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

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

#451

Post by abacadaba » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 4:10 AM UTC

krapp wrote: post #438

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing even remotely radical about questioning an election, which this makes a bannable offense.

They're not questioning an election, they're making baseless accusations of fraud. Conspiracy theories like Sharpiegate, hacked Dominion voting machines and Georgia election workers counting suitcases full of illegal ballots have been debunked. Trump's legal team has filed over 50 lawsuits to date, none of which have exposed any evidence of fraud or criminal conspiracy. The legitimate questioning is being done and th…

> and Georgia election workers counting suitcases full of illegal ballots have been debunked

citation needed

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

#452

Post by kiba » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 4:11 AM UTC

scoopertrooper wrote: post #360

wkjenjkwenf wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, it reduced tensions on reddit , but what about tensions everywhere else? The author doesn't care about how toxic Youtube is, he cares how toxic the US is. Pushing these radicals onto radical websites only further radicalizes them. That should be an axiomatic fact, yet nobody seems to understand it.

Regardless of the morality, I suspect that it will prove to be quite efficacious. Banning this kind of nonsense from mainstream platforms will certainly not reduce the toxicity of the existing radicals, but it will curtail their ability to spread their message and recruit. These movements did not materialise out of a vacuum. Their growth and replenishment of strength is largely contingent on permissive mainstream pla…

No, they showed the danger of popularizing and amplifying the most virulent messages, which usually are hatred and paranoia. If it were just a randomly uploaded youtube video that showed up on the front page, it would be much less likely to be picked up.

Instead, we have the possibility of the recommendation engine recommending videos en-mass.

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

#453

Post by gabereiser » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 4:12 AM UTC

alessandroetc wrote: post #44

gabereiser wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube can choose to keep or delete any content on their platform regardless of truth/free speech/or not. It's in the EULA. You want free speech, go outside and yell. No one is stopping anyone from free speech. What Google is doing is cleaning up content on their service according to their EULA. If you disagree with the EULA, you can gladly go use another service. I will add, targeting a specific genre of videos loo…

If youtube wants to remove stuff they can, but they should start with removing the values they state on their about page. You can't say you give everyone a voice and then start blanket silencing people.

I agree completely. Transparency is better than shadow removal.

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

#454

Post by titanomachy » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 4:15 AM UTC

int_19h wrote: post #274

titanomachy wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a right to say whatever you want to whomever you want without fear of government retaliation, as long as it isn't "hate speech" in a fairly narrow legal sense. This is what "having free speech in society" has always meant. The government will also punish people who commit crimes against you merely because they dislike your words, which frees you to say things you might otherwise keep to yourself. What you do…

What happens when all megaphones are either government- or large-corporation-owned, and whenever you try to speak on your own, the nearest megaphone just yells over whatever you have to say?

Was that ever not the case? Was there a time when any person with any message could reach the whole country with their message?

The scarce resource here isn't freedom of speech, it's people's attention. As always, you can say whatever you want, and as always, it's hard to get people to listen to you. Before the internet, you basically needed an already-famous person to take an interest in you in order to get noticed. Now a message can go viral organically, without needing to involve any journalists or talk-show hosts, but the platforms are free to stop something from going viral if they don't like it. Facebook giveth and Facebook taketh away.

But to answer your question, I think breaking up the platforms would be a better solution than treating them as de-facto public services and trying to regulate them as such. Or appropriate them and make them into actual public services :)

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

#455

Post by disown » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 4:15 AM UTC

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…

> 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]

Your analogy only really works if you ban half the population from the US. Sure if you banned democrats or republicans from the country, then you could reduce tensions. But if you censor one side and keep them around, it'll only inflame tensions.

> I think YouTube made the right calculation that this will in fact _reduce_ tension and slow the momentum of this destabilizing movement.

Does it seem to you that tensions are reducing? If youtube did this after the 2016 election, do you think it would have reduced tensions?

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

#456

Post by chordalkeyboard » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 4:16 AM UTC

FlyMoreRockets wrote: post #379

waterhouse wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they should not be forced. However, YouTube should be shamed for the bans, and everyone should be encouraged to think worse of them for it.

I think YouTube should be applauded for protecting democracy. Why do you think they should be shamed for doing this?

Probably because its dangerous to democracy to silence people who question the integrity of elections. It sends the impression that there is something to hide. And people who suspect that the election was stolen will take this as confirmation of that suspicion. Since they won't be allowed to use that platform to raise their suspicions, no one will be able to respond to them to allay their suspicions. Then as time goes on confirmation bias will lead them to become entrenched in this belief. Eventually this belief (that the elections have been stolen) will lead to the perception of a loss of legitimacy for the government, and consequentially public servants will find it more difficult and dangerous to do their jobs.

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

#457

Post by RickJWagner » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 4:18 AM UTC

It really does seem out of line for much of the media to have dismissed or delayed accurate information about Hunter Biden prior to the election. It seems pretty clear this effort was designed to avoid upsetting the election.

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

#458

Post by ardy42 » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 4:20 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #439

ardy42 wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Sure, it reduced tensions on reddit, but what about tensions everywhere else? The author doesn't care about how toxic Youtube is, he cares how toxic the US is. Pushing these radicals onto radical websites only further radicalizes them. That should be an axiomatic fact, yet nobody seems to understand it. > Sure, it reduced tensions on reddit, but what about tensions everywhere else? The author doesn't care about ho…

Who are "them" and "these people" here? Republican voters? The Republican leadership? Even if the plan is to marginalise Republicans by selectively suppressing their views on YouTube, it seems questionable if that will provoke the same response as banning "fatpeoplehate" and "coontown" from Reddit. Tensions are likely to increase.

> Who are "them" and "these people" here? Republican voters? The Republican leadership?

I had in mind white supremacists, QAnon, Boogaloo Bois, etc. I don't think the people making false and baseless claims about the election being stolen from Trump can easily be dealt with this way, because too many high-status people have joined that bandwagon.

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

#459

Post by modriano » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 4:21 AM UTC

pnw_hazor wrote: post #349

modriano wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I look forward to the signature audits. Witness affidavits suggest some counties in some states did not follow their own laws. Now, unfortunately, there is no legal remedy because in most cases the irregular ballots cannot be separate from the regular ballots once they are pooled together. A lot of election laws define the rules, but few define the remedy if they are broken.

There have been a lot of signed witness affidavits, but nearly all of them have been thrown out in court as not credible, and 0 of them have lead to victories in court.

What irregular ballots are you talking about?

https://www.democracydocket.com/

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

#460

Post by ywhjaknskkkw » Sat, Dec 12, 2020, 4:21 AM UTC

FlyMoreRockets wrote: post #379

waterhouse wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they should not be forced. However, YouTube should be shamed for the bans, and everyone should be encouraged to think worse of them for it.

I think YouTube should be applauded for protecting democracy. Why do you think they should be shamed for doing this?

They are expressly NOT protecting democracy. There are serious problems with the election, and lots of evidence of fraud - intentional or otherwise. This is stuff that should be investigated and openly discussed, not swept under the rug.