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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

#131

Post by briefcomment »

tbatchelli wrote: post #66
swiley wrote: 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.

People are rational most of the times, and act based on the well of knowledge they have at the time. When you choose to promote certain content because of its high engagement benefits you given its controversial nature, then you are poisoning the well of knowledge for each individual. If you do so in a feedback loop, considering what they were interested in before, you accelerate your earnings as well as the poisonin…

No one knows the truth, and that's why everything should be available for people to make the best decisions.

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

#132

Post by treeman79 »

jfrunyon wrote: post #122
treeman79 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternative view point sites aren’t really possible. Advertisers are attacked relentlessly if they advertise on non-liberal media. Been at ad-tech companies and seen this happen in person. Even 20 years ago this was common pattern for talk radio.

Oh, you're SO right. Fox News has so much trouble getting advertisers. So do Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones.

Fox News has crappy advertisers. Ones that don’t give a crap what others think. Need some gold coins?

Rush used to talk all the time about the nasty calls his clients got.

It was routine for them to get flooded with hate calls.

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

#133

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

titanomachy wrote: post #89
siliconc0w wrote: post #47

It is amazing to me that there are so many people, smart people even, that are adamant that we shouldn't have free speech in society.

You have a right to say whatever you want to whomever you want without fear of government retaliation, as long as it isn't "hate speech" in a fairly narrow legal sense. This is what "having free speech in society" has always meant. The government will also punish people who commit crimes against you merely because they dislike your words, which frees you to say things you might otherwise keep to yourself. What you do…

> "What you don't have a right to do is amplify your message using the massively powerful social-media megaphones which are created and owned by tech companies."

What makes anyone think that other groups won't be able to create their own social-media megaphones? The tech is well understood already and they're highly motivated and well funded. It's been tried a couple of times already and eventually they're going to succeed. And if the last two US presidential election results are any indication, they might grow as big (or bigger!) as any of the other social-media giants. What will we do then?

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

#134

Post by hindsightbias »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #98
gabereiser wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You seldomly see the ideals of people who believe in freedom of speech but stated so clearly. A world were corporations control all the information people consume but people can "go outside and yell" in frustration. This is the kind of freedom we must bring to Iran.

It’s the kind of freedom that existed for centuries in the US and of course we were all “free” then.

While I’m sure Textualist/Originalists on the court will find innovations to legislate FB “yelling freedom” rights it has not been a historical norm.

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

#135

Post by jhbadger »

cousin_it wrote: post #119
tbatchelli wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are rational most of the times, and act based on the well of knowledge they have at the time. When you choose to promote certain content because of its high engagement benefits you given its controversial nature, then you are poisoning the well of knowledge for each individual. If you do so in a feedback loop, considering what they were interested in before, you accelerate your earnings as well as the poisonin…

Sometimes I see the argument made that people are hackable by lies, therefore censorship is needed as an antidote. But I don't buy it, because 1) lying is equally available to all, but censorship is available only to the powerful 2) the powerful are as flawed as anyone else, except with power 3) historically the powerful who dabbled in censorship have also lied a lot, and censorship has helped them lie more easily. S…

Yes, every censor claims to be doing it for the common good. The Catholic Church had its Index of Prohibited Books supposedly to protect innocent souls from heresy, and likewise in various Communist countries past and present the censorship is there supposedly to stop the spread of counterrevolutionary propaganda. The modern Western world, in theory based on Enlightenment ideals, traditionally rejected such arguments, because they believed the answer to bad information was good information. While I am not a fan of "populist" movements that reject evidence, I frankly fear the efforts to suppress them more.

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

#136

Post by handoflixue »

swiley wrote: 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.

Question: Why is this a threat to democracy, but previous censorship wasn't?

There's always been an expectation of truthfulness in communication: We don't allow people to go around claiming that Pepsi causes AIDS, or cures cancer. You're not allowed to claim you're collecting for a charity, and then keep all the money for yourself. I doubt you'd be terribly okay with me claiming that you're a murderer and asking how much that biases your stance.

(Genuinely trying to understand if there is something that makes this different from any other sort of fraudulent communication - I don't see people defending the other stuff under the guise of "Free Speech", and I'm not clear why this would be different)

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

#137

Post by prucomaclu2 »

stordoff wrote: post #100
prucomaclu2 wrote: post #88

What's really sad about what Youtube is doing, is that Trump's lawsuits do have some legitimacy. Potentially enough legitimacy to win. I'm not saying there is enough to win, but the potential is there and it should be given a fair hearing by the media & judges. From day 1 of this election, the media has 50% of this country convinced that everything Trump's lawsuits are nothing except outlandish lies & conspiracies. J…

> Election laws have been ignored - on a large scale. Do you have any specific examples? I haven't looked at the claims in any great detail.

The fact that my original post was [flagged] so quickly is proof that it's impossible to have a substantive discussion regarding Trump on HN.

To everyone who flagged that post: thanks for proving my point.

Many of you claim to be anti-censorship and yet have no hesitation to censor what is intended to be a constructive post.

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

#138

Post by [deleted] »

handoflixue wrote: post #136
swiley wrote: 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.

Question: Why is this a threat to democracy, but previous censorship wasn't? There's always been an expectation of truthfulness in communication: We don't allow people to go around claiming that Pepsi causes AIDS, or cures cancer. You're not allowed to claim you're collecting for a charity, and then keep all the money for yourself. I doubt you'd be terribly okay with me claiming that you're a murderer and asking how…

[deleted]

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

#139

Post by defen »

keepper wrote: post #59
Vomzor wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Reality has a well-known liberal bias Except when it comes to nuclear, GMO, gender science, nature vs nurture, I'm sure there are other things I'm not remembering right now.

Thank you for making my point. Not sure why I'm replying, as its wholely offtopic - Nuclear, i think you should read up why people are against it. ( spoiler, it isn't the science... but maybe you should think about who can do it effectively vs the potential risks of doing it wrong... or you know, the imbalance of global power when only a few countries could generate.. well, power ) - GMO, again, same point above. "Su…

> - GMO, again, same point above. "Sure you can have this great crop, no seeds". Again, GMO per say isn't bad, its the implementation that's bad.

Why specifically is it bad? If you want non-GMO food you can just grow your own.

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

#140

Post by lopmotr »

nonbirithm wrote: post #112
tbatchelli wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are rational most of the times, and act based on the well of knowledge they have at the time. When you choose to promote certain content because of its high engagement benefits you given its controversial nature, then you are poisoning the well of knowledge for each individual. If you do so in a feedback loop, considering what they were interested in before, you accelerate your earnings as well as the poisonin…

There has to be a good reason why psychological warfare is used, including by the United States in periods like the Vietnam War. The expectation is that statements written on paper or recited through loudspeakers or similar influence people's thoughts, which influences what actions they will take. Those actions are supposed to be beneficial to the forces scattering them from a helicopter or posting them on walls. The…

>algorithms are too effective

How effective are they? Just because social media keeps promoting people who promote those ideas doesn't mean they're actually widely and strongly held.

If you really care about misinformation, you'd be more worried about Islam which is explicitly sexist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, anti-science, and supremacist and those beliefs aren't just written in a book somewhere, they're held by most common Muslims. How are we going to eliminate that with censorship when the censors themselves believe it's a good belief? We need smarter people to have the power of censorship so they can distinguish the truly dangerous beliefs from the transient swings of popular culture.

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