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UK MP speech about freedoms censored by YouTube

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Re: UK MP speech about freedoms censored by YouTube

#21

Post by PontifexMinimus »

mojzu wrote: post #4
ColinHayhurst wrote: post #2

The video has now been restored: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VidUXZjzNVk Worth a watch. Should we "assume the best" by assuming this was taken down by AI, and without human check? MP says: “This is an outrageous attack on free speech. Throughout the pandemic we've seen blatant attempts by Big Tech to silence opposition voices challenging the conventional wisdom. This episode serves as a further example of the wor…

Yeah it seems likely to me to be an overzealous AI decision, given the background noise of anti-vaccine disinformation on youtube these days I wouldn't be surprised if they've turned up their algorithms at the cost of more false and marginal positives What's strange however is them seeming to use this to try and 'strengthen' the online safety bill which in it's current form would already be damaging to free speech on…

> an overzealous AI decision

Then they simply shouldn't use AI algorithms to censor people.

> What's strange however is them seeming to use this to try and 'strengthen' the online safety bill which in it's current form would already be damaging to free speech online

It's not obvious to me that the UK government has any coherent idea of what it is trying to do.

Re: UK MP speech about freedoms censored by YouTube

#22

Post by [deleted] »

andrekandre wrote: post #7
ColinHayhurst wrote: post #2

The video has now been restored: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VidUXZjzNVk Worth a watch. Should we "assume the best" by assuming this was taken down by AI, and without human check? MP says: “This is an outrageous attack on free speech. Throughout the pandemic we've seen blatant attempts by Big Tech to silence opposition voices challenging the conventional wisdom. This episode serves as a further example of the wor…

> "Govnt must stop the erosion of free speech online. That starts with looking again at the wholly inadequate proposals in the Online Safety Bill” why don't they (govt) open a public video site for anyone to upload to, so they don't have to mess with private sites? forcing private entities to host things they dont want to sounds like a huge can of worms

[deleted]

Re: UK MP speech about freedoms censored by YouTube

#23

Post by carnitine »

bserge wrote: post #13
basisword wrote: post #9

"Freedom is the reason the UK has had such a long an illustrious history." I'm sure the inhabitants of the many countries the British invaded and continue to hang on to would disagree. The Online Safety Bill he mentions in his outrage at YouTube taking down his speech is itself an attack on freedoms. He's also part of a political party working to criminalise protests they disagree with.

Tbf, commoners in Britain didn't fare much better.

They definitely did. Chattel slavery for example was never legal in the British isles, but was permitted in the colonies.

Re: UK MP speech about freedoms censored by YouTube

#24

Post by my123 »

PontifexMinimus wrote: post #12
andrekandre wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Govnt must stop the erosion of free speech online. That starts with looking again at the wholly inadequate proposals in the Online Safety Bill” why don't they (govt) open a public video site for anyone to upload to, so they don't have to mess with private sites? forcing private entities to host things they dont want to sounds like a huge can of worms

It would make a lot of sense for the UK government to encourage UK-based PeerTube websites (and other federated social media such as Mastodon, PixelFed, Lemmy, etc), and to make sure all UK government content is uploaded on such sites. Then once they have done that, and these sites have lots of users and traction, mandate that Google, Facebook etc also federate using ActivityPub. If they don't, block their sites.

PeerTube doesn't scale when most of the user base nowadays is on mobile, with asymmetric connections that have data caps.

(which happens to be the real world)

Re: UK MP speech about freedoms censored by YouTube

#25

Post by funshed »

my123 wrote: post #24
PontifexMinimus wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would make a lot of sense for the UK government to encourage UK-based PeerTube websites (and other federated social media such as Mastodon, PixelFed, Lemmy, etc), and to make sure all UK government content is uploaded on such sites. Then once they have done that, and these sites have lots of users and traction, mandate that Google, Facebook etc also federate using ActivityPub. If they don't, block their sites.

PeerTube doesn't scale when most of the user base nowadays is on mobile, with asymmetric connections that have data caps. (which happens to be the real world)

UK Mobile Data for most is unlimited. A few will have a data cap but those will be unlikely to watch videos on mobile.

Re: UK MP speech about freedoms censored by YouTube

#26

Post by throw_m239339 »

Each time the debate about free speech on social media comes up, people say: "well private platforms, they can censor whatever they want, they are not the government". Of course it only applies to the speech the former do not like: expediency.

Here is a thing: social media grew that big because governments created a legal environment in which social media could grow that big. DMCA, safe harbor, the fact that social media are not liable for the content their users post...

Are these social media entitled to all these favorable laws? My point is, it goes both ways. Yes social media as private companies can censor whatever legal content they want, No the government doesn't have to let them off the hook and doesn't have to keep a favorable legal or fiscal framework for these particular platforms to growth exponentially either...

I'm not saying governments should crack down on these platforms, I'm just saying that ultimately, the legislator makes the laws...

The platforms make money at scale, well how about they become liable "at scale" if the content is public?

Re: UK MP speech about freedoms censored by YouTube

#27

Post by zpeti »

dua2020 wrote: post #5

This is a government which is in the process of criminalising protest under a deliberately vague 'public nuisance' clause. They only want freedom of expression for their views and not for those that oppose them.

Can someone explain to me how this makes sense when they are letting insulate britain block motorways? Like which protests are they trying to stop?

I assume blocking motorways is illegal already, yet the police are doing nothing, which is leading dangerously to vigilante justice as per some videos, which is only a question of time before it turns really violent.

Wtf is the UK government doing? Why do they need more powers when they don't use the current ones? Or is it for "other" types of protests? Shutting down motorways is fine.

Re: UK MP speech about freedoms censored by YouTube

#28

Post by chhs »

my123 wrote: post #24
PontifexMinimus wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would make a lot of sense for the UK government to encourage UK-based PeerTube websites (and other federated social media such as Mastodon, PixelFed, Lemmy, etc), and to make sure all UK government content is uploaded on such sites. Then once they have done that, and these sites have lots of users and traction, mandate that Google, Facebook etc also federate using ActivityPub. If they don't, block their sites.

PeerTube doesn't scale when most of the user base nowadays is on mobile, with asymmetric connections that have data caps. (which happens to be the real world)

PeerTube doesn't scale with large number of users, period.

There's currently no way to horizontally scale an instance, so after an instance grows past a certain size it can't transcode uploaded videos fast enough. I love the project but if it can't utilize multiple compute instances to transcode video (or plug into a cloud platforms video transcoding offering), it's never going to grow past this blocker.

Re: UK MP speech about freedoms censored by YouTube

#29

Post by foxfluff »

roenxi wrote: post #3

And just to try and be helpful for the direction of the debate... The issue isn't that YouTube can do this. They can, that is cool. Free world. The issue that is if they are going to do this everyone should respond. Nobody ever vetted YouTube as the arbiter of truth. They are not qualified for this, and they are going to screw up really badly. If they're going to set themselves up for failure, we all have to make sur…

> The issue that is if they are going to do this everyone should respond

"Everyone should" just doesn't work. It doesn't happen. The vast majority of people don't care, and the few who care are not going to change their habits and jump to a niche platform that maybe solves their problem. Network effects and the comfort of familiarity too big to ignore.

Re: UK MP speech about freedoms censored by YouTube

#30

Post by VBprogrammer »

andrekandre wrote: post #7
ColinHayhurst wrote: post #2

The video has now been restored: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VidUXZjzNVk Worth a watch. Should we "assume the best" by assuming this was taken down by AI, and without human check? MP says: “This is an outrageous attack on free speech. Throughout the pandemic we've seen blatant attempts by Big Tech to silence opposition voices challenging the conventional wisdom. This episode serves as a further example of the wor…

> "Govnt must stop the erosion of free speech online. That starts with looking again at the wholly inadequate proposals in the Online Safety Bill” why don't they (govt) open a public video site for anyone to upload to, so they don't have to mess with private sites? forcing private entities to host things they dont want to sounds like a huge can of worms

I haven't checked but wasn't the Online safety bill the one which implied all kinds of age verification checks which either weren't feasible or, at a minimum, were a goldmine for identify fraud.
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