The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by optimalsolver » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 12:58 AM UTC

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #133

titanomachy wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Whenever the other side tries something like this, they just end up with something resembling Voat.

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

#202

Post by daveidol » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 12:59 AM UTC

phailhaus wrote: post #188

Though I too am surprised that YouTube is setting such a precedent for fine-grained moderation, we cannot pretend as if this is an "infringement of our rights." YouTube is running a for-profit website, you don't have the "right" to a spot on their platform. YouTube has made the careful calculation that the people who are turned off by this ban are far outweighed by public support, and will reduce their contribution t…

You don't have a "right" to a spot on their platform but you sure as hell have a right to complain about it and speak up against it when appropriate - which is what this piece is attempting to do.

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

#203

Post by belorn » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 12:59 AM UTC

olefoo wrote: post #150

This is all the result of confusing 1st amendment rights with the right to access the audience that gathers at a particular URL. What Taibbi is asking for is that the guy who tells you that drinking rat poison is good for you should be allowed an audience and that even putting a warning alongside the video would be an infringement on his rights. Looking at the comments here I have to conclude that HN is no longer on…

Is it legal in the US to encourage people to jump in front of a train?

If the answer is no then telling people to drink rat poison is illegal. The legal system has the power to punish the uploader, and youtube can remove it just as it do with copyright infringements.

If the answer is yes then I would suggest to change the law. Pushing people to drink rat poison sound awful close to harassment, which is just the kind of speech which the 1st amendment do not protect.

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

#204

Post by chordalkeyboard » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 1:01 AM UTC

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…

> People are rational most of the times, and act based on the well of knowledge they have at the time.

I'm of the opinion that people are not rational most of the time, but operate on habit and reason by use of heuristics. My evidence for this is that rational thought is costly and in psychology they teach this (that people aren't usually rational, merely motivated and economical with their attention).

> Human brains are hackable, more so if you can control their inputs. Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, they all found the attack vector.

This is a good reason why gatekeeping information is so dangerous.

> So democracy and truth are more related to each other than democracy and speech. We tend to think that speech is truth, but it is not, and people over time have voted themselves out into dictatorships over and over.

Unfortunately there is no test for truth. However if you control people's sources of information you can keep them from figuring out that they have been lied to.

How are we to ensure that the gatekeepers of information are honest and wise?

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

#205

Post by int_19h » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 1:02 AM UTC

euske wrote: post #168

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.

This kind of dogmatic statement is good for soliciting a response, but I think it's intellectual degradation. There are infinitely many interpretations of "democracy" and "free speech" and it's hardly a simple yes/no question. We should be free/democratic society as much as possible, and it's an ongoing (while not always successful) effort. We should discuss concrete steps.

On the contrary, I think this goes to the root of the matter. Can you trust people or not? That's a fundamental question that decides whether you can have real democracy, or only a sham. Because any kind of democracy where people are only allowed to make "safe" choices, decided on by someone else (e.g. the censors), is a sham. And that's true even if the censors themselves are directly or indirectly democratically appointed. Iran is a good example of such system taken to its logical conclusion.

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

#206

Post by chordalkeyboard » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 1:05 AM UTC

charonn0 wrote: post #164

souprock wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a fine argument for why the phone company should be free to disconnect anybody who speaks ill of the phone company.

That would involve eavesdropping on a private conversation, and as such the analogy falls flat (also since you pay them directly for a service.)

Why can't the phone company listen to private conversations? What does being paid have to do with their enforcement of their own property rights? Couldn't they just say in the EULA "we will listen to your calls and disconnect you if you say something we don't like"?

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

#207

Post by emmelaich » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 1:05 AM UTC

Vomzor wrote: post #19

https://hereistheevidence.com/

You should not be flagged for this.

Regardless of the validity* of many of the claims it is certainly relevant to the topic.

* And there are few debunked ones.

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

#208

Post by AnthonyMouse » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 1:05 AM UTC

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…

We have a really strong presumption against what's called a prior restraint. It means you generally can't stop someone from publishing something, but you can sue them after.

This does two things. First, it makes it so that if someone feels strongly enough that they're right to be willing to risk the penalty, the public still gets the information. This is important. It's a check on the courts getting it wrong.

And the second is that in order to punish someone for speech, you have to prove it in court in a public adversarial proceeding where the person being punished has an opportunity to defend themselves and the claim is aired as part of the court record in a context where everybody knows that it's in dispute but the media and any interested party still gets to find out what it is.

This is obviously not what happens when you implement a general prohibition against all claims of election fraud with no meaningful opportunity for anyone to view the material being censored or make their case that it shouldn't be prior to its removal.

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

#209

Post by metabagel » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 1:06 AM UTC

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…

You might ask yourself why judges that Trump himself appointed are quashing his lawsuits. The answer is that the lawsuits fail to meet basic requirements of standing, evidence, remedy, etc.

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

#210

Post by 1cvmask » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 1:07 AM UTC

belorn wrote: post #203

olefoo wrote: post #150

This is all the result of confusing 1st amendment rights with the right to access the audience that gathers at a particular URL. What Taibbi is asking for is that the guy who tells you that drinking rat poison is good for you should be allowed an audience and that even putting a warning alongside the video would be an infringement on his rights. Looking at the comments here I have to conclude that HN is no longer on…

Is it legal in the US to encourage people to jump in front of a train? If the answer is no then telling people to drink rat poison is illegal. The legal system has the power to punish the uploader, and youtube can remove it just as it do with copyright infringements. If the answer is yes then I would suggest to change the law. Pushing people to drink rat poison sound awful close to harassment, which is just the kind…

What if politicians do stunts and tell you to drink water poisoned with lead like in Flint, Michigan?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2ZynkD3N_k

Should we censor them? Or perhaps just put up a warning sign that not everything on the Internet - like the physical world - is worth believing? Where do the guardrails end and censorship begin?