2 ms·

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,

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.

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.