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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

#291

Post by mapt »

deminature wrote: post #247
throwawayboise wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Isn't this punishing Youtube for their own success at achieving a dominant market position? They didn't position themselves as the de-facto public square so much as became one due to lack of competition.

Yes. This is antitrust targeted at practical impacts to everyday life rather than at narrowly defined, hard to prove classes of "anticompetitive behavior", which is the route that the US has taken.

An attempt at practical antitrust regulation might mean, for example, that if a Walmart replaces every other business in your town through the sheer merit of its business model, that Walmart doesn't get to refuse to do business with you on the grounds that the manager hasn't liked you since high school. It might even mean that you reserve Constitutional rights like assembly/protest within the area that is functionally the public square, which is the private sidewalk in front of the Walmart.

I know which approach I would prefer.

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

#293

Post by dane-pgp »

deminature wrote: post #247
throwawayboise wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Isn't this punishing Youtube for their own success at achieving a dominant market position? They didn't position themselves as the de-facto public square so much as became one due to lack of competition.

> became one due to lack of competition.

By phrasing what happened in the passive voice, you are downplaying the fact that Google actively strove to make it hard for new competitors to become established.

Of course there still are competitors to YouTube, depending on how we define the market for online video sharing, and Google didn't invent Metcalfe's Law, but nor should they be surprised that it was hard for alternative sites to compete. That is, after all, why they bought YouTube in the first place and discontinued Google Videos.

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

#294

Post by orangecat »

yunohn wrote: post #194
eli wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They caved to censoring things that were reasonable, but now anyone can make them censor anything as long as they have some poltical power somewhere. Can you define "reasonable" here in an objective way that we could all agree on? There's no such thing as neutrality. Leaving up a popular anti-vax video is just as political a decision as taking it down.

> There's no such thing as neutrality. Leaving up a popular anti-vax video is just as political a decision as taking it down. A lot of the replies to your comment fixate on this, since they take issue with “everything is political”. But I think it’s very true, and agree with you. Why should YouTube host anything and everything that random anonymous users decide to upload? Why is this /holy/ act of uploading deemed un…

It’s a very weird way of thinking that it’s political only if the video is removed, but not if it is kept online.

Because keeping it up is the default, while you have to go out of your way to remove it.

If I own a store, is it as much of a political act to allow Trump supporters to shop there as it is to ban them?

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

#295

Post by lhorie »

deminature wrote: post #247
throwawayboise wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Isn't this punishing Youtube for their own success at achieving a dominant market position? They didn't position themselves as the de-facto public square so much as became one due to lack of competition.

The way I interpret it is that wording an agreement in terms of "we can delete whatever for whatever reason" doesn't specify in advance exactly what is fair game and what isn't. This is similar to Rossmann's complaints that NYC shouldn't get to fine a business for an alleged violation if they themselves cannot explain what the rules are in the first place.

So ideally if a video is to be taken down, it ought be under a rationale along the lines of "you agreed to not doing [very specific thing] and this video does it, therefore we took it down", not "technically by clicking on a link in our site, you agreed to fine print that says you'll sell us your soul, so suck it"

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

#296

Post by xdennis »

deminature wrote: post #247
throwawayboise wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Isn't this punishing Youtube for their own success at achieving a dominant market position? They didn't position themselves as the de-facto public square so much as became one due to lack of competition.

> Isn't this punishing Youtube for their own success at achieving a dominant market position?

Yes, and that's a good thing because it encourages competition. No market should have a player with such a dominant position.

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

#297

Post by the_lonely_road »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #266
zucker42 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think Germany "nationalizing" YouTube is less extreme than this ruling?

Forcing Google to host content against their will is pretty close. I guess in this case it's better than nationalizing though, Google has to pay for the hosting, and you get to tell Google they're not allowed to delete videos.

I require guests in my house to take their shoes off. They don’t have to do it, they can just leave. But if they want to stay in my house they need to take their shoes off.

No one is holding a gun to YouTube’s head and telling them they have to serve video content to Germans. They want to be in Germany serving video content, so it’s only fair and just that they should listen to the Germans and do what they say or leave.

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

#298

Post by anigbrowl »

throwawayswede wrote: post #178
jacob2484 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NY Times is not a platform

NYT Opinion page (essence bullshit basically) is.

Are you arguing (consistent with your comment above) that NYT-O must publish all submissions?

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

#299

Post by anigbrowl »

Const-me wrote: post #269
tedunangst wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should movie theaters be allowed to select which movies they show?

There're many movie theaters, but only one youtube in the whole world. Youtube and facebook are natural monopolies due to their network effect. All the older natural monopolies, water networks, electricity networks, landline phone networks, railroad networks, and the rest of them are either nationalized, or regulated heavily. It's long overdue to add social networks to the list.

There's only one YouTube, but lots of video sharing sites. You can put your material on Bitchute, Vimeo, ....

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

#300

Post by whbrown »

eli wrote: post #241
whbrown wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not theirs to take. And anyhow, the GDR dissolved over 30 years ago, I should think their economic policies died with them.

Is it theirs to force them to host content Google wishes to delete?

It's theirs to host the videos themselves if they deem them worthy of being hosted.
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