Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

801–810 of 1001 posts

Re: YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

#801

Post by deanCommie »

marcell wrote: post #581
KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of weird lawyerly nitpicking is this. YouTube does not want to be associated with an alleged rapist. Is that so hard to understand.

It’s not lawyerly nitpicking. The US has a tradition in rule of law, and it’s a social convention that applies broadly. YouTube, in their statement, is pretending they have an objective standard that is fairly applied to everyone. In reality, there is no uniform standard. They ban people when business interests dictate it. So their policy reads as “we have an objective standard,” but reality is “we ban when we feel l…

> In reality, there is no uniform standard.

> They ban people when business interests dictate it.

That is the standard. They're a private company. They're offering free services to content creators to host their content. In exchange for an ad partnership and revenue.

But YouTube/Google is the company, and for them this is a business. If they think hosting someone is bad for business they can stop hosting them.

How is it everyone here is so pro-Liberty yet fails to understand that the Libertarian position is that YouTube and the people that run it are free to host or promote whatever content they want that makes them money (as long as it's not against the law), and they can choose to not.

Brand is free to take his content somewhere else.

He is not entitled to YouTube's hosting privileges, and they're not entitled to him hosting his content there.

Re: YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

#802

Post by BLKNSLVR »

throwll wrote: post #707

YouTube let's scammers to use their platform willingly.. these guys are evil pretending to be great humanists

Yeah, whenever I mistakenly use the ad-ridden normal youtube app / website, I'm inundated with ads for investment scams and get-rich-quick-selling-ebooks-on-amazon scams and various other things that just would not pass television advertising standards. It's so strange that this is some kind of acceptable default behaviour.

Re: YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

#803

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

akira2501 wrote: post #796
karaterobot wrote: post #243

> “If a creator’s off-platform behavior harms our users, employees or ecosystem, we take action to protect the community,” the spokeswoman said. Putting aside the validity of the accusations—let's say he did everything he's accused of, for the sake of argument—is Youtube alleging that he assaulted Youtube employees, app developers who use the Youtube ecosystem, or Youtube users? I assume the latter. But the thing is,…

> I'm just wondering about the argument they are making, You are witnessing the slow merging of Silicon Valley with the Security State. Buckle up. It gets super fun after this.

Is that really the right way to think about it? Has Brand been convicted of any crime by any government? Seems more accurate to say Youtube is building an alternative security state. Heck, it's rather anarcho-capitalist if you ask me.

Re: YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

#804

Post by mvdtnz »

ifyoubuildit wrote: post #755
mvdtnz wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know anything about Russell Brand but I am just browsing through his recent videos and yes it's very much woo and conspiracy. His latest videos, chronoligically (I won't be clicking any of them, so some are hard to assess), * So, this is happening - appears to be about the scenario under discussion here * Hang on, Biden 9/11 Speech Was A Lie?! - conspiracy nuttery * Bill Gates Has Been HIDING This And It's AL…

So you looked at a bunch of titles, didn't watch the videos, and then decided what the videos were about? Is this how you go about understanding the world around you?

If the videos that I listed are about something other than the title I would be interested to hear it. I sure as hell am not going to listen to a rapist talk about 9/11 and vaccines to verify it.

Re: YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

#805

Post by hinkley »

hinkley wrote: post #689
pirate787 wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your "broadcasting in the public interest" is also "government funded propaganda with limits on free speech"

I think you have a very different u sweats don’t of broadcasting history than I do.

'different understanding of' jesus, autocorrect.

Re: YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

#806

Post by lmm »

gooseus wrote: post #434
bcrosby95 wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or reddit. Or email. Maybe we should cut his power just to be sure he isn't maybe grooming some 16 year olds.

So I guess Youtube should instead by compelled to continue providing their monetization and hosting services to anyone who wants it until a court of law can prove they are guilty of an actual crime? Who is going to compel Youtube to continue providing those services again?

> So I guess Youtube should instead by compelled to continue providing their monetization and hosting services to anyone who wants it until a court of law can prove they are guilty of an actual crime?

Yes, in the same way as any other public utility. (They may not have intended to become one but at this point they are)

> Who is going to compel Youtube to continue providing those services again?

The state, that's what it's for.

Re: YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

#807

Post by Barrin92 »

BlargMcLarg wrote: post #540
Barrin92 wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>is the beginning of another level of dystopia none of us wants This 'dystopia' is called freedom of association and I can confidentially tell you that I personally support the rights of any business to choose who they enter contracts with and not to do business with a likely sex offender, so I think you ought to speak for yourself. There is no basis on which to compel a private business to host everyone's content an…

>not to do business with a likely sex offender And if you are wrong, are you also willing to apologize for hasty decision making? Or will you hide behind the crowd and say 'well everyone else said X!' Because that's what is happening right now. People's lives are ruined on the assumption of someone being the big bad. Then when it turns out the situation is far more nuanced and delicate, the social damage is already d…

>And if you are wrong, are you also willing to apologize for hasty decision making?

Yes, although it would be a first given the severity of the accusations.

But more importantly that's entirely besides the point. You don't need a good reason, or even much of any reason at all to not do business with someone. Case in point, you can decide to not sell a wedding cake to a same sex couple because that offends your religious beliefs. That's a pretty silly and homophobic justification by most people's standards, certainly more controversial than not doing business with a suspected criminal.

But it's a good thing that right exists. If someone is innocently accused take that up with the accuser, don't interfere with the freedom of private business. It's not any third parties decision that ruined them, it's people spreading falsehoods.

Re: YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

#808

Post by lmm »

NoboruWataya wrote: post #526
hinkley wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allegedly. If a bunch of people come forward accusing you of assault, odds are pretty good you did it. However, private businesses punishing people for having charges brought against them but not yet tried? That's judge, jury and executioner, which is incompatible with the set of laws that the US is built on - for which the source material was English Law, and precedent even older than that. So an American company pr…

Brand is not being executed. There has never been a principle in US or English law that you have to do business with everyone all the time. There are, in modern times, certain protected classes that you cannot discriminate against. Otherwise, you are free not to do business with someone, or to set the terms on which you are willing to do business with them. Alleged rapists are not a protected class. In fairness there…

> There has never been a principle in US or English law that you have to do business with everyone all the time. There are, in modern times, certain protected classes that you cannot discriminate against. Otherwise, you are free not to do business with someone, or to set the terms on which you are willing to do business with them. Alleged rapists are not a protected class.

There's long been a principle that the innocent have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Protected class laws exist because, in their absence, too many businesses chose to discriminate against the same groups of people - but surely that reasoning applies even more strongly to discriminating against those accused of serious crimes. (Indeed historically there's a lot of overlap between the two - many lynchings were justified with rape allegations).

> I think that applies more to businesses like banks and payment services providers that can literally make it difficult for you to obtain food and shelter than it does to social media or content hosting platforms, which are relatively easy to self-host.

Realistically there are at most two viable video platforms (and if anyone is to blame for that it's the government, not Brand). If someone can take away your ability to make money they can make it hard for you to obtain food and shelter just as much as if they were refusing to sell food to you.

Re: YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

#809

Post by lmm »

aidenn0 wrote: post #500
hinkley wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allegedly. If a bunch of people come forward accusing you of assault, odds are pretty good you did it. However, private businesses punishing people for having charges brought against them but not yet tried? That's judge, jury and executioner, which is incompatible with the set of laws that the US is built on - for which the source material was English Law, and precedent even older than that. So an American company pr…

By the definition of "punish" that you are implicitly using, private businesses in America used to be able to punish people for anything ("we reserve the right to refuse service to anybody"). Now there are certain things they cannot punish people for (e.g. being black). Are you suggesting that the time has come to mandate that companies may not discriminate against customers for other reasons as well?

> Now there are certain things they cannot punish people for (e.g. being black). Are you suggesting that the time has come to mandate that companies may not discriminate against customers for other reasons as well?

We should pick one or the other. Either it's fine to discriminate for any reason, or some businesses have a public service obligation and must serve anyone.

Re: YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

#810

Post by gorgoiler »

fortran77 wrote: post #664

There are no actual charges against him. Nobody has said under oath that anything has happened. The most recent allegation is for something that happened 10 years ago. I'm of the opinion (and I know the law disagrees with me in the U.S.) that you should not be able to bring charges against someone for a non capital offense, where all the evidence is he-said/she-said. a decade after the event happend. Our memories jus…

No one has the right to win the popularity contest of celebrity. If the world wants to turn their back on you then you cannot force them not to. It would be as foolish as feeling aggrieved about not winning an election (an example that’s hard to use nowadays.)
Post reply on HN