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

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

#311

Post by blueblob » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 2:17 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 bring up the Democratic Party as if everyone who disagrees with you must always be a part of the exact opposition and you come across as a conspiracy theorist because of it. It really doesn't seem to be the world's most unsurprising thing that among two possible conclusions people could be on opposite sides without being brainwashed. It's almost like the binomial distribution exists for something like this.

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

#312

Post by Talanes » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 2:17 AM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #243

dathinab wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 He should, it's the basis of democracy. Sure rat poison is a bad example, but thinks are much less clear cut if we speak about other things, including covid19. So putting up warnings about this problems (potential more then just a subtle note at the side) is reasonable removing it is much l…

> He should, it's the basis of democracy. Do you support the election that happened on November 3rd 2020? Then you must support the results of the election, whether you like the election results, or not. THAT is the basis of Democracy: the peaceful transfer of power based on the votes. If you do not respect the votes, then Democracy falls apart. You literally cannot have a Democracy without votes (while we had a Demo…

Do you honestly believe that Government reduction in free speech would lead to a net gain in people's trust in the process?

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

#313

Post by phailhaus » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 2:17 AM UTC

daveidol wrote: post #202

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.

Yes, but there seems to be a lot of "first amendment" talk in the comments.

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

#314

Post by justinzollars » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 2:18 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…

> Looking at the comments here I have to conclude that HN is no longer on board critical thinking much less common sense.

The book burners are running the show. And the complaints you see on hackernews are just people with no power or influence complaining about the censorship you support. Seems like a decision was already made by people much more powerful than us, and this is the path we are on. Free speech and freedom of the press are over. America is done. Nothing special about this place anymore.

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

#315

Post by thorough » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 2:18 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 think the conversation is just a little more sophisticated than you imagine it to be.

And you can be generally in favor of free speech (!= the First Amendment) without accepting its more extreme interpretations. I mean, I'm guessing that you personally are too if you are like most people. For example, most of us would think that YT shouldn't censor either of two people saying (respectively) "Trump was elected in 2016 as a result of Russian disinformation" and "Trump was not elected in 2016 as a result of Russian disinformation."

The interesting question here is, "What speech should a privately-owned forum allow that its owners disagree with?"

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

#316

Post by ronaldj » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 2:19 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 AT&T/Verizon. The power to stop scam calls is well within their control.

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

#317

Post by motohagiography » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 2:19 AM UTC

makomk wrote: post #190

motohagiography wrote: post #154

I have a few past comments on HN about how electronic voting was a recipe for civil unrest for the precise reasons that are playing out right now and that Taibbi gives examples of. Google, Facebook and Apple are becoming less American companies as they are a kind of post-national versions of the British East India Company where they operate mainly as the arms of an empire, and instead of opium, they traffic in attent…

I have a few past comments pointing out that whether electronic voting is seen as a valid reason to distrust American election results by the mainstream depends entirely on which party has the presidency. The most vivid demonstration of this was Wired running two articles within months of each other, one before Trump won insisting that rigging an election that way was impossible and there were endless safeguards prot…

The Youtube issue seems analogous in that it's ok if "our guys" prevail. My bias is it's hard to interpret things without empirically predictive power as meaningful.

It's strange for me because I can see the rift between people as a tangible thing, where micro-classes have used the internet to become alien to one another, to where neighbours have developed completely different ontologies that are irreconcilably foreign. I think the problem is even those of us looking to bridge it keep looking for ways to repair it instead of forward to the ways in which it eventually heals.

Youtube is doing this because they think they're going to win. I'd just like to take the other side of that bet.

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

#318

Post by lukifer » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 2:19 AM UTC

Analemma_ wrote: post #184

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 remember the days on forums when people screaming "YOU'RE VIOLATING THE FIRST AMENDMENT!!!11" after the admin banned them were treated as the laughable jokes they were. Now there are supposedly serious political thinkers subscribing to this same idea: that the Constitution forces private parties to do business with you against their will. It's a serious lack of civic knowledge.

It's worth reading Barry Goldwater's opposition [0] to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, despite him claiming to be "unalterably opposed to discrimination or segregation on the basis of race, color, or creed, or on any other basis". His stance was exactly what you describe: that government did not have a right to force private parties to conduct business against their will.

There's a good-faith debate to be had about positive rights vs. negative rights; or the potential backlash from forcing individuals to do the right thing; or the usual right-libertarian arguments about the sanctity of property rights. But I'll bet dollars to donuts, that the vast majority of those cheering for tech media giants booting out those with verboten views, based on private property rights, would also be horrified at the idea of even questioning the CRA under the same logic.

[0] https://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2014/06/barry-goldwater-decla...

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

#319

Post by modriano » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 2:19 AM UTC

souprock wrote: post #248

modriano wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An individual's understanding of the world is shaped exclusively by the signals produced by their 5 senses. Intelligence governs an individual's ability to interpret those signals and draw further conclusions from those interpreted signals, but if that individual is fed a constant stream of bad yet internally-consistent data, correct application of logic and reason will lead that individual to objectively incorrect c…

What exactly does a hand recount confirm? What is the point, when the accusation had nothing to do with counting? The accusation is that fraudulent ballots were mixed in with the legitimate ones. Recounting the contaminated pile tells us exactly what?

Each state has its own laws regarding elections and recounts, but in all the states I've looked at, voters have to sign either a document at their precinct if they're voting in person, or on an envelope for their ballot if they're voting by mail. If there are more votes in a precinct than there are in that precinct's voter registration database, or if they have a mismatch of signed envelopes or sheets and ballots, or the hash on the envelope doesn't correspond to the ballot, or votes from people not registered to that precinct, or multiple signed sheets/envelopes for a single registered voter, all of this makes the "they just dumped in more ballots in" theory more unbelievable, as the amount of coordination and access needed to successfully execute that theoretical tampering without leaving plenty of evidence becomes realistically impossible.

It's fine to investigate a hypothesis if you're willing to accept the hypothesis is false. But if you continue asserting your hypothesis is true after many competent investigators, including investigators ideologically aligned with yourself and your desired outcome, investigate the system and find no evidence to support said hypothesis, instead finding evidence that repudiates your hypothesis, well, it's bad for democracy to continue pushing that hypothesis.

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

#320

Post by chordalkeyboard » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 2:20 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.

> Yes you should.

Thank you. This is exactly the basis upon which we justify the proposal to force YouTube to host content that their shareholders would prefer not to host. Or the alternative formulation, this is the basis on which we justify prohibiting YouTube from censoring political speech that their shareholders disagree with.