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> Suppressing David Icke only makes this conspiracy stronger. I think this is begging the question. Why does Youtube, in particular, have an obligation to not

> Suppressing David Icke only makes this conspiracy stronger. I think this is begging the question. Why does Youtube, in particular, have an obligation to not "suppress" this person, especially when there's no element of Youtube's terms of service that would force them to carry his content? He's not being hauled to jail by the authorities, he's just being denied (the greatest use of) the Youtube platform. If Youtube wants to enforce a degree of content control over what it hosts, that would ordinarily be its right -- in the same way that if I run a print shop I don't have to print flyers from any crank who walks in the front door. Moreover, you're making a testable point here, that suppression "only makes this conspiracy stronger." Is there social science evidence to back this claim up, or is this just an intuitive opinion? An alternative framework is that by denying a pernicious idea its greatest platforms, it makes the topic seem more rare and thus less credible. (The converse of "everyone's saying it, there must be some truth to it.")

contravariant 7y ago
When discussing whether Youtube should or should not suppress a particular person / point of view it is not conductive to bring up the fact that Youtube has little (financial, legal) obligation to not suppress anything. Frankly they are able to do whatever they want, but I reckon we can at least agree that this wouldn't necessarily be desirable. And yes it is a problem to have this much depend on the decisions of a single organisation, as they are wrong no matter what they do, and frankly they don't have the mandate to make such decisions to begin with.
ramblenode 7y ago
> Moreover, you're making a testable point here, that suppression "only makes this conspiracy stronger." Is there social science evidence to back this claim up, or is this just an intuitive opinion? If there is, you might begin with this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect But the conspiracy minded do seem to latch on to anything resembling information suppression.

contravariant 7y ago

When discussing whether Youtube should or should not suppress a particular person / point of view it is not conductive to bring up the fact that Youtube has little (financial, legal) obligation to not suppress anything. Frankly they are able to do whatever they want, but I reckon we can at least agree that this wouldn't necessarily be desirable. And yes it is a problem to have this much depend on the decisions of a single organisation, as they are wrong no matter what they do, and frankly they don't have the mandate to make such decisions to begin with.

ramblenode 7y ago

> Moreover, you're making a testable point here, that suppression "only makes this conspiracy stronger." Is there social science evidence to back this claim up, or is this just an intuitive opinion? If there is, you might begin with this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect But the conspiracy minded do seem to latch on to anything resembling information suppression.