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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

#161

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…

So people on HN suffer from memory loss? 'hyoerliveral boogeyman' is actually a very accurate description of the pervasive and ongoing censorship across platforms, service providers, and many others. What else do you call the complete removal of parler? The on going suppression of covid news? The ongoing suppression of even discussing the 2020 election fraud? Facebook warning people that they are being exposed to ext…

> What else do you call the complete removal of parler?

Failure to adhere to terms and services or to express intent to adhere to them going forward.

Parler couldn't or wouldn't stop people from breaking their providers' terms of service and didn't show a good-faith effort towards doing so. Other right-wing outlets do do those things, and have not gotten drilled despite their odious beliefs.

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

#162
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> do you not believe that the exceptional openness of either of those two platforms has an impact on places outside of them?

Oh, there's definitely an impact.

> Do you think there's no intangible benefits to you by these places merely existing?

Yeah, the campaigns to harass a game emulator developer to suicide because "40% is a good start" are a fantastic benefit to society, obviously.

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

#163

Good. I'd rather live in chaos than a world controlled by these technocrats. Let's do Twitter while we're at it.

Losing control is what big social wants. The more they are regulated, the more intimate they are with the government, the safer and more entrenched their status. They already enjoy network effects and lock-in of their users; more rules widen the moat around the established players who got huge in the early unregulated days.

Certainly not all forms of regulation result in regulatory capture. Simply following this German model where Google/Youtube isn't allowed to censor certain ideas doesn't lend itself to regulatory capture.

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

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does YouTube's TOS really not contain statements giving them the ability to stop hosting any video, at any time, for any reason? The highest court in Germany (for civil and criminal proceedings) wrote this in one of their rulings: > Depending on the circumstances, especially if private companies - as in this case - move into a dominant position and take over the provision of the framework conditions of public commu…

This is as it should be IMO. When you position yourself to be a de-facto public square, you shouldn't get to selectively operate like a private club when it suits you.

Hmm, when did they do this?

I actually think Germany has it backwards here. If the German government wants to provide a free-speech "safe zone", they should provide it themselves.

You're encouraging government coercion of action.

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

#165
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "marketplace of ideas" is a fiction that has long since been debunked. The best ideas arent the ones that win out, it's the loudest ones and the ones that appeal to our most base emotions that win. Only a small percentage of people actually possess intellectual curiosity. Most just mindlessly follow social trends.

> The "marketplace of ideas" is a fiction that has long since been debunked I don't think it's been "debunked" as you say. Provide evidence. A few examples is not evidence to make such a blanket statement. > The best ideas arent the ones that win out, it's the loudest ones and the ones that appeal to our most base emotions that win. Again, very much disagree with this. If you look short term that may be true, but lon…

Oh really? Then why is the number of people who believe the earth is flat on the rise? Why do people still believe in ancient mythologies that contradict scientific knowledge that has been available for centuries?

Maybe on the scale of millenia ideas based in truth are more likely to dominate, but I don't see how you could make that claim about history when our current paradigm of empirical knowledge is only a few centuries old, and already it seems as though cracks are starting to form.

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

#166

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

It's a common idea in Europe, many dissidents like Navalny were disappointed. American left lives in their own bubble and cherry picks things from Europe they like and ignore the rest.

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

#167
post #129
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consumers objecting to content is as old as television, and even older, and is certainly not owned by "hyperliberals." For example, Conservatives demanded radio stations stop playing the Beatles, and, only slightly more recently, the Dixie Chicks. They called up advertisers as well. You could probably find people complaining to artists' patrons in Medieval texts, if you looked.

Nice what-aboutism... Yes Conservatives used to be just as bad, I was out there in the 90's complaining about authoritarian conservatives. We libertarians did not mind our flank and Authoritarian liberals today are about 10000000x more of an issue than even the most extreme bible thumping conservative from the 90's ever was

> used to be just as bad

https://truthout.org/articles/right-wingers-are-taking-over-...

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

#168
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So users who troll and harass other users, spam, post hateful content, etc. should never be banned? That's just leads to a precipitous decline in quality and drives other users away. Why would I want to spend my leisure time on a platform filled with 13 year-old shouting racial slurs?

Let the people decide. HN deals with this well enough.

Comments can and do get removed for violating the rules here. As they should.

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

#169
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…

> Their only winning move was to stay neutral and do nothing but comply with legal requests

They could have enforced their policies consistently across all accounts instead of their strong anti-right/anti-conservative bias. It's their selective enforcement that created issues for them.

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

#170
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The primary export of places like that has proven to be brigading, harassment, and bigotry in the form of memes, so...no, not really.

I have yet to hear a positive argument for their existence, and "well it collects the dirtbags!" is actually not one. I spent years tracking reactionary and fascist movements on the internet and how they interrelate and spread information; these sites more or less exist to do exactly that. The targeted harassment campagins that target random people they've decided not to like--that's just "for the lulz".

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