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

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

#671

Post by int_19h »

Daishiman wrote: post #296
int_19h wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It's a very good argument to support 1950's style anti-monopoly legislation, and as someone who defends platforms' rights to have some degree of moderation it follows that we should have as many platforms as needed to satisfy demand.

Absolutely. I don't think that private censorship per se is problematic - the problem, rather, is that it amounts to monopoly abuse in the present configuration of the market.

(Although I'd prefer an economic system that makes monopolies fundamentally impossible or very unlikely - i.e. one that constrains the ability to concentrate capital.)

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

#672

Post by twentydollars »

rightbyte wrote: post #106
tzs wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a question of whether they are intelligent enough to do so. It is whether or not they can get the information that allows them to do so. With the vast amount of information on social media, which is where more and more people are getting most of their information nowadays, and the way social media algorithms are designed to maximize engagement, and the way human cognitive biases work, the result is you almos…

> you almost never get a balanced view presenting arguments for all sides By banning allegations of election fraud you could change "almost never" to "never".

They're not banning all allegations of fraud. They're blocking a specific set of claims that have been shown to be false, for instance that Donald Trump won the 2020 US election.

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

#673

Post by remarkEon »

hackyhacky wrote: post #607
ceilingcorner wrote: post #495

I find it really disconcerting how many people on Hacker News want a corporate entity to decide what information is deemed acceptable to know. Do you even know where that word came from? The irony is almost overwhelming. But I digress... The idea that banning certain information will somehow result in it disappearing has been shown repeatedly to not work. A cursory reading of history should make this clear. You canno…

It's not about banning disagreement. It's not even about opinions. It's about combating weaponized misinformation. It's strange for Americans to be on the business side of a propaganda weapon, as we're more used to using against our enemies. Technology has finally made it feasible for malicious actors to cheaply and effectively manipulate people with lies, here in the US. If you don't believe it's a weapon, you're wr…

>It's about combating weaponized misinformation.

Nah. It's about whether or not we are okay with giant corporate tech companies deciding what is and what isn't "weaponized misinformation". I'm fully up to speed on the history of the United States using information as a weapon abroad, but what makes me uncomfortable about this situation is that tech folks seem to have dropped our usual skepticism about that strategy, and are somehow now okay with this happening domestically. Maybe I'm being naive, and this skepticism was never really justified, or is easily overrided by feelings about "making the world a better place". Whatever. It's still going to be weird to me to watch my friends who work in tech, who in literally any other circumstance would be freaking out at the prospect of tech companies deciding what you get to see on these gigaplatforms, jettison their skepticism in order to "protect democracy".

>And if you think the "American spirit," or somesuch nonsense, makes us immune, I hope we won't have to find out.

Not sure this invocation makes the point you think it does. Seems to me the "American spirit" you're invoking in the negative is one built on a mythos of telling totalitarians, be they government or corporate, to go fuck themselves. Recent history gives one good reason to be skeptical, give the corporatism and financialism rampant in the US economy. But that's still the mythos. I've still got a little Faith left.

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

#674

Post by twentydollars »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #656
twentydollars wrote: post #649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “A group of unknown people at a technology corporation should be the ultimate authority on what I’m allowed to say, read, or share with my friends.” Literally nobody is suggesting this. It's about freedom of Reach, not freedom of speech.

Right now, at this very moment, Facebook and Twitter prevent you from sending certain links via private message.

They're private platforms. You can send those links via many other routes which would be legally protected speech.

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

#675

Post by celdon25 »

r0s wrote: post #286
david927 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strict banning of speech about the electoral controversy is more dangerous than the classic example of yelling FIRE in a crowded theater.

One company moderating their own private platform isn't "strict banning" of anything at all.

Sounds like something a censorship advocate would say (or someone who dislikes the actual things being censored as of the current climate). Will you still believe the same way when the pendulum swings and it's the left that is being censored?

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

#676

Post by kenjackson »

rayiner wrote: post #646
hackyhacky wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about banning disagreement. It's not even about opinions. It's about combating weaponized misinformation. It's strange for Americans to be on the business side of a propaganda weapon, as we're more used to using against our enemies. Technology has finally made it feasible for malicious actors to cheaply and effectively manipulate people with lies, here in the US. If you don't believe it's a weapon, you're wr…

What is the harm model here? After the 2016 election, more than half of Democrats disagreed that the elections “were free and fair.” https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/e... > Of registered voters surveyed, 53% said the 2016 election between Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton was free and fair and 33% said it was not.... 39% of Democratic or Democratic-leaning voters said it was. Half of Democr…

Very different situations though. Hillary conceded. And no one I personally knew really thought that Trump would not become president. Most people believed there was Russian interference, but most didn’t believe they were literally changing votes. The Senate agreed with that assessment.

While I’m no fan of Trump and vote mostly Democratic I do think Trump won in 2016 and I don’t know anyone who doesn’t. I have a much smaller social circle of Republicans and they ALL believe Trump won this year.

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

#677

Post by int_19h »

Daishiman wrote: post #282
int_19h wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, I think this goes to the root of the matter. Can you trust people or not? That's a fundamental question that decides whether you can have real democracy, or only a sham. Because any kind of democracy where people are only allowed to make "safe" choices, decided on by someone else (e.g. the censors), is a sham. And that's true even if the censors themselves are directly or indirectly democratically ap…

I'm sorry but trust isn't a binary value. I trust people in my life to be reliable and trustworthy to a certain extent and in certain areas. I don't trust my party-animal buddies to be on time for breakfast a 8 AM, and I don't trust my stressed out workaholic friend to just chill on a Friday afternoon. You cannot simplify trust to a single variable; you have to go case by case. And trust in the masses is partial; fin…

How would you manifest that partial trust when it comes to political power, though? The problem with that power is that splitting it up is a zero-sum game - you can give less to "the masses", but then somebody else is getting more. Who would that be, and why would you trust them?

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

#678

Post by cmdshiftf4 »

swiley wrote: post #2

If you reject the idea that people are intelligent enough to think about politics for themselves then you reject the idea that they're intelligent enough to govern themselves. Democracy and free speech are intrinsically linked.

>If you reject the idea that people are intelligent enough to think about politics for themselves then you reject the idea that they're intelligent enough to govern themselves.

Elegantly put. It seems you've triggered an avalanche of replies looking to stick asterisks or [#] footnotes and caveats to this statement to suit their biases of the day.

Bang some caveats in there and you put universal suffrage as a concept in question.

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

#679

Post by kenjackson »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #601
kill-procrustes wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really underrated point. This whole site is really "tech industry news" with some hacking sprinkled in, but its name at least is based on the idea of the hacker ethos. That whole thing about decentralization, distrusting authority, information being free? A curiosity for how things work and logical investigation rather than letting someone else do your thinking for you? Disinformation is a huge problem and…

I really can’t think of anything more alien to the hacker ethos than, “A group of unknown people at a technology corporation should be the ultimate authority on what I’m allowed to say, read, or share with my friends.” Disinformation is indeed a difficult problem, but there are enough smart people in the world to figure it out without resorting to authoritarianism. We can do better.

The Hacker Ethos is to build your own media platform and stop whining about someone else’s (unless net neutrality is at play).

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

#680

Post by foepys »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #648
andrei_says_ wrote: post #641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope this is not an argument for giving powerful weaponized mass disinformation tools to more people, including foreign governments and other actors actively seeking to polarize society to the point of inciting conflict and dismantling democracy. Yes, removing this type of speech from YouTube may be an imperfect / stopgap solution. What are some better alternatives?

I’m not arguing for that, but it might actually be an indirect solution. By forcing everyone to deal with it, skepticism will grow and new solutions toward treating information and the media will arise. As an example, I think a similar situation will happen with deepfakes. Once it becomes widely known that it’s easy to fake video, people will become more skeptical of it.

> skepticism will grow and new solutions toward treating information and the media will arise

And you are willing to sacrifice democracy for just the chance of this happening?

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