Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

taibbi.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 981 posts

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

#321

Post by AndrewKemendo »

travisoneill1 wrote: post #271
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…

> Would you then cede your decision making to them if it were demonstrably better? There are, and I use them constantly in the form of domain experts. So does everyone. For example, I would never assume a plumber is wrong and I am right about pipes, though I may get a 2nd opinion. > Would you argue that you should be free to make measurably worse or less optimized decisions for yourself - by virtue of the value of yo…

Should you be free to make (acknowledged) sub-optimal decisions for yourself that adversely affect others?

Anticipating the "no - if it's illegal" argument, how would that be the philosophically consistent with freedom to choose free from having a group of people who are "smarter and better" choose for you?

This is the challenge of externalities and market pricing.

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

#322

Post by cratermoon »

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…

"They recast what reason does — winnowing wheat from chaff — as an act of censorship."

https://logicmag.io/play/u-mad/

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

#323

Post by FlyMoreRockets »

oh_sigh wrote: post #305
FlyMoreRockets wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Clearly, they are poorly informed. The obvious solution is that public education should be improved, rather than abolished.

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

#324

Post by chordalkeyboard »

renewiltord wrote: post #57

Well, the problem is that there are all these intertwined concepts so that for the most part we have:¹ * We want individuals to be able to express themselves so long as they are not explicitly deceiving people or hurting them * We believe groups of individuals should have the freedoms individuals do * We believe that individuals whose sole purpose is to act to provide a service to individuals expressing shouldn't be…

This is an excellent summary of the dilemma. Thank you for summarizing it so clearly and succinctly.

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

#325

Post by pnw_hazor »

Daishiman wrote: post #290
missedthecue wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We don't allow people to go around claiming that Pepsi causes AIDS, or cures cancer I'm pretty certain you're 100% allowed to do this, though Pepsi inc may sue for damages.

If you're a doctor and you claim this then those are grounds for having your license stripped and being held criminally liable if people actually take you up for advice.

Sure their may be consequences for speech that is later determined by a court and with due process to be unprotected.

But no US law can prevent you from saying it in the first place.

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

#326

Post by wkjenjkwenf »

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…

Not a single word in the article hints towards the 1st amendment. I suggest reading the article before acting all high-and-mighty about your "common sense."

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

#327

Post by wkjenjkwenf »

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…

> "infringement of our rights."

> you don't have the "right" to a spot on their platform

Who are you quoting? Those words, or that sentiment, don't appear in the article. If you're quoting a comment then reply to that comment. And if you didn't read the article then consider reading it next time.

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

#328

Post by pnw_hazor »

chordalkeyboard wrote: post #161
handoflixue wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> (Genuinely trying to understand if there is something that makes this different from any other sort of fraudulent communication - I don't see people defending the other stuff under the guise of "Free Speech", and I'm not clear why this would be different) People are not defending fraudulent communication. They are observing that the same factors that make audiences vulnerable to misinformation affect the censors an…

Fraud is a very specific (and hard to prove) term of art in US law.

There is no US law that would stop someone from making expressions that are later determined to be fraudulent.

Note, commercial speech (e.g., advertisement) is considered a less protected species of speech and may be subject to prior restraint in limited viewpoint neutral circumstances.

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

#329

Post by rStar »

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…

"We cannot afford to lose faith in the election process. Period." Half the country doesn't vote, because they've lost faith in the election process.

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

#330

Post by effingwewt »

phailhaus wrote: post #303

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 s…

I see this argument all the time. Sweeping opinions you don't like under the rug doesn't make them go away. People will still hold the same opinions they will just do so where you can't hear them. I prefer the racist I can see. This pushes them underground and radicalizes them.

You mentioned reddit. Do you remember what voat became when reddit closed down subs? That hate didn't go away it just moved and concentrated itself.

Post reply on HN