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YouTube suspends The Hill for playing clip of Trump denying election results

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Re: YouTube suspends The Hill for playing clip of Trump denying election results

#381

Post by bko »

rootusrootus wrote: post #350
bko wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let be real here. It's very likely the former guy may run again. You may be against that, as would I. But I think its pretty creepy that a handful of large tech CEOs will be able to get together and prevent that from happening by shutting him off from every social media platform and biasing search results, even so far as censoring our private communications via FB messenger, email or similar chat apps. You want to ar…

> get together That's probably the moment they could face regulation. Individually, it's their platform to choose what they want to host or not.

Do you think it was weird that when a damning article about a presidential candidate's son came out a few weeks before the election, every single media company and social network decided at the same exact time not to cover the story? Even so much as censoring the one paper that carried it and on private messages between people? Twitter, Facebook, NY Times, NPR and others.

The former guy got banned on all the services all at once. Even tiktok which he was not on. Hell, even grindr banned him.

There may not be direct coordination (maybe there is), but there's a signal and no one likes to make waves

They all took a different direction about the "pee tape":

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/16/opinion/comey-book-steele...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/30/magazine/nothing-proves-y...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/15/business/media/spooked-pr...

For more: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anytimes.com+trump+pee...

Re: YouTube suspends The Hill for playing clip of Trump denying election results

#382

Post by ekianjo »

rootusrootus wrote: post #358
prepend wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should broadcasters be forced to host debates? Broadcasters are forced to do all kinds of stuff. In Canada they have to carry a certain percentage of Canadian content.

Isn't that based on their use of public spectrum, though? To what extent does that apply to the Internet, which effectively has unlimited spectrum?

> To what extent does that apply to the Internet, which effectively has unlimited spectrum?

It's about having equal reach for different political opinions. If you completely remove one voice without any legal mandate to do so, you are just the same as a political tool.

Re: YouTube suspends The Hill for playing clip of Trump denying election results

#383

Post by bko »

kasey_junk wrote: post #366
bko wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heres an example: Bari Weiss was fired for commissioning an op-ed by a US Senator Tom Cotton calling for the national guard to be called in to break up riots. Note that she did not write the essay, but merely commissioned it. They sometimes have op-eds from varying voices. NY Times apologized and said "This review made clear that a rushed editorial process led to the publication of an Op-Ed that did not meet our stan…

Are you arguing that Bari Weiss, who was brought in specifically as part of an editorial decision to appeal to alternate viewpoints, is an example of alternate viewpoints being censored?

Yes. She was forced out for doing her job. They don't want alternative view points. That's the point

Re: YouTube suspends The Hill for playing clip of Trump denying election results

#384

Post by ekianjo »

jmull wrote: post #306
billfor wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because, like telephone companies youtube can be considered a monopoly and classified as a common carrier, as some states and proposed federal laws have argued.

What monopoly???

not a monopoly on paper, but a monopoly in terms of reach. When 99% of videos seen on the web are from youtube, can you pretend it's not akin to some kind of monopoly?

Re: YouTube suspends The Hill for playing clip of Trump denying election results

#386

Post by user3939382 »

jmull wrote: post #295
user3939382 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why people think youtube should be forced to host stuff they don’t want to host For the same reasons that AT&T can't terminate your phone service if they hear you talking about something that's opposed to the political preferences of AT&T or its leadership. These companies have become the public square and the law needs to be updated to reflect that. If they have to become public utilities fine. There's a big diffe…

Youtube doesn’t have any kind of monopoly on posting videos to the internet. What they do have is a brand and a social network that surfaces, promotes, and moderates video content to drive engagement and ad views. They’ve grown large by moderating and curating content but now that they’ve done so they should no longer be allowed to moderate and curate content? Makes no sense whatsoever. You’re pronouncing youtube a “…

> Youtube doesn’t have any kind of monopoly on posting videos to the internet

Of course they do. There are channels that can be removed that would instantly lose access to millions of monthly viewers that can't practically be replaced anywhere. They have a monopoly on that type of reach (the most important type), and especially when these platforms decide to blacklist in concert.

> now that they’ve done so they should no longer be allowed to moderate and curate content

Yes, because once your business decisions have the power to decide who gets elected President, for example, it's in a different class and has to be regulated differently than a corner flower shop. There are many examples of laws and regulations that apply to business based on size.

> what is this extremely strong claim based on? youtube is just one of an endless series of options for posting videos on the internet

Again, it's not one of endless, it is entirely unique -- for many channels, their reach on YouTube is not replaceable anywhere. That's like saying, AT&T can shut off your phone service for your political opinions because you can always go meet someone in person to talk. That's simply not how we've historically agreed to interpret the obligations of massive communications platforms, and there's a very good reason for that.

I don't want who gets to speak to the public decided by some faceless, unelected tech oligarchs. That's a dystopia. "They only get to decide if you easily get access to an audience of millions, you can always get an audience of 5" is a deeply flawed argument.

Re: YouTube suspends The Hill for playing clip of Trump denying election results

#387

Post by oneoff786 »

koolba wrote: post #299
dane-pgp wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of trying to "both sides" gerrymandering, why don't you work out how many votes it takes on average for a Democrat to win an election, and how many it takes a Republican. With that information, you can infer which party has the most motivation to end gerrymandering.

There is no districts or gerrymandering at the Presidential level. It’s State wide. You could argue that the electoral system gives an advantage to smaller States because that’s true. But that’s by design to force a consensus at multiple levels. Large scale change is supposed to require multiple types of majority, not just a snap mob decision. That’s a feature, not a bug.

> You could argue that the electoral system gives an advantage to smaller States because that’s true. But that’s by design to force a consensus at multiple levels.

Millions of votes of a difference and complete capture of many states. My vote, living in Massachusetts, has no value in the presidential election because there’s a 100% chance it’ll be blue.

Re: YouTube suspends The Hill for playing clip of Trump denying election results

#388

Post by dgellow »

dayvid wrote: post #127

It's scary how many of the systems we were worried about in China (e.g. social credit system, censorship, etc.) are basically being created now in the west through the proxy of critical companies blocking access and/or working together.

In China you would risk being arrested for such a thing. Not just see your channel or video taken down by a platform.

Re: YouTube suspends The Hill for playing clip of Trump denying election results

#389

Post by gnicholas »

ehsankia wrote: post #359
another_story wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit different considering the west has alternatives which are not blocked, whereas China doesn't. You can even spin up your own sources and serve whatever you want,a right not afforded the average Chinese citizen.

Every single day on HN, people mix up giving someone a platform to censoring someone. Social platforms are megaphones. Up until a decade ago, it was impossible for nearly everyone to reach out a large audience, especially worldwide. Nowadays, anyone can make a video accessible by billions of people with a single click. If people banned from that is "censorship", then by that definition the whole world was censored 2…

If you’re in a park where everyone else is shouting through a megaphone, and you don’t have a megaphone, your voice will not be heard.

Re: YouTube suspends The Hill for playing clip of Trump denying election results

#390

Post by kasey_junk »

bko wrote: post #383
kasey_junk wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you arguing that Bari Weiss, who was brought in specifically as part of an editorial decision to appeal to alternate viewpoints, is an example of alternate viewpoints being censored?

Yes. She was forced out for doing her job. They don't want alternative view points. That's the point

But didn’t the job start as a specific alternative viewpoint subsidy?

Getting to zero after boosting doesn’t seem like censorship.

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