, in the form of having the ability to do what people do now, which is create anonymous twitter accounts, and engage in political discourse.

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

#713

Post by mjfl » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 8:58 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 culture has changed around here in the last 4 years to favor centralized regulation of communication, which is a dizzying reversal of what it was about every year before that.

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

#714

Post by foepys » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 8:59 AM UTC

ceilingcorner wrote: post #695

foepys wrote: post #680

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> skepticism will grow and new solutions toward treating information and the media will arise And you are willing to sacrifice democracy for just the chance of this happening?

This rhetoric makes no sense to me. People are already subject to incomprehensible levels of propaganda from every angle and have been for over a century. When and where was there a perfect democracy?

For traditional publishing there is at least one person that is ultimately responsible for publishing it. The person is in the vast majority of cases subject to the same jurisdiction.

On YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc. I can push my agenda worldwide. Russia, China, Iran, and other non-democracies can make insane amounts of propaganda for very cheap to reach millions of people. The engagement algorithms even help the propagandists reach their target audience effectively. The algorithms help then widen the audience automatically through shares of their supporters and further engagement.

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

#715

Post by Reelin » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 9:01 AM UTC

bussierem wrote: post #633

balls187 wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a corporate entity to decide what information An AI algorithm.

An algorithm doesn't write or tune itself. This is unnecessary pedantry.

Actually, in the age of ML it more or less does. You wire up the model, specify the metrics to optimize for, and then feed it lots of data. The algorithm figures out the details of how to achieve the specified goal on it's own. Have a look at (https://cs.stanford.edu/people/karpathy/convnetjs).

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

#716

Post by zucker42 » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 9:01 AM UTC

chordalkeyboard wrote: post #262

majormajor wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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." Why is it bad? before only a few people could lie to everyone and keep the majority in the dark because they lacked access to information that would expose the lies they were told. Now everyone's voice is amplified and the people who used to have this…

> The argument is that they have become large and commonly used enough that they are akin to a public utility.

While this is an interesting conversation, you don't even have to go this far. You can just argue that rebutting bad ideas is more effective than censoring them and a good video hosting platform should value open discourse, and so YouTube should try to be as content-neutral as possible. If you convince enough YouTube users that open discourse is more important than censoring perceived falsehoods, then it might make more sense for YouTube to commit itself to open discourse.

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

#717

Post by watwut » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 9:04 AM UTC

dasil003 wrote: post #701

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?

Trump support is more about disillusionment and distrust of career politicians and frustration at the steady decline of blue-collar prosperity than it is about actually believing his mouth words.

Trump did not performed that well among blue collar demographics.

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

#718

Post by zucker42 » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 9:04 AM UTC

xnyan wrote: post #217

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…

Should you be forced to publish and host things that you think are terrible lies? If so, why? If not, why should YouTube? Not making a comment on the validity of their claims, just trying to understand what you are saying - a private organization should be legally compelled to spend money to host ideas that they think are harmful? How does that work in practical terms?

He didn't say anything about YouTube being forced to do anything.

"YouTube is wrong to do this" and "the government ought to force YouTube to act differently" are two distinct arguments.

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

#719

Post by My8thAccount » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 9:04 AM UTC

visarga wrote: post #611

greenflame7 wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that logic its not contradictory to be intolerant of people intolerant of intolerance. Or is it only valid logic with an even number of intolerances?

This logic doesn't work in the abstract, you got to apply it to a concrete situation. Each situation is different, they are not all the same to be judged in one swoop.

Each situation is morally relative and animosity is ineffective at resolving conflict, instead only deepening the divide. You cannot fight hate with hate and achieve love. We all must be more tolerant of people and their fallibility in order to reach common ground and discover that we are all much more alike than we are different. Love the sinner, hate the sin, but teach and forgive. MLK nailed it when he said that the means are the seeds from which the ends grow. You cannot hope to bear fruit when starting from a rotten seed. It's so easy to retaliate but true power is the confidence to de-escalate.

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

#720

Post by DangitBobby » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 9:05 AM UTC

ceilingcorner wrote: post #695

foepys wrote: post #680

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> skepticism will grow and new solutions toward treating information and the media will arise And you are willing to sacrifice democracy for just the chance of this happening?

This rhetoric makes no sense to me. People are already subject to incomprehensible levels of propaganda from every angle and have been for over a century. When and where was there a perfect democracy?

The goal is not perfect democracy, it's functional democracy.