4 ms·

The first amendment in the US prevents the government from regulating speech, the fundamental reasoning is to allow the people to have varied political opinions

The first amendment in the US prevents the government from regulating speech, the fundamental reasoning is to allow the people to have varied political opinions or to disseminate them. This does not cover private companies nor commercial activities. YouTube already prohibits certain content on their platform, and limits ability to profit from certain content. This is just an extension of this doctrine. Furthermore, please consider that there is no absolute right to say anything you want, it has always been a balance. Even in the US, where free speech is enshrined in the constitution, there are criminal and civil limits to free speech if you cause harm to others.

apatters 7y ago
The parent is not making a legal argument, but a civic one. The argument is that our society will benefit from embracing free speech and suffer from censorship, regardless of legality.
- starfallg 7y ago
  And I'm making an argument that this has already been considered in both the legal and civic spheres, weighing both the benefits of free speech with some of the problems that it brings. The question here (and in many other similar situations) is where to draw the line.
  - apatters 7y ago
    I don't get it. You're saying that he's wrong because the issue has already been discussed?
- onion2k 7y ago
  For YouTube there are three antagonistic forces at work with free speech - there's the freedom users have to publish on the platform without censorship, the freedom users have to see recommended videos that are promoted honestly based on their interests without undue political influence by YouTube or others, and lastly there's the freedom YouTube has to promote things that make them money. There is no way for all these things to work together. What is positive for one will often be negative for the others. You can't talk reasonably about freedom and censorship without understanding that freedom means different things to different people in the same group.
  - bsaul 7y ago
    « the freedom users have to see recommended videos that are promoted honestly based on their interests without undue political influence by YouTube or other » Note that this has never happened in the history of media. Every bit of information, in every media, is « controlled » by at least a publisher, who has a personal background, ethic, political point of view, economical interests, etc. Only with the age of internet , where search engines are powerful enough to index every content published by people, can we truely have some hope to get a « neutral » algorithm in the sense that it isn’t biased by someone’s personal opinion. I feel this is something that should be preserved at all cost.
ben509 7y ago
> the fundamental reasoning is to allow the people to have varied political opinions or to disseminate them. Not quite, the fundamental reason is that a government of the people requires the people engage in civic dialog. It would be logically contradictory to try to set up a nation governed by the people in which they can't speak about the issues facing that nation. (There are also the artistic and commercial aspects of free speech, but there's a similar hypothetical imperative underlying them as well.) > This does not cover private companies nor commercial activities. That's not entirely true. If a private company gets special exemptions from the government, as in the exemptions from liability that a platform enjoys, it can be required to allow speech, or lose those exemptions. > YouTube already prohibits certain content on their platform, and limits ability to profit from certain content. They're exercising another right companies have: the right to enter into agreements, which then must bind those company to those agreements. Companies also have the right, under 1A, to market their services, and if they falsely market their services, they may be liable for fraud. Broadly, Youtube can't set up terms of service that promise to uphold free speech and then turn around and say, "LOLJK, we're banning flattards." > Furthermore, please consider that there is no absolute right to say anything you want, it has always been a balance. No, there's not a balance, at least in the moral sense it's black and white. Speech works like every other right: your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose. And it has to work like that; you can't have the right to suppress another person's rights because then rights would be pointless. The government has a balance to consider, but that's because justice is a blunt instrument. In the case of speech, the government makes it unlawful to commit fraud, defamation, and conspiracy as those all cause immediate, demonstrable harm. They are well defined in case law and have clear penalties associated with them. But there's a lot more speech that is morally wrong. You don't have the moral right to shout someone down, nor do you have the right to cause someone pain by deliberately saying hurtful things to them. We typically don't make those things illegal because they're generally better resolved by softer mechanisms like social opprobrium, and they're difficult to write clear laws on and to try in court. In particular, the government should avoid laws that can be gamed and weaponized.

apatters 7y ago

The parent is not making a legal argument, but a civic one. The argument is that our society will benefit from embracing free speech and suffer from censorship, regardless of legality.

starfallg 7y ago
And I'm making an argument that this has already been considered in both the legal and civic spheres, weighing both the benefits of free speech with some of the problems that it brings. The question here (and in many other similar situations) is where to draw the line.
- apatters 7y ago
  I don't get it. You're saying that he's wrong because the issue has already been discussed?
onion2k 7y ago
For YouTube there are three antagonistic forces at work with free speech - there's the freedom users have to publish on the platform without censorship, the freedom users have to see recommended videos that are promoted honestly based on their interests without undue political influence by YouTube or others, and lastly there's the freedom YouTube has to promote things that make them money. There is no way for all these things to work together. What is positive for one will often be negative for the others. You can't talk reasonably about freedom and censorship without understanding that freedom means different things to different people in the same group.
- bsaul 7y ago
  « the freedom users have to see recommended videos that are promoted honestly based on their interests without undue political influence by YouTube or other » Note that this has never happened in the history of media. Every bit of information, in every media, is « controlled » by at least a publisher, who has a personal background, ethic, political point of view, economical interests, etc. Only with the age of internet , where search engines are powerful enough to index every content published by people, can we truely have some hope to get a « neutral » algorithm in the sense that it isn’t biased by someone’s personal opinion. I feel this is something that should be preserved at all cost.

ben509 7y ago

> the fundamental reasoning is to allow the people to have varied political opinions or to disseminate them. Not quite, the fundamental reason is that a government of the people requires the people engage in civic dialog. It would be logically contradictory to try to set up a nation governed by the people in which they can't speak about the issues facing that nation. (There are also the artistic and commercial aspects of free speech, but there's a similar hypothetical imperative underlying them as well.) > This does not cover private companies nor commercial activities. That's not entirely true. If a private company gets special exemptions from the government, as in the exemptions from liability that a platform enjoys, it can be required to allow speech, or lose those exemptions. > YouTube already prohibits certain content on their platform, and limits ability to profit from certain content. They're exercising another right companies have: the right to enter into agreements, which then must bind those company to those agreements. Companies also have the right, under 1A, to market their services, and if they falsely market their services, they may be liable for fraud. Broadly, Youtube can't set up terms of service that promise to uphold free speech and then turn around and say, "LOLJK, we're banning flattards." > Furthermore, please consider that there is no absolute right to say anything you want, it has always been a balance. No, there's not a balance, at least in the moral sense it's black and white. Speech works like every other right: your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose. And it has to work like that; you can't have the right to suppress another person's rights because then rights would be pointless. The government has a balance to consider, but that's because justice is a blunt instrument. In the case of speech, the government makes it unlawful to commit fraud, defamation, and conspiracy as those all cause immediate, demonstrable harm. They are well defined in case law and have clear penalties associated with them. But there's a lot more speech that is morally wrong. You don't have the moral right to shout someone down, nor do you have the right to cause someone pain by deliberately saying hurtful things to them. We typically don't make those things illegal because they're generally better resolved by softer mechanisms like social opprobrium, and they're difficult to write clear laws on and to try in court. In particular, the government should avoid laws that can be gamed and weaponized.