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YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

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Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#231

Post by throwaway122378 »

runawaybottle wrote: post #186

If Youtube really believes this is the right course of action, why doesn’t it’s sister company Google remove those items from search as well? If this is really a principled action, then let’s see some follow through. They’d never do that because that is the very definition of internet censorship as we know it today. That’s how close Youtube is with this dangerous game.

Google already modifies it’s search results. Try searching for “Clinton Epstein” and see if the first page of results gives you unbiased sources from all viewpoints.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#232

Post by joshuamorton »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #206
cmckn wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first amendment is about the government. Your speech is not illegal. The government cannot persecute you for your opinion or beliefs. It has absolutely nothing to do with your ability to be heard on the internet.

> The government cannot persecute you for your opinion or beliefs. United States v. O’Brien? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._O%27Brien Edward Snowden? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden

Neither of those are cases of the government prosecuting you for opinion or belief.

One is the government prosecuting you for destroying government property. The other is the government prosecuting you for sharing information that you are not allowed to share.

It has always been the case that certain forms of protest are legal, and certain forms are not. Protesting in ways that are illegal doesn't mean that your right to free speech is curtailed. You can still say whatever you want, you just can't say it while burning cars or whatever.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#233

Post by imgabe »

knzhou wrote: post #224
imgabe wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would prefer content not to be prohibited at all. Content is not a problem. Actions are a problem. Watch all the videos you like telling you to burn down a cell tower. Once you do burn down a cell tower, then you go to jail. Perhaps we should also then hold the people telling people to burn down cell towers responsible, criminally and civilly, for the people who listen to them. David Icke might not be so cavalier a…

[flagged]

I have no idea how you managed to misconstrue what I said so badly that you came to that conclusion, but that is not the case at all. The people in the concentration camps did not get talked to death. They died because of actions that people took.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#234

Post by fzeroracer »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #226
fzeroracer wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a question for you: Do you believe HN has an obligation to allow anything to be posted here? If someone wanted to post about how much they hate a certain race, do you believe the moderators here have an obligation to allow that post to remain?

If a majority of the population was using HN, then we’d be getting closer to an apples to apples comparison. The crux of the issue includes Google’s reach.

Does it matter if the majority is using it or not? The same concept of freedom of speech should matter. And HN is one of the largest tech forums on the internet; making it effectively the 'Youtube' of tech forums.

So given HN's expansive reach, why do you think it deserves to be excluded from the concept of being a provider? Why shouldn't it be forced to house all content?

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#235

Post by ryankemper »

mrfusion wrote: post #194
kiba wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK. I guess we should let anti-vaxers spread disinformation causing a whole bunch of people dying unnecessarily because people believed it.

I agree anti Vaxers are ridiculous. But just to play devils advocate. What if there ever was a dangerous vaccine out there, wouldn’t we want people to be able to speak out? Honestly I don’t have any solutions. I don’t like either option.

Right. In general contradiction arises when we try to prevent people from doing stupid things. It becomes very difficult to maintain a logically consistent view on what's okay to censor and what's not.

Most of us agree anti-vaxxers are ill-informed and that adopting their beliefs causes people to engage in patterns of behavior (avoiding vaccines) that are not in what we think is their best interest.

What about other beliefs? If someone posts a video saying that they don't think seatbelts are effective in preventing injuries during car crashes, should they be suppressed?

What about someone who claims that vaping is safe and popularizes the practice? Do we ban that?

It's easy to pick a few almost-universally hated groups and rally against them: racists, anti-vaxxers, flat earthers. Few things are that cut-and-dry. And watching the widespread rise of "benevolent censorship" wrt COVID-19 has really shown me how far we can take the idea of "protect people from information that could harm them".

For example, I recently submitted a highly controversial 7500+ word blog post that advocated for ending lockdown in the US. I got some matters of scientific fact wrong (and have since addressed or am currently working on addressing those), i.e. things like accounting for the phenomenom of "overshoot". Some sections probably did not give a perfectly fair view of "each side" and could be/were criticized as being cherry-picked. And I think I got a lot of things very right. I've now had 9 people e-mail me in the last 24 hours saying that they tried to share my post on Facebook/Messenger and that the entire domain is now blocked for violating the community guidelines. Is that something worth banning? It advocates for a position that could easily be argued will lead to death, and therefore reading it could kill people. So it's a very easy argument to make, if you take the position that we should suppress "harmful" information.

As I said at the start of this thread, I basically reject the entire concept of "disinformation" for that reason; it inevitably gets used to suppress even the most good-faith and well-researched (or in my case, somewhat-well-researched :P) arguments. Therefore I think the entire concept is inherently dangerous to a free society.

Okay, that's enough rambling for one night. I'll let everyone else duke it out :)

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#236

Post by Negitivefrags »

stevebmark wrote: post #171
ryankemper wrote: post #46

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…

> I believe in shining a light on them I hear this a lot. Light is the best disinfectant. What evidence do you have for this? I've never seen a bad or immoral or harmful idea die out when more people learn about it and scrutinize it. However, I have repeatedly seen the opposite: Sharing bad ideas increases their audience, increases ignorance, hate, fear, and human suffering. You're looking at an article describing th…

> More importantly, I've also seen the opposite: Private platforms actively suppressing people trying to harm humanity does work. Deplatforming these people and, importantly, showing social pressure that these are bad ideas and shouldn't even be entertained as valid debate, has shown to work repeatedly. In fact, social pressure is one of the most effective tools against hate and ignorance like this.

Really? Seems to me like there is a resurgence in hate and ignorance right now and deplatforming seems to only be adding fuel to the fire.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#237

Post by Talanes »

runawaybottle wrote: post #186

If Youtube really believes this is the right course of action, why doesn’t it’s sister company Google remove those items from search as well? If this is really a principled action, then let’s see some follow through. They’d never do that because that is the very definition of internet censorship as we know it today. That’s how close Youtube is with this dangerous game.

You see no difference in their role as a content-host and a content-aggregator?

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#238

Post by runawaybottle »

stevebmark wrote: post #171
ryankemper wrote: post #46

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…

> I believe in shining a light on them I hear this a lot. Light is the best disinfectant. What evidence do you have for this? I've never seen a bad or immoral or harmful idea die out when more people learn about it and scrutinize it. However, I have repeatedly seen the opposite: Sharing bad ideas increases their audience, increases ignorance, hate, fear, and human suffering. You're looking at an article describing th…

You don’t see a pattern? We went from questionable analysis of COVID cases by actual doctors last week, over to 5G coronavirus conspiracy theories this week.

This is the proverbial slippery slope, albeit a bit anachronistic as the more egregious case is the latter (5G conspiracy), so the escalation is unable to be painted by the sequence.

I’d also ask you consider that your line of thinking as a framework has been misused throughout history, often in the context of censorship.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair

Of course, the obvious retort is that these people aren’t Galileo, but I’m arguing that this framework is bad on a societal level.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#239

Post by mrfusion »

knzhou wrote: post #220
mrfusion wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree anti Vaxers are ridiculous. But just to play devils advocate. What if there ever was a dangerous vaccine out there, wouldn’t we want people to be able to speak out? Honestly I don’t have any solutions. I don’t like either option.

There indeed were a few dangerous vaccines, about three generations ago. That's exactly why we have the elaborate clinical trial system today: they stop potentially unsafe vaccines all the time . A large fraction of the COVID vaccines might go this way. Nobody is against banning unsafe vaccines, but some are for banning people from spreading baseless, conspiratorial anti-vax bullshit.

Exactly. But who are we trusting to tell the difference between bullshit and not? Would you trust youtube employees with that?

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#240

Post by colejohnson66 »

joshuamorton wrote: post #232
colejohnson66 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The government cannot persecute you for your opinion or beliefs. United States v. O’Brien? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._O%27Brien Edward Snowden? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden

Neither of those are cases of the government prosecuting you for opinion or belief. One is the government prosecuting you for destroying government property. The other is the government prosecuting you for sharing information that you are not allowed to share. It has always been the case that certain forms of protest are legal, and certain forms are not. Protesting in ways that are illegal doesn't mean that your righ…

> Neither of those are cases of the government prosecuting you for opinion or belief.

Really?

> One is the government prosecuting you for destroying government property.

A draft card is not government property.

> The other is the government prosecuting you for sharing information that you are not allowed to share.

Which is protected under whistleblower protection laws.

Maybe I’m not convincing you? What about Schenck v. United States? In this case, all the prosecuted did was distribute flyers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States

Abrams v. United States?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrams_v._United_States

Dennis v. United States?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_v._United_States

> It has always been the case that certain forms of protest are legal, and certain forms are not. Protesting in ways that are illegal doesn't mean that your right to free speech is curtailed. You can still say whatever you want, you just can't say it while burning cars or whatever.

All four cases involve some form of protest against the government. All four were peaceful; They did not harm others. All four involve the Supreme Court upholding their convictions.

> Your speech is not illegal. The government cannot persecute you for your opinion or beliefs.

Don’t you tell me that the government doesn’t try to censor speech or that they can’t.

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