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Germany fines YouTube for removing video of anti-lockdown protest

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Re: Germany fines YouTube for removing video of anti-lockdown protest

#131
post #102
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Platforms that claim to be open content systems (i.e it is not topic limited like say a Mac Forum) should only remove content that is illegal in nature, i.e Sexual Exploitation of minors, True Threats, etc. > popular anti-vax since Anti-Vax has now been refined to include anyone that opposes government mandated vaccinations, I am a Vaxxed Anti-Vaxer as I oppose all government mandates. People should be free to choose…

You are of course free to create a platform that only removes illegal content, just as Twitter or YouTube is free to to remove content they don't like. But I think you'd find two problems: determining what could be illegal is really hard (what's a "true threat" and what's a tasteless joke?), and also you'd end up with a community that looks a lot like 4chan or parler. Not a place I would choose to hang out.

> Not a place I would choose to hang out.

While that may be true.. do you not believe that the exceptional openness of either of those two platforms has an impact on places outside of them? Do you think there's no intangible benefits to you by these places merely existing?

Re: Germany fines YouTube for removing video of anti-lockdown protest

#132
post #98
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Platforms that claim to be open content systems (i.e it is not topic limited like say a Mac Forum) should only remove content that is illegal in nature, i.e Sexual Exploitation of minors, True Threats, etc. > popular anti-vax since Anti-Vax has now been refined to include anyone that opposes government mandated vaccinations, I am a Vaxxed Anti-Vaxer as I oppose all government mandates. People should be free to choose…

You would never want to use a big platform that had no moderation, the quality would be shit. For a small, niche platform, it's fine, but as platforms grow they get filled with 13 year-olds posting garbage, which someone has to clean up to avoid driving away other users.

I don’t agree that decent conversation can only exist with heavy moderation.

If you haven’t seen the issue with echo chambers by now… you’re in one.

Re: Germany fines YouTube for removing video of anti-lockdown protest

#133

Merkel has stated that she didn't believe it was good that Facebook/Twitter banned Trump from their platforms fwiw.

Merkel grew up in a country where you could be "banned" for anything. I'm not surprised that she doesn't like the idea of private companies deciding according to their own (not democraticly chosen) rules who should speak and who shouldn't.

Re: Germany fines YouTube for removing video of anti-lockdown protest

#134
post #123

Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I believe a website should be able to choose what videos it hosts. If it wants to host anything legal, liveleak-style - then that's fine. But if it decides to remove whatever video it wants then that also should be fine.

It’s not a website, it’s almost every video on the internet and competitors can’t exist because of network effects

Re: Germany fines YouTube for removing video of anti-lockdown protest

#135
> "We have a responsibility to connect our users with trustworthy information and to combat misinformation during Covid-19."

Who gave them that responsibility? I didn't. If no one did, why do they think they have that responsibility? Do they feel that they are the final authority on all matters that they forget that their users are humans capable of coming to their own conclusions?

Re: Germany fines YouTube for removing video of anti-lockdown protest

#136
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I understand correctly, the fine was imposed because Youtube failed to comply with the order of the court to make the video accessible again, which took them several weeks (20. April - 14. May 2020). What confuses me is that the article states the video was removed in January, which would only make sense if it was January 2021, because January 2020 there were no restrictions in Switzerland. Maybe the above date sh…

Should be about something else than ToS, the quote is talking about a contract. The news is not sufficient to understand what supposedly happened there. That the Youtuber had a contract with Youtube, is that common? Maybe the court judged the partner program agreements as one? That "future changes may apply without notice" is invalid in Germany, that's evident. Companies writing bullshit like that in AGBs (ToS) or co…

Yeah, it's pretty clear the fine is about not obeying the court.

But I was asking why the court was forcing them to re-instate a video in the first place.

Re: Germany fines YouTube for removing video of anti-lockdown protest

#137
post #68
post #8

Naval Ravikant seems to be a divisive figure here but I think he made a profound point when he discussed this topic on Joe Rogan's podcast. The point was that, as a platform, you cross a line which is very difficult to ever revert when you optionally censor your platform in response to political pressure because both sides are then forced from a game theory perspective to aggressively pursue censoring your platform i…

There's no avoiding this even if you don't " censor your platform in response to political pressure " because everyone assumes that is the case and the game is on... It's not a case of deciding to: >optionally censor your platform in response to political pressure Because so many people assume that if some content is removed and it is well then that must have been because of political pressure or views at that compan…

Right this is the entire point about how crossing the line poisons the well.

Which is why they would have to be very clear that their policy is to only respond to legal orders for takedowns and nothing else.

Re: Germany fines YouTube for removing video of anti-lockdown protest

#138
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's response to pressures from advertisers wasn't to censor anything. They just demonetized videos that the advertisers didn't want to be associated with. Hosting someone's video for free without even interrupting it with ads seems like the opposite of censorship to me. There may be something interesting to say about how the desires of advertisers shapes our discourse, but its not censorship (in this case at lea…

So now they are demonetizing videos that want to be monetized and vice versa. Time for YouTube's demise is long overdue. I hope Peertube, decentralization and finger to censorship is the future.

[deleted]

Re: Germany fines YouTube for removing video of anti-lockdown protest

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Their only winning move was to stay neutral and do nothing but comply with legal requests. No? This narrative is a bit ahistorical - and it's fueled by this idea that hyperliberal boogeyman started censoring everything. If you look at what happened in 2017, Google started "censoring" things because advertisers threatened to boycott . The platforms couldn't stay neutral because advertisers became more and more conce…

They (Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, even Reddit) act so very much like publishers that it seems to me the mistake was granting "platform" protections to sites that: claim broad rights over posted content; use complex logic to decide what to promote (that they promote anything is alarming, for a "platform"!) and what a visitor sees while also hosting and distributing that content they're highlighting or promoting (which…

This "platform vs publisher" thing is a myth based on a misunderstand of how Section 230 works. The law doesn't actually distinguish between the two.
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