Live data from Hacker News

YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

newsweek.com

131–140 of 923 posts

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#131
post #18

Yay another extremist swept under the digital carpet, problem solved - well NO. This will just shift this extremist content to other unregulated and unmonitored platforms that will not engage in debate, but blindly accept such things. After all, if people believe this kinda stuff, cutting of the head won't stop them believing, just shifts the problem out of the public glare, at least on the surface.

Actually it's been pretty conclusively shown that removing extremist content from mainstream channels pretty much prevents the ideas from propagating in the mainstream. If the cockroaches want to crawl under the fridge there's not much you can do to stop them but you can stop them from breeding on the table.

What if that 'extremist content' is pro-LGBT content somewhere else? What if it's criticism of religion? There's no consensus that those aren't equivalent to extremist content around the world, so such censorship does just as good a job at stopping what we once, in the West, considered abhorrent and obscene, as whatever we consider abhorrent today. I don't get how you can consistently square that circle.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#132

I very strongly feel that we should be very careful to avoid adopting a legalistic attitude towards freedom of speech. That is, I am opposed to the argument that private corporations are not bound by the first amendment, and therefore it's okay for them to suppress content. I agree that they're not bound by the first amendment (I don't claim to understand the nuances of the "platform" laws so I won't address that), b…

Private institutions should be bound by the first amendment once they've reached a critical mass. The reason I say this is that, if a small number of entities control the flow of information, and they get away with picking and choosing who has the opportunity to be heard, then the first amendment is effectively made meaningless. I want to be able to choose what comments to allow on my block and, at the same time, I w…

>Private institutions should be bound by the first amendment once they've reached a critical mass.

That would be impossible, since the First Amendment as written explicitly only applies to Congress, and it restricts Congress' ability to pass laws, which is something private institutions don't actually have the power to do anyway.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#133
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As everyone knows, nobody propagated strange conspiracy theories before the invention of YouTube and Twitter.

Oh, yes, those lunatics claiming Earth is circling the Sun, and claiming thousands of worlds are out there, similar to our God-chosen . Heretics, society is better without them spreading their nonsense ; deny them their voice, or burn them at stake

Could you explain the argument that you are trying to make?

I'm not sure how scientifically confirmed theories are equivalent to, in many cases overtly disproven, conspiracy theories.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#134
post #8

I despise David Icke but I think platforms like YouTube or Facebook should remain neutral. It's not their job to tell us what people should be looking at or not. Then what? We end up like China where we can only browse government propaganda?

I'm sure there's plenty of online communities out there that you can watch/read right wing conspiracy nutjobs opinions on. This is not comparable to China - YouTube is not the government. They're a private company choosing not to host this content. Where are all the free speech advocates complaining about YouTube not hosting porn, or demonetizing videos with swear words in them? Why do you only come out of the woodwo…

>YouTube is not the government.

Literally nobody believes this, Susan.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#135

I very strongly feel that we should be very careful to avoid adopting a legalistic attitude towards freedom of speech. That is, I am opposed to the argument that private corporations are not bound by the first amendment, and therefore it's okay for them to suppress content. I agree that they're not bound by the first amendment (I don't claim to understand the nuances of the "platform" laws so I won't address that), b…

Quite often, the damage caused by disinformation is simply allowing it to be spread. Look at all the experts trying to fighting the lies Trump has been spreading. All that effort, and yet almost 50% of this country believes him. Every moment they have to spend debunking yet another lie is time they can't spend on something useful. Look at all the people blaming 5g for COVID19. Every person that acts on that rumor and…

That is because the media decided to direct attention in exchange for clicks and ads revenue.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#137
post #82

I very strongly feel that we should be very careful to avoid adopting a legalistic attitude towards freedom of speech. That is, I am opposed to the argument that private corporations are not bound by the first amendment, and therefore it's okay for them to suppress content. I agree that they're not bound by the first amendment (I don't claim to understand the nuances of the "platform" laws so I won't address that), b…

COVID-19 has added the additional element of this new concept of "disinformation". The argument is seductively simple: "being exposed to this information could lead you to engage in patterns of behavior that harm society. Therefore we can conceptualize this speech as being an indirect form of violence/negligence and therefore we have a moral obligation to remove such content". Some people, after being exposed to misi…

"Do you have evidence that the truth more often than not win over lies?"

The existence of technology as well as science.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#138

IMO censorship is wrong. To quote someone smarter than me: > I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/06/01/defend-say/

that person didn't realize the damage propaganda could do with modern tools. Unfortunate reality is our cognitive biases can be exploited, and complete freedom of speech is not in the best interest of the majority of humanity. This is a "loophole" that is exploited over and over again by climate change denialists, cigarette companies, nazis...

"Modern" tools are anything but. Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, and to some extent thereafter (less so as civil-society norms developed, and a shared sense for "reasonable" political advocacy along with those), extremist pamphlets, chapbooks and other printed materials pushing outlandish conspiracy theories were incredibly common. Anyone advocating for freedom of the press would've been familiar with the stuff.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#139

I very strongly feel that we should be very careful to avoid adopting a legalistic attitude towards freedom of speech. That is, I am opposed to the argument that private corporations are not bound by the first amendment, and therefore it's okay for them to suppress content. I agree that they're not bound by the first amendment (I don't claim to understand the nuances of the "platform" laws so I won't address that), b…

Unfortunately, I fear the reality of this situation is a lot less nuanced than you're expressing here. It's more likely that the advertisers who give YouTube a lot of money simply threatened not to advertise on the platform should he continue to have a presence there.

In David Icke's case, he directly threatens telecommunications carriers' ability to sell 5G services. That's directly counter to said carriers' marketing goals.

Not to anthropomorphize YouTube too much here, services like them derive their morality from profit. If something threatens profitability, they'll do what's required to correct that problem. Moreover, there are a number of feedback loops in place that reinforce this behavior. This isn't a matter of YouTube judging a bad idea on its merit; this is a matter of them judging a bad idea on how it affects advertising revenue.

Put in a somewhat more uncouth manner: Money talks, bullshit walks.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#140
post #8

I despise David Icke but I think platforms like YouTube or Facebook should remain neutral. It's not their job to tell us what people should be looking at or not. Then what? We end up like China where we can only browse government propaganda?

This slope isn't nearly as slippery as you think it is. If YouTube began issuing a million times more bans, it might approach the quality of an average newspaper in terms of accuracy. Would we be living in a dystopia at that point? No, we'd be living just like we did in the year 2000, when YouTube wasn't around but newspapers were.
Post reply on HN