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Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”

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Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”

#201

Post by fzeroracer »

pathseeker wrote: post #183
fzeroracer wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, now let's apply your example to something a bit more violent. People that believe black people are sub-human and deserve less rights. At what point do we no longer tolerate their opinions? For example, would you believe it's bad for someone to be censored on HN because they talked about how much they hated black coders? At a certain point we deemed as a society that those sort of views are considered bad. Do yo…

Who decides where the line is crossed though? People believe that children deserve fewer rights as well. We all accept that. What about fewer rights for prisoners? What about fewer rights for non-citizens? These people literally have fewer rights and we don't consider banning discussion about giving them more/taking more away. >At what point do we no longer tolerate their opinions? For example, would you believe it's…

It's not a false dichotomy considering this entire discussion revolves around Google, specifically, censoring people. Now there is an argument to be made that Google being potentially a monopoly should be held to more stringent standards but that is not in my opinion the crux of the argument here.

Also you're essentially advocating for the position that we should be allowed to discuss whether or not black people deserve less rights here.

Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”

#202

Post by acct1771 »

chrisco255 wrote: post #65
fzeroracer wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because a belief is civilly expressed does not make it less harmful. For example: people casually believing that the Sandy Hook shooting was a conspiracy drummed up by the government is actively harmful to the families affected by that tragedy. What do you say to those people? How do you solve that problem? And how do you define 'civil'? Because different platforms have different ranges of civility as well.

It's not the belief that is harmful per se. It would be the harassment of those affected that is harmful. To give an alternative conspiracy that was given a lot of oxygen, many believed that Bush caused 9/11. Conspiracies themselves are often wrong, but occasionally correct. I don't believe that one was correct, but for example, Edward Snowden's NSA revelations were initially derided as conspiracy. It's important tha…

Also, the term you're looking for is "conspiracy theories", not "conspiracies". Common misconception for some reason.

Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”

#203

Post by aalleavitch »

webkike wrote: post #182
mc32 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they Obviously have segregated it I mean the product is "YouTube Kids". So they don't have to. So there is no issue.

However, there is no restriction on accessing regular youtube if you are child or a parent.

The vast majority of all restrictions on a child’s behavior are simply enforced by their parents.

Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”

#204

Post by joshuamorton »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #197
joshuamorton wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends, these conspiracies can and do actively cause harm in the interim though (climate change, anti-vaxxing, pizzagate, and arguably others). Is liars being about to lie worth a body count?

> Is liars being about to lie worth a body count? The body count of truth tellers not being able to tell the truth is dramatically higher. Imagine the result if Richard Nixon had put climate scientists in the same box as you would put anti-vaxxers.

I don't really buy "unrestricted free speech is worth letting people die over". Sure, censorship can be harmful, but if the best argument your can put forward is a slippery slope, thats not particularly compelling.

Hypothetical harms are generally less harmful than real ones.

Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”

#205

Post by Sacho »

eksemplar wrote: post #95
dmichulke wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Attacking the free press is one criteria. > Labeling everyone that disagrees with you the slightest as enemies, is another. You do realise that you're - attacking the free press by asking for censorship? - Sort of labelling other people that disagree with you (in this instance: disagree with democracy) as enemies (of democracy)? That's of course very inconsistent. But it also assumes that "the current form of democ…

Well, yes. But I don’t think censoring the alt-right is problematic if they can’t stay within whatever policies companies set. You’re not denied access to a supermarket either, but if you start intentionally pissing in their floor, then you’d get thrown out. Of course I come from a region of the world, where people like the alt-right won, and eventually started putting centrists in prison camps.

You seem to be very confident that you can so accurately judge whether someone is "alt-right"(a nebulous label, at best) that you can censor them preemptively. Where does this confidence come from?

Further, does espousing an anti-democratic idea make someone alt-right? How sticky is the label? What if you did it 10 years ago? Especially with how much of our lives we record nowadays, an accusation like this becomes an easy-to-wield cudgel to shut down political opponents. This rapidly leads to a race of gotchas, where we look for anything that lets us cram someone into one of the "bad" labeled boxes(racist, sexist, alt-right).

Lastly, how effective is the censorship you are proscribing? Can you achieve total censorship within the scope of a democracy? Does it actually inhibit the spread of the ideas you loathe, or simply put them out of your sight? What about the radicalization you are causing by censoring these people? You haven't convinced them to stop, you've just muzzled them publicly, but they can still create private clubs and gatherings. What problem have we solved after implementing this censorship?

Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”

#206

Post by [deleted] »

gnarbarian wrote: post #161
fapjacks wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People universally believe they are better than their historical counterparts, that they will succeed where history has failed, that this time it will be different . When really all they're doing is carving another notch on fascism's belt.

And the supremely ironic thing in this case is they are calling us the fascists while silencing us with a straight face.

[deleted]

Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”

#207

Post by enraged_camel »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #151
noobermin wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can say that, but from the beginning, governments have put limits to speech based on "harm" from speech. Slander, libel, threats are all illegal due to the contention they cause harm. Taking no side is also similar to this, taking no side in a conflict as long as they are civil requires one to decide what is "civil" in the first place. Are comments about race considered "threats" if one person is of the race targ…

The difference between censorship and all of those things is that they aren't prior restraints. Nobody filters what you say to make sure you aren't saying something defamatory. You say it first, then someone has to take you to court, where you have the opportunity to defend yourself. And somebody has to care enough to shut you up to go through the effort of taking you to court, and then they have to win. Some kind of…

>>You say it first, then someone has to take you to court, where you have the opportunity to defend yourself.

What if you say it and someone is seriously harmed or dies as a result?

The fact is that we have prior restraints for all kinds of things because we realize they are dangerous and have the potential to cause harm. I don’t see why speech should be different. Words can kill.

Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”

#208

Post by 0xBA5ED »

Censorship alone is not evil. The problem is, once you have infrastructure in place to make it easy, it will be abused. And if that infrastructure is centralized, the stakes for abuse are much higher. It's the same old problem of "who regulates the regulators". Rather than the issue being about "censorship bad / free speech good", I think the heart of it is: There's simply a lack of confidence that tech giants like Google are part of a larger system with checks and balances, and they appear to be making unilateral decisions behind closed doors.

Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”

#209

Post by enraged_camel »

evilturnip wrote: post #60
fzeroracer wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because a belief is civilly expressed does not make it less harmful. For example: people casually believing that the Sandy Hook shooting was a conspiracy drummed up by the government is actively harmful to the families affected by that tragedy. What do you say to those people? How do you solve that problem? And how do you define 'civil'? Because different platforms have different ranges of civility as well.

There are thousands of conspiracies floating around. Should we consider them all harmful and ban them? Who decides when a conspiracy becomes harmful? Should we ban flat-earthers from posting their views? After all, if everyone believed it, we would set science back countless centuries. The way to combat false ideas is with truth; a culture that is always searching for the truth. That can only be facilitated by unhind…

>>The way to combat false ideas is with truth

This is extremely naive. As the saying goes, a lie can go around the world before the truth can finish putting on its shoes.

edit: maybe rather than downvoting (which is a type of censorship) y’all should provide a response.

Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”

#210

Post by webkike »

aalleavitch wrote: post #203
webkike wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, there is no restriction on accessing regular youtube if you are child or a parent.

The vast majority of all restrictions on a child’s behavior are simply enforced by their parents.

That’s the point. That used to be enough. Now just giving your child access to a computer could seriously tamper with their mental health
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