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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

#401

Post by RavingGoat »

floatingatoll wrote: post #142
Gatsky wrote: post #99

I don’t understand the free speech arguments here. Youtube is an advertising platform. They can do what they want with their platform. If I own a billboard, and someone wants to advertise their bags for dead kittens, I can say no. There needs to be some sense of proportionality. If the government bashed down Icke’s door and smashed his computer then sure, we should worry about free speech. But getting banned from You…

The argument is that people’s individual freedom to speak anything should be held in higher regard than the welfare of society, regardless of what harmful outcomes may come from that speech. It’s a core tenet of American racists and fascists (and, I suspect, conspiracy theorists), because otherwise they wouldn’t be able to convert others to their cause without being silenced by their platforms.

You can't yell fire in a movie theater. David Icke is basically doing the same... risking peoples lives so free speech doesn't cover him.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#402

Post by quietbritishjim »

jfnixon wrote: post #150
techsupporter wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I won't address that argument here but personally I think it's a very dangerous way of thinking The problem is you’ve just said you won’t address the primary, most compelling reason to take these actions. Assuming that “sunshine is the best disinfectant” presupposes a lot of things about society that are, in my observation, no longer true. We do not have the time, through our own actions or not, for quiet contempla…

Therefore we should let those with power choose what everyone can say and hear? Sorry, I'm not following.

Extremely paraphrasing, ryankemper's original comment was something like "We shouldn't let private companies decide who to boot off. Besides, booting them off doesn't work anyway".

Then techsupporter said something like "actually, booting them off does work".

Finally, paraphrasing your comment, "so you're saying you should let private companies decide?" No, that is clearly not what techsupporter's comment meant.

It's ok to disagree with the second half of that first comment ("booting them off doesn't work") without expressing an opinion on the first half. In fact the way the original comment ties together those two things has has led to the quagmire of crossed arguments you're seeing in these comments, so untying them is quite important.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#403

Post by cwhiz »

koheripbal wrote: post #343
Gatsky wrote: post #99

I don’t understand the free speech arguments here. Youtube is an advertising platform. They can do what they want with their platform. If I own a billboard, and someone wants to advertise their bags for dead kittens, I can say no. There needs to be some sense of proportionality. If the government bashed down Icke’s door and smashed his computer then sure, we should worry about free speech. But getting banned from You…

At some point, organizations get so big and so ubiquitous, that they become quasi-governmental organizations. Google shares data with intelligence services, they have close contacts in the administration, they are a near-monopoly in multiple areas, they have a tremendous number of government contracts, they spend more on lobbying in DC than any other organization. If we abdicate our rights to these organizations, the…

YouTube is just a video advertising platform. Anyone can host a video virtually anywhere on the internet. You don’t have a right to use YouTube.

If you want to upload some videos spreading some fake news propaganda there are quite literally thousands of different sites and services to do that.

Google and YouTube have no legal or moral obligation to allow you to use their specific services.

The only grey area here is when there is a true monopoly.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#404

Post by knzhou »

vkou wrote: post #398
knzhou wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Galileo didn't deliver spittle-flecked rants either. He carefully gathered evidence and wrote it up, and his ideas gained acceptance by peer review.

Actually, Galileo did largely deliver self-aggrandizing spittle-flecked rants, full of personal attacks against other astronomers, which were complete rubbish. His arguments for why the Earth revolved around the Sun were complete nonsense, and were more theological, than scientific in nature. His contemporaries were not particularly impressed, but he probably wouldn't have been censored, if he also didn't try his dam…

Interesting, do you have further reading on this to recommend?

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#405

Post by charred_toast »

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 agree. It's the spirit in which these actions have been taken, as if to conform to a narrative, which in itself, has see-sawed between facts and fiction, as to almost being intentionally confusing. It's not a "conspiracy theory" to ask questions, critical thinking has taken a huge blow since 9/11.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#406

Post by christiansakai »

I used to naively believe that education and more information will fix a lot of things in the world. People will want to study and think and they will be enlightened.

I don't believe that anymore. For one reason, studying is hard, critical thinking is hard. Even with given free time and privilege (hello UBI?), most people will not prefer studying or thinking critically. They'd rather parrot things from the internet and the media around them.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#407

Post by econcon »

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…

>However, I have repeatedly seen the opposite: Sharing bad ideas increases their audience, increases ignorance, hate, fear, and human suffering.

A lot of time hate is already there, just it doesn't find a way out untill someone shows there is no consequence of doing so.

Hitler is one example of this who harnessed anti Jewish sentiments, he didn't create it, you can't make so many people change their beliefs.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#408

Post by knzhou »

thebean11 wrote: post #394
knzhou wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because, as I said a couple comments ago, the degree of one-to-many communication available to people has been continuously skyrocketing for decades, and currently stands at levels far beyond any seen in history. Even the heaviest possible strawman-censorship one could imagine on Youtube would only erase a small part of this rise. That's because the internet has allowed one-to-many communication to massively scale up…

Totally disagree. Sure the degree of one-to-many communication has greatly increased, but it's been mostly concentrated within the top platforms. Losing access to those would be severely limiting. And no, an email blast isn't a proper alternative to Facebook, any ideas kicked off of major platforms would be at a severe disadvantage.

I feel like we're going in circles here. Even if every single site and app coordinated to kick off David Icke, he would end up, at worst, as silenced as the average American in the year 2000. It just doesn't seem all that bad to me.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#409

Post by p1necone »

colordrops wrote: post #198
stevebmark wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I know that HN is an international community but it's based in the US and most users are Americans. In the US, you need strong evidence of negative repercussions to restrict speech, and even then it's extremely difficult, due to the 1st amendment being one of the most important laws of the land. It's not the other way around - evidence is not needed to show that allowing speech is helpful.

That's not what the first amendment says. The first amending only stops the government from enacting laws that limit speech. Private companies and individuals are free to limit speech however they like on their own platforms and environments (within the bounds of the law of course).

The first amendment is like 50 words long, you should read it.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#410

Post by charred_toast »

@imgabe says it well in this comment section:

> YouTube has clear policies prohibiting any content that disputes the existence and transmission of Covid-19 as described by the WHO [World Health Organization] and the NHS [the U.K's healthcare system] [emphasis added]

The WHO at least has been flat out wrong several times during this pandemic, such as telling people not to wear masks. Anointing one agency as the sole source of truth and censoring anything that contradicts it is not going to lead to a good outcome. People need to be able to question authorities.

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