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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

#341

Post by FabHK »

IANAL. But reading the "Urteil", it seems that it is rather technical in nature. In particular, someone uploaded a video. YT said that it violated its COVID-19 guidelines and removed it. Plaintiff said, listen, we had a contract, you can't just delete my stuff. YT said, well, the movie contravenes the current COVID-19 guidelines. Plaintiff said, well, but it doesn't contravene the guidelines you had at the time we made the contract. YT says, fair enough, but we changed the guidelines. Court says, you can't just unilaterally change the ToS unless you make a new contract. YT said, well, we said we could change the guidelines. Court says, yeah, but just saying that the guidelines might change does not give you the right to change the guidelines unilaterally unless you say in the ToS not only that you might change the ToS but that you reserve the right to unilaterally change the ToS and then notify the user of the changed ToS and then have the user agree to the new ToS (either explicitly or implicitly by continuing to use the service). Thus, old ToS apply. So, don't remove the video that was in line with old guidelines.

TLDR:

- YT has to pay a fine because the court says, look, there was a contract, stick to it, and they didn't stick to it.

- This has nothing to do with COVID-19, or free speech. It's purely contract law.

- My prediction: YT will change its ToS and include the pertinent clauses, we'll all agree to the new ones, and then they'll be able to delete anything they want anytime they want (in accordance with their new ToS).

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

#342

Post by philovivero »

LatteLazy wrote: post #243
byset wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can’t one frame either side of any controversy using these sorts of histrionics? This makes us all stupider.

That's sort of my point: people make histrionic statements about freedom and chaos. Then you point out what those actually mean...

Just stop. Repeat after me: "My apologies. I got a bit angry and said some things I didn't mean."

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

#343

Post by FabHK »

yreg wrote: 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 should still stick to the contract it has made with its users (ToS). So just say that you reserve that right upfront.

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

#344

Post by unethical_ban »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #326
bobthechef wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. It isn't collectivism to regulate industries and companies that have enormous power to do good or harm. This idea that private property is unconditionally off limits is radically individualist and libertarian and just as bad as collectivism. We aren't atomized individuals. We all live in a society with a proper order and a common good. When a company begins to do harm to the common good, it must be regula…

The notion that "I can do what I want" as long as it takes place in the private sphere is absurd. So what's your take on Lawrence v. Texas?

Not the OP, but I think "companies" and "individuals" are very different, and discussions around corporate responsibility and society are different from regulating social behavior between two individuals.

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

#345

Post by yorwba »

eli wrote: post #260
josefx wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think about it this way, you build something that looks like a pub, provides the services of a pub and say you are open for business. Would it be really that surprising that the state enforces laws that apply to pubs on your business or would you tell the health inspector to fuck off and open his own pub if he has problems with it?

Seems more like the government ordering you to serve a disorderly patron you previously ejected

If you want a real analogy, it's more like a pub where most drinks are free because they're served by other customers and the owner makes money by auctioning ad space on the glasses. Anyone can go there to hand out free drinks, provided they follow the rules, like no alcohol in the kids' corner and no coca wine. If someone's drink is very popular, they get a cut of the pub's advertising revenue.

Now someone walks in and starts offering Corona. It's not everyone's favorite, but still decently popular, and the owner has no problem with that.

Until a few hours later, when a new line is added to the list of rules on the door: "no Corona". Then the owner tells the person handing out free Corona that they're breaking the rules and kicks them out.

Is that fair? Not in this case, says the court. Everyone agrees to the rules when they walk through the door, but the owner can't just willy-nilly change them after the fact.

(If you want to really understand the decision, you'll have to read the original instead of relying on analogies.)

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

#346

Post by CamperBob2 »

unethical_ban wrote: post #344
CamperBob2 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The notion that "I can do what I want" as long as it takes place in the private sphere is absurd. So what's your take on Lawrence v. Texas?

Not the OP, but I think "companies" and "individuals" are very different, and discussions around corporate responsibility and society are different from regulating social behavior between two individuals.

So what about regulating it between three individuals? Or four? Or four hundred? At what point does collective social behavior become (y)our concern?

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

#347

Post by mousepilot »

throwawayswede wrote: post #18
xxpor wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

State violence is being used to force a private company to host content it finds objectionable. Who's the technocrat here?

The company doesn't find anything objectionable. It's the Who (a political org that has nothing to do with science) that is dictating what YouTube should do. YouTube and other technocrats believe that can tell people how and what they should think. With that being said, forcing a private company with state violence is not good either, unfortunately there's no magic wand to wave and reset everything. We shouldn't be p…

>YouTube and other technocrats believe that can tell people how and what they should think.

If you go to youtube to be told what to think then you're probably using the internet for things it wasn't designed for lol

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

#348

Post by eli »

handrous wrote: post #229
eli wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It distinguishes between something and a publisher, in that it says whatever-you-want-to-call-that-something can't be treated as the publisher (it uses that word) of information it's distributing.

It distinguishes between the person who uploaded the video and YouTube hosting the video. How YouTube exerts editorial control to promote some videos or delete others is not relevant. This is a good rule. HN couldn’t possibly exist without it.

There’s been a lot of really bad information on 230 from people who ought to know better.

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

#349

Post by dane-pgp »

eli wrote: post #140
handrous wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Perhaps the most relevant distinction is between "moderation that the users have a choice about" versus "moderation that the users don't have a choice about".

If a site wants to hide all posts/videos that promote some unpopular political belief, or use offensive words, then implementing that censorship as the default user experience is perfectly acceptable, as long as users can choose to opt out of that censorship.

There might be multiple reasons why a given post/video could be censored, and perhaps there is a small burden on sites to tag every single reason rather than mark it for censorship at the first excuse, but I think that a lot of the tagging work could be made the responsibility of the user who uploaded it.

Such a system would hopefully make moot the slightly disingenuous argument that "If sites can't ban political opinions I don't like then they also won't be able to ban spam". Obviously sites would be allowed to put neutral resource limits on users, to prevent DoS attacks.

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

#350

Post by nemothekid »

throwawaysea wrote: post #249
nemothekid wrote: post #21

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…

A few points: 1. Google definitely censors things on their own as well. Their own search engine turns up a long list of examples, so I won't rehash them all here, but one illustrative example is their censorship of the dissenter plug-in ( https://reclaimthenet.org/google-chrome-web-store-bans-disse... ), which also seems to be an example of censorship collusion within the tech industry. 2. Google has a long history o…

>The James Damore fiasco is a great example of the internal political culture rearing its head and how it impacts who's comfortable speaking up and steering the company's culture

I'm willing to accept the premise that Google could have neoliberal pressure on the company (I don't know if I would consider the pressure you allude to be progressive or left leaning). That said, James Damore's memo, if you've read it is not a good example of it and I believe he was rightly exiled for it. The memo is poorly sourced and poorly argued. It reads like someone who doesn't understand Dunning–Kruger is.

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