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"Censorship" is a Bad Word because of Nazi book burnings, Soviet political censorship, Fahrenheit 451, and other notions of "government censorship". Its "Bad Wo
by leot 9y ago
"Censorship" is a Bad Word because of Nazi book burnings, Soviet political censorship, Fahrenheit 451, and other notions of "government censorship". Its "Bad Word" status means that we don't want it to apply to the kinds of blocking that we think are legitimate.
But the reality is that censorship is not all, or even mostly, bad. YouTube censors snuff videos. And porn. Is that bad? How about videos showing how to make bombs? What about nuclear bombs? What about anthrax? What about biological weapons?
Clearly, YouTube and other platforms must and will draw lines on what does and doesn't constitute acceptable content.
The question isn't about censorship. It's about where the line should be drawn.
For whatever reason, there's a lot of people who think that instructional videos on guns should be in-bounds rather than out-of-bounds. To the extent people are talking about "censorship" writ-large it is a distraction from having to justify making specific kinds of content widely available.
- Sir_Cmpwn 9y agoAn argument can be made on what is and is not appropriate to censor, and we would probably disagree. But that's not important - what's important is who should decide what is and is not censored. Should YouTube (and Google) be making that decision, or should the government? At least in theory, the government is an extension of the people, and a private corporation is not. We should decide as a society what topics should and should not be censored. Then we can defend minority viewpoints and make moral judgements, rather than financial ones.
- leot 9y agoI think content providers and platforms should be free to make whatever choice they want regarding content on their platform, provided they don't discriminate illegally (i.e., based on membership in a protected group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group) If you fully ramify your position, you're advocating that the government tell me that if I host videos, I can't prevent people from posting videos that I don't like. E.g., if I make a cat video hosting platform, and someone uploads a dog video, I can't stop them. Again, this is a debate about where to draw the line. It just happens to be the case that there are some people who are fierce advocates for maximizing the amount of gun stuff that is readily available online.
- Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago>If you fully ramify your position, you're advocating that the government tell me that if I host videos, I can't prevent people from posting videos that I don't like. E.g., if I make a cat video hosting platform, and someone uploads a dog video, I can't stop them. No, I'm not arguing that YouTube should be legally required to permit all legal content. I'm arguing that I ethically expect them to. Or, at least, expecting them to is a valid position.
- leot 9y agoIs my no-dogs-allowed CatTube unethical, then? Or do the ethics have to do with YouTube's utility like status? I personally am happy that YouTube can and does censor/ban porn, obscene videos, and videos depicting humans dying.
- Sir_Cmpwn 9y agoYou keep inferring that I think any particular subject should be permitted on YouTube, while I've deliberately avoided saying so. The only point I've made is that trotting out the old "private companies aren't the government and aren't required to uphold free speech" argument is silly because feeling an extralegal expectation of certain behaviors private companies should follow is entirely reasonable.
- leot 9y agoSo you have an expectation that CatTube should host dog videos?