Earlier quoted context omitted.
Suppressing Free Speech creates more radicalization. If certain radicals are really bad, then more Free Speech ultimately gets rid of them. Suppression just gives them more ammunition. This is the lesson from across just about all of history. In 2019, governments and big tech have essentially been tricked into replacing societal backlash against nonsense with societal backlash against suppression. What governments an…
>Suppressing Free Speech creates more radicalization. Most quantitative reviews on deplatforming and and other social moderation efforts have shown the opposite. Maybe in the long-term social view of the issue you're right but on a platform by platform basis this doesn't seem to be the case.
YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content
201–210 of 293 posts
Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think any new platform is going to be able to compete with YouTube at all with the current regulations. How will any new platform comply with new EU copyright laws, or remove unlawful videos as quickly as YouTube? (e.g the unfortunate New Zealand terrorist attack)
They won't. I suspect that that kind of regulatory capture is the point of these laws in the first place.
1. Fail to moderate and engineer your platform, it turns into a complete cesspool
2. Government is forced to step in
3. Easily comply with government regulations because you're massive, now it is impossible for anyone to compete with you
Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Frankly, I hope YouTube (and Google in general) dramatically overdo it with the censorship, "curation", and deplatforming of "irresponsible" content, purely so that it forces an independent, non-corporate model to be developed. Just like people got what they wished for when Voat was spawned from Reddit?
Voat isn't just what you get with no censorship. It's what you get when you're a new alternative to a large incumbent: you are populated almost 100% by people banned by the incumbent. Nobody else has a reason to join your platform. It's a phenomenon that makes it even harder to compete with an incumbent social network.
Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content
#204Frankly, I hope YouTube (and Google in general) dramatically overdo it with the censorship, "curation", and deplatforming of "irresponsible" content, purely so that it forces an independent, non-corporate model to be developed. Having one company be the sole gatekeeper for the overwhelming majority of the web's video content is not a solution.
Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
You conflate regulatory expectation with consumer expectation. Most people don't want to see things they don't like. So they don't tune into channels, (YT or otherwise) that play things they don't like to see. The marke corrects itself over time. Broadcast stations aren't refusing to show that content because of a law, but because they are making a business decision.
I think the problem is exactly the opposite: people are now getting way too much of the content they can’t help but like, and that in way too many cases turns out to be deliberately polarising and extreme content. The marketplace of ideas no more leads to good content choices than the marketplace of food leads to healthy eating.
I think the problem is exactly the opposite: people are now getting way too much of the content they can’t help but like, and that in way too many cases turns out to be deliberately polarising and extreme content.
In the long run, that works out like the children's story where the young girl gets to decide she'll eat nothing, ever, but peanut butter and jelly. If it's stupid nonsense, then most people eventually figure that out, and you're left with a fringe and ironic onlookers. Hell, if they left Alex Jones alone, he'd just have wound up being the 2019 version of The Weekly World News. Eventually, his viewership would have devolved to sundry weirdo plus college students watching him while playing a drinking game.
As it is now, big tech has fueled his conspiracy narratives by engaging in behavior that looks an awful lot like a cabal of big tech colluding as in a Sci-fi dystopian movie.)
The marketplace of ideas no more leads to good content choices than the marketplace of food leads to healthy eating.
Over time, the marketplace of ideas has lead to wealth, freedom, and public health unprecedented in all of human history.
Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Frankly, I hope YouTube (and Google in general) dramatically overdo it with the censorship, "curation", and deplatforming of "irresponsible" content, purely so that it forces an independent, non-corporate model to be developed. Just like people got what they wished for when Voat was spawned from Reddit?
Yeah, I'm all about the idea behind letting people express themselves without being censored, but the stark reality is that the people pushing the envelope here are saying some pretty damaging things about other people in a hurtful and escalating way. I don't know how to square these two thoughts.
Granted, it's aspirational.
Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
no more right of access to a privately-owned live-streaming platform with an audience in the millions than he had right of access to a broadcast TV network If the government now has the right to say, "piece of content X -- not allowed" arbitrarily and with no process and rational standard, then Free Speech is simply broken. An event of that magnitude is now history. A free society should not be rewriting history. Peo…
>If the government now has the right to say, "piece of content X -- not allowed" arbitrarily and with no process and rational standard, then Free Speech is simply broken. The key part of this is the word arbitrary. You can't take 'anything down for no reason', but you certainly can take things down. Even the most robust version of free speech protections have carve outs. The government can prevent you from branding y…
The government can prevent you from branding your email product 'Gmail', they can censure you for shouting fire in a crowded theater, they can go after you if you issue a tweet which lies about how many cars your car company is going to build in the next quarter, etc.
All of those things have due process and objective standards attached to them. None of those are arbitrary. Those are all following established law. That's a far cry from only saying, "Okay, these messages are 'bad.' We're now de-platforming them."
Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
Suppressing Free Speech creates more radicalization. If certain radicals are really bad, then more Free Speech ultimately gets rid of them. Suppression just gives them more ammunition. This is the lesson from across just about all of history. In 2019, governments and big tech have essentially been tricked into replacing societal backlash against nonsense with societal backlash against suppression. What governments an…
>Suppressing Free Speech creates more radicalization. Most quantitative reviews on deplatforming and and other social moderation efforts have shown the opposite. Maybe in the long-term social view of the issue you're right but on a platform by platform basis this doesn't seem to be the case.
If certain vile people were still on YouTube, then they could be demolished by argument. By deplatforming people off YouTube, you actually manage to give the bad people moral ammunition (the people you'd think the least likely to achieve that) and reduce the legitimacy of the platform. What's been accomplished is merely to create even viler, even more insular groupthink.
Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Frankly, I hope YouTube (and Google in general) dramatically overdo it with the censorship, "curation", and deplatforming of "irresponsible" content, purely so that it forces an independent, non-corporate model to be developed. Just like people got what they wished for when Voat was spawned from Reddit?
Yeah, I'm all about the idea behind letting people express themselves without being censored, but the stark reality is that the people pushing the envelope here are saying some pretty damaging things about other people in a hurtful and escalating way. I don't know how to square these two thoughts.
There's nothing wrong with boxing matches. There's also nothing wrong with people wanting to walk city streets without having to fight.
The solution is to provide places for boxing, and places where boxing people is forbidden.
Re: YouTube is trying to reward “quality” content
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
What makes it not an open marketplace? The very bias introduced by platform like YouTube which you seem to be defending? Is the average person so dumb that they cannot distinguish between "sound argument" vs "intimidate and disconcert"? If that's how you feel about the average person, why do you still favor democracy?
People aren't dumb, but I think people have poor information literacy skills, which is linked to the decline in liberal arts education in favor of the emphasis on STEM education. The lack of these skills leads to people being unable to distinguish between "sound argument" vs "intimidate and disconcert" (again, not related to their intelligence, this is a developed skill). https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10858.html…
I actually agree with you. I think that the best way to deal with the problem isn't to censor the marketplace of ideas, but to fix the political system