YouTube suspends The Hill for playing clip of Trump denying election results • Hacker News Board

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

#611

Post by hankman86 » Sat, Mar 05, 2022, 5:49 AM UTC

mathogre wrote: post #584

Fuck YouTube. If they're going to control what news I get, I'll choose other than YouTube. I do not need them. I have read from both hard left and hard right, and am intelligent enough to make my own decisions about what makes sense. Let them play their games, whether silly or dangerous. I form my own opinions. Losers!

Agree - I don’t need some “ministry of truth”. Figured out for myself that these “alternative” news shows on YouTube (The Hill, Breaking Points etc.) are populist garbage. This isn’t journalism, but sensationalist cherry-picking of facts with an unhealthy dose of opinion sprinkled on top.

All that being said: i think that censorship does way more harm than whatever nonsense these channels put out.

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

#612

Post by imnotlost » Sat, Mar 05, 2022, 5:51 AM UTC

InvertedRhodium wrote: post #583

imnotlost wrote: post #563

Fine. You can’t force people or businesses to listen to you or broadcast your speech. That’s American liberty. That’s freedom. You can’t claim that a business is “the public square” and then force them. If you do want a digital public square look for something run by the government with a mandate to publish everything. I’m pretty sure people wouldn’t be too happy with that either… too many libtards, too many nazis, t…

> You can’t claim that a business is “the public square” and then force them. Why not? We place some pretty serious obligations on a few industries - one example is electricity providers of last resort.

If it’s that serious and important - nationalize them and have the federal government run it.

Or you could call your congress people and ask them to increase funding for PBS or NPR or whatever. Or start a tax funded service.

Or start your own service. I’m sure you’ll welcome everyone’s suggestions on how to run it.

Or is it that you want someone else to run it, you don’t want to pay anything for it, don’t want to pay taxes for it, but you do want a say in how it’s run?

(Not you personally but y’all)

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

#613

Post by imnotlost » Sat, Mar 05, 2022, 5:55 AM UTC

hankman86 wrote: post #611

mathogre wrote: post #584

Fuck YouTube. If they're going to control what news I get, I'll choose other than YouTube. I do not need them. I have read from both hard left and hard right, and am intelligent enough to make my own decisions about what makes sense. Let them play their games, whether silly or dangerous. I form my own opinions. Losers!

Agree - I don’t need some “ministry of truth”. Figured out for myself that these “alternative” news shows on YouTube (The Hill, Breaking Points etc.) are populist garbage. This isn’t journalism, but sensationalist cherry-picking of facts with an unhealthy dose of opinion sprinkled on top. All that being said: i think that censorship does way more harm than whatever nonsense these channels put out.

It’s an advertising business. They sell advertising. Everything else is filler between the ads.

Network news runs on the same model.

Sometimes the filler (news or other content) is good but not always.

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

#614

Post by clord » Sat, Mar 05, 2022, 5:56 AM UTC

bduerst wrote: post #578

Kranar wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is forcing Youtube to do anything, all we're doing is criticizing Youtube for its policies which we believe make Youtube a worse product than it would otherwise be. Criticizing a video game, or a movie, or a restaurant or a streaming service does not imply the use of force to do anything nor does it imply having to get the government involved. It just means we think a product could be improved upon. I think Yo…

Okay, but the problem here is you're making a moral statement based on what YouTube is, making it an is-ought problem. Youtube ought to share the message of a president who incited a riot and tried to overthrow a democratic election, because it is blocking it. You're not addressing why YouTube is blocking it or the state of it's own rights as a private platform, just making blanket moral statements about opinion.

No the point is whether YouTube is better if it allows us to evaluate. I want YouTube to show me darker news and also keep my kid entertained without worry. I don’t want to be treated like the child here though. If I click on a Ukraine war video or I want to find a quote from trump to pick apart there should not be filters preventing it.

The product is better if I am in control. YouTube ought to stay out of it. It does not know my intent. If it guesses wrong it should be criticized, just like a restaurant guessing at my food preferences and allergies.

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

#615

Post by cm2187 » Sat, Mar 05, 2022, 5:59 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #432

cm2187 wrote: post #8

Quoted post unavailable.

Please don't take HN threads into partisan flamewar. Last thing we need here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

My very point is that it is a partisan policy and a hypocrisy. If pointing that it is a partisan policy is partisan and therefore cannot be said, we are exactly in the same sort of circular "you can't express that opinion" policies than on YT.

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

#616

Post by dgellow » Sat, Mar 05, 2022, 6:01 AM UTC

daenz wrote: post #426

dgellow wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Whether it's Huxley or Orwell, they're both dystopias. EDIT>> My mistake, censorship falls clearly under Orwell

Honestly, we are so far into what was considered dystopian in the past century, I don’t know if that even make sense to still use that type of categorization.

But to actually answer your comment:

1. A company removing proven disinformation is quite far from what censorship is. Also not really something that would be considered dystopian.

2. I would disagree that Orwell work is about “censorship is bad”. His work is IMHO more about exploring risks caused by attempt to do population surveillance and control. Spreading lies and falsehood consistently to destroy any understanding of an actual situation, the way Trump does by lying about election fraud, is way closer to the Orwellian nightmare than YouTube removing that content.

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

#617

Post by nextaccountic » Sat, Mar 05, 2022, 6:02 AM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #597

nextaccountic wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point, major platforms function like public spaces in online discourse, even though they are legally considered private property. Because of their huge influence in society, Youtube shouldn't be permitted to censor political viewpoints in their platform. And see, there's always a fine balance between private property rights and other rights. For example: you can't prevent people from a given ethnicity from sh…

Should Trump’s “Truth” platform be allowed to “censor” political speech? There is nothing stopping Fox News/NewsMax/OAN from creating their own video hosting platform.

Yeah they could create a video platform, but until it gained the prominence of YouTube it would be just a niche hosting platform. I'm putting forward a view that YouTube has a status so powerful in global society that it should be held at a higher standard.

But regarding your question, I actually think that there's a serious dysfunction here in the way Fox News can legally spread lies that are very damaging to society with little to no legal consequence. They even alleged in a slander case that the Tucker Carlson show is actually just entertainment, and reasonable people can't expect it to be truthful - even though millions of people get their news primarily from Fox News, including Carlson talk shows, fully believing they are telling the truth.

And I see that YouTube is cracking down on a lot of the same misinformation that Fox News propagates (and sometimes, worse stuff), but my point is that this shouldn't be up to Google to decide what political talking points are or aren't allowed. YouTube functions as a public space in our daily lives, we express ourselves there, I don't think it's good for society for a single company decide this policy unilaterally.

On the other hand, it's good that platforms offer some kind of curation and differentiate themselves based on that. There are YouTube alternatives like Lbry in which practically everything is allowed, and I think both models are necessary.

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

#618

Post by DoctorOW » Sat, Mar 05, 2022, 6:02 AM UTC

UnpossibleJim wrote: post #542

BuyMyBitcoins wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ” Please let me know if you know how to fix this unfortunate typo.” You can click the edit button. But you’re probably trying to make a snarky point. If we are going to say that censorship is justified because you want to prevent violence or insurrections, we open the floodgates to some seriously bad things. Here’s a scenario: Claiming that people are being systematically discriminated against could lead to violenc…

>>If we are going to say that censorship is justified because you want to prevent violence or insurrections, we open the floodgates to some seriously bad things If it were just as bad as "The censors want to prevent the bad things", I think I might feel that it would be justifiable. This type of thinking also robs the broader public of its agency to reason. The broader public is not comprised of petulant children, re…

You realize this is YouTube's position right? They're fine with the exact clip The Hill used if it's to criticize those ideas. To oppose YouTube's stance is to argue we shouldn't pair false claims with the evidence that refutes it.

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

#619

Post by monkellipse » Sat, Mar 05, 2022, 6:03 AM UTC

ok123456 wrote: post #564

After the mid-terms, any Section 230 protection these companies have is going bye-bye. Any kind of active moderation of perfectly legal speech through 'terms of service'/'community standards' will remove any common-carrier liability shield. Actions like this have turned this into political red meat for some. These companies really need to learn how to read the room. Ratcheting downward the ability of people to freely…

I absolutely hate what’s going on here with YT, but I think I’d rather have a company making bad decisions on its own than having bad decisions mandated by fiat. A law demanding that YT keep particular content up is at least as distasteful as YT taking down content. If we hadn’t as a society cast tech as responsible for disinformation then we wouldn’t be here. We dug this hole, I don’t think we can legislate ourselves out of it.

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

#620

Post by nebula8804 » Sat, Mar 05, 2022, 6:05 AM UTC

ayngg wrote: post #595

stereoradonc wrote: post #132

The extent of the "censorship" is getting ridiculous. It is an overreach of the platforms.

Based on what I have seen and what I have heard people say, the principle of freedom of speech is probably dead in the west. People will give their sanctimonious justifications like "it only means the government can't censor not us," "it's freedom of speech, not freedom from consequences," or misuse quotes like Popper's intolerance towards intolerance, or Schenck v. United States's yelling fire in a theater, but in r…

> as if it had not been attempted numerous times only to be censored off every hosting/ payment/ app platforms

Was this really something that stopped any of the services?

>or hacked to have all the personal information of their users doxxed because they had "bad opinions."

Come on this is not fair. This was caused by these services choosing to hire low skilled developers. The guy building Parler didn't even understand the proper way to set up his authentication strategy nor did he really understand his database and its advantages/limitations. If anything, this should teach the other side to respect the effort that goes into developing these platforms(this disrespect for the skillset is something I see A LOT among the right wing youtubers I follow). They are so freaking proud to be not one of the "elites" by eschewing the desire for knowledge and a love of learning so much so that it bites them in the ass when they are booted off an existing platform and then realize this tech stuff is so hard.

>Even the ones that actually exist just become hiveminds of their own because they become populated by people who have been censored everywhere else, as if having every community devolve into hive minded safe spaces is actually desirable.

These platforms need to welcome the other side then, the ones doing the censoring.