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The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

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Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#11
post #3

It's crazy what's getting banned. If you believe in science, then you believe that experts and authorities can be wrong, and likely are wrong about some things. You believe that it is important to question those beliefs. What youtube is doing is against science. If you believe in liberty, then you know that more than one thing can be right at the same time. That there is more than one way to do things. What youtube i…

"question those beliefs" pray, what kind of honest discussion can be had with people that make long videos about how the Earth is flat? There's healthy questioning and there's people with the intellectual honesty of a used car salesman

Sometimes I wonder if flat earthers are fake news themselves.

You can stand on the shore of a body of water larger than 3 miles and watch boats sail over the horizon. No need for tools, geometry, or privilege, you can stand there and see it.

And even if they are real, their numbers are small even with the amount of propaganda they create.

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#12
post #2

If you reject the idea that people are intelligent enough to think about politics for themselves then you reject the idea that they're intelligent enough to govern themselves. Democracy and free speech are intrinsically linked.

YouTube can choose to keep or delete any content on their platform regardless of truth/free speech/or not. It's in the EULA. You want free speech, go outside and yell. No one is stopping anyone from free speech. What Google is doing is cleaning up content on their service according to their EULA. If you disagree with the EULA, you can gladly go use another service. I will add, targeting a specific genre of videos loo…

Just because it's legal doesn't mean it makes sense. Monarchs used to make the same argument defending what they did.

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#13
"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." -Isaac Asimov

or more to the point

"Reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Colbert

You're not entitled to be heard. That isn't a tenement of Democracy or Liberty. You're entitled to be able to speak (as long as you don't hurt others rights).

So what is un-american thinking that Youtube needs to allow conspiracies and crazy un-proven, and way out there content.

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#14
post #2

If you reject the idea that people are intelligent enough to think about politics for themselves then you reject the idea that they're intelligent enough to govern themselves. Democracy and free speech are intrinsically linked.

YouTube can choose to keep or delete any content on their platform regardless of truth/free speech/or not. It's in the EULA. You want free speech, go outside and yell. No one is stopping anyone from free speech. What Google is doing is cleaning up content on their service according to their EULA. If you disagree with the EULA, you can gladly go use another service. I will add, targeting a specific genre of videos loo…

Fine, time for some trustbusting.

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#15
post #4

Then what? Allowing false information to fester is wrong, censorship is wrong. The way forward is to ban recommendation algorithms and go back to personal (as in, from other humans you know) recommendation systems.

But then you take away social networks' god-given right to manipulate their users into doom-scrolling through more of their customers' ads!

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#16
These types of articles are always insane to me. YouTube is a private company. They're pretty much allowed to moderate the content on their platform in an arbitrary way. I would argue that this is a good thing.

We can't have it both ways, but we want it both ways. We want a non-government controlled way to communicate, but we want to mandate that they're liable to uphold the same First Amendment protections that the government has to provide. That's insane, that's not a good standard to pursue, and we should rather focus on the cost-benefit and pros and cons of either reinstating the Fairness Doctrine or creating a government-run social media website where information can be freely shared and subjected uniformly to First Amendment protections.

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#17
post #2

If you reject the idea that people are intelligent enough to think about politics for themselves then you reject the idea that they're intelligent enough to govern themselves. Democracy and free speech are intrinsically linked.

We in fact already do that and nobody bats an eye.

People are not intimate with the details of most government bureaucracies, they are not expected to be, and they're no expected to grasp such details in a way that they can make informed decisions.

And frankly that is absolutely correct. We believe in democracy to be the best system despite its flaws, and one of its flaws is that it's evident that most people have no freaking clue about how government works.

If you believe in speech for the purpose of government then you have to reject outright lies design with the intent of deligitimizing democracy.

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#20
Youtube is a private company and can therefore do what it wants with its property - the Youtube platform. However, it may be a bad decision to act as a Ministry of Truth while a number of court cases are still ongoing. Especially since the evidence presented in court proves electoral fraud - even if it is not entirely clear whether it is relevant enough to impact the outcome of the election.
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