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

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

#301

Post by staticman2 » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 2:10 AM UTC

zionic wrote: post #267

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.

If people are too stupid to reject false information that wasn’t curated for them why are they smart enough to vote. Any argument advocating censorship is ultimately arguing for dictatorship.

If you think people are so smart, why should you care if people get banned from Youtube?

Clearly smart people will discover smart videos on any web site they are located on, and there's no reason for anyone to need Youtube to find an audience.

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

#302

Post by Talanes » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 2:11 AM UTC

grbgecllctr wrote: post #280

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…

I'm struggling to understand the 1st amendment doesn't apply to private companies argument. Are you saying that Google, under its own volition, independently of the democratic party decided it was their ethical or patriotic duty to take this action? This is the company that built the platform that amplifies crazy ideas (many crazier than this) to hundreds a millions of people for profit. It's also well know that ther…

You can't just say "It's well known" and then throw out some new conspiracy theory that I've never seen before.

You're not even to the "most people are familiar with your theory" part yet, much less the "I can act like everyone else thinks this is true, but won't admit it" part. Build up your brand a little first.

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

#303

Post by phailhaus » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 2:11 AM UTC

The author theorizes that this ban will inflame tensions, but I don't believe that's true. Look at Reddit's ban on toxic subreddits. They found that banning toxic subreddits reduced the toxicity in the website as a whole, and that "post-ban, hate speech by the same users was reduced by as much as 80-90 percent." [1]

Reddit is just a closed system of communities; YouTube is one such community in the larger system of social media. I think YouTube made the right calculation that this will in fact _reduce_ tension and slow the momentum of this destabilizing movement.

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/11/study-finds-reddits-contro...

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

#304

Post by dragonwriter » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 2:12 AM UTC

metabagel wrote: post #209

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.

Also timely filing (laches); many challenge procedures which were well known long before the election and were delayed for no good cause until after the election results came in.

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

#305

Post by oh_sigh » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 2:13 AM UTC

FlyMoreRockets wrote: post #298

chordalkeyboard wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Should you be forced to publish and host things that you think are terrible lies? Should I be forced to pay for public schools if I don't have kids or disagree with what they are being taught? Should I be forced to pay for roads if they will be used to support activities I disapprove of? What if I passionately and sincerely disagree with what people are using the roadway access to facilitate? Should I be forced to…

> Should I be forced to pay for public schools if I don't have kids or disagree with what they are being taught? Yes you should. An informed populace is the basis of democracy. If you choose to continue living in a democracy, you have to help pay for its upkeep.

A vast majority of the people who are too stupid to realize these questionable youtube videos are hoaxes(and therefore need to be protected from them) went to public school.

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

#306

Post by octokatt » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 2:13 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…

I'm guessing there's a lot more deliberate troll farming hitting HN, and threads like this (and how far up this incoherent rant of a post went up the list) lend credit to that.

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

#307

Post by dang » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 2:13 AM UTC

lopmotr wrote: post #140

nonbirithm wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mos…

We've asked you before not to do religious flamewar on HN. If you keep doing it we're going to have to ban you.

It also looks like you've been using HN primarily for ideological battle, which is exactly what the site is not for, and which destroys what it is for (thoughtful conversation on intellectually curious topics).

We've warned you many times about this in the past. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and fix this going forward, we'd appreciate it.

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

#308

Post by ronaldj » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 2:14 AM UTC

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 country's government is based on the idea that people aren't intelligent (or interested) enough to think about politics for themselves. That's what a representative democracy is.

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

#309

Post by slivanes » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 2:16 AM UTC

zionic wrote: post #275

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take the bait in the spirit of casual friday night internet debating and recognizing your tone as purely sarcastic. I would ask then... What if, there was in fact an organization comprised of people smarter than you and obviously better than you at figuring out what is true or not - and I would go further - one that can tell you how to make better/more optimal decisions than you would have made without them? Wou…

I’m not going to answer your exact question and instead respond with an alternative: Nobody blames AT&T/Verizon when an absurd scammer calls you, or a grandpa wife’s money to a Nigerian scammer because of a phone call. Think long and hard about why you blame Facebook/YouTube for the same. You’ll inevitably coalesce around the idea that these “platforms” did it to themselves by Arbitrarily banning legal content.

I blame the carriers of which AT&T/Verizon are major players for allowing of spoofing of numbers on their networks which allows these bad actors to flourish.

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

#310

Post by chordalkeyboard » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 2:16 AM UTC

charonn0 wrote: post #293

chordalkeyboard wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are laws against eavesdropping on private electronic communications. Likewise, people are discussing reform of the laws that govern the behavior of giant media properties. Surely you agree those laws (against eavesdropping) were passed for a reason and are not arbitrary? > Because paying for a service establishes certain rights and expectations that patronizing a free/ad-supported website does not. In other w…

> Surely you agree those laws (against eavesdropping) were passed for a reason and are not arbitrary? I'm puzzled by the question. My position on wiretapping laws is beside the point. > People are not basing their criticisms on the violation of a contract but on the public good of the free exchange of information. Again, this is puzzling because it doesn't seem related to the topic at hand. You asked a direct questio…

> I'm puzzled by the question. My position on wiretapping laws is beside the point.

No, it isn't. Spartan-S63 seem to be advocating [0] YouTube can moderate their platform however they like. souprock suggests [1] that same logic allows the phone company to disconnect anyone who criticizes the phone company. You say [2] that doesn't apply because that would require breaking the law. I'm observing that the law you refer to places limits on the phone company, which is what people are suggesting with respect to YouTube. Section 230 reforms might limit the ability of YouTube to do what they want with their platform, just like the laws governing telecom utilities were written in order to balance the interests of the public and the consumer against the interest of the telecom company to do what they want with their property.

> Again, this is puzzling because it doesn't seem related to the topic at hand. You asked a direct question (why is paying different?) and I gave a direct answer (because contracts).

I'm asking why you think paying or not is relevant to the issue of section 230 reform. People aren't advocating for the reform of section 230 because their contracts were violated. They're advocating for the reform of section 230 because they believe its harmful for companies like YouTube and Facebook to exert this much influence over the discourse without any liability. Payment or lack of a contract is immaterial.

> Doesn't cover minors, who can't consent to binding contracts, and I doubt it would be popular with customers anyway. Can you imagine having that play every time you make or receive a phone call?

Yet GDPR exists and there are popup windows on many webpages because of the legality of the tracking measures employed by advertising companies.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25391771

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25393539

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25393738