5 ms·

There's a huge difference between freedom of speech and actually hurting people. Organizing violence, for example, is already illegal even in many jurisdictions

• ksk 7y ago
  They already have a policy to ban accounts that incite violence. (Which might have happened, the article doesn't say..) >"Information" that's not only going to get people killed but also is factually wrong is definitely fair game IMO. We don't want an advertising company in a capitalist society deciding that. That's the whole point.
  • sp332 7y ago
    We don't want an advertising company in a capitalist society deciding that. Everyone has the responsibility to decide that! Their platform, their responsibility.
    • ksk 7y ago
      Okay? Then consider my comment as a protest.
    • julybuffalo 7y ago
      This is actually an extremely gray legal area. The only reason platforms are viable is because they have legal protections that don't make them responsible for user content. At some level of "taken responsibility" (which I think should have been passed), they should be considered publishers and be stripped of their legal protections.
• champagneben 7y ago
  Could you not make the same argument about many politically divisive questions? Medicare for all, climate change, etc.
  • sp332 7y ago
    Yeah, politically debatable questions seem much more defensible to me than this. This is a straight-up lie with no benefit to anyone.
    • de_watcher 7y ago
      You can't easily separate "straight-up lie" and "politically debatable questions". There are tons of "straight-up lies" used for creating questions, making them "politically debatable" and then acting violently.
      • nailer 7y ago
        A couple of months ago the idea that Covid 19 would become a worldwide epidemic was a conspiracy theory.
        • de_watcher 7y ago
          It goes both ways.
  • mullen 7y ago
    That is a silly question. The debate about Medicare for All or Climate Change is based around one group of people wanting everyone to have access to healthcare and/or not destroying the environment (Thus saving lives). While the discussion of stopping 5G is about destroying expensive equipment and assaulting the techs that go out to fix the destroyed equipment. The only way this could be comparable if someone threaten or assaulted you to get Medicare for all or stop Climate Change.
    • kian 7y ago
      Oddly enough, a government compelling you to provide medical care for a third party or pay to stop climate change is, in fact, comparable to someone threatening or assaulting you to get you to comply, as assault and imprisonment are what you'll get if you opt not to pay in to government-mandated programs.
• bcheung 7y ago
  Those are valid points. I think those are mostly covered already under existing legal precedents for freedom of speech. I don't see any reason they should change based on the medium. As to your point of information that can potentially do harm, who gets to be the judge of that? That seems like it can be very controversial and subjective. So far the courts have erred on the side of only ruling against things that pretty much everyone agrees upon and I think we should stick with that. Having objective criteria for limits to speech is important. Otherwise we run into scenarios where people start claiming "your opinions and words I don't agree with are considered violence against me". At which point ALL speech is fair game.
  • krapp 7y ago
    > I don't see any reason they should change based on the medium. No new legal precedent has been created, nor has any existing legal precedent been changed. Youtube has always had the right to curate or ban content for any reason, and has always done so, albeit typically in service of advertisers and copyright owners. Legal precedent has never recognized "freedom of speech" to mean that no form of speech can be abridged or forbidden, rather, it has recognized that censorship is permissible under certain circumstances for the common good (laws against slander, libel, fraud, perjury, etc.) >As to your point of information that can potentially do harm, who gets to be the judge of that? That seems like it can be very controversial and subjective. Just because it can be controversial and subjective in some cases, doesn't mean it is equally controversial and subjective in all cases, nor does it follow, therefore, that no cases can reasonably be judged by any criteria, because all cases cannot be equally judged on exactly the same criteria. >Otherwise we run into scenarios where people start claiming "your opinions and words I don't agree with are considered violence against me". At which point ALL speech is fair game. The problem with the slippery slope argument is that it assumes humans merely process the law like algorithms, and that it will consider a statement like "your opinions and words I don't agree with are considered violence against me". perfectly valid merely because it is logically consistent. Even without "objective" criteria for limits to speech, someone making the argument you're presenting will be laughed out of court, both of law and public opinion. The only way the slope can be slippery is if no one had ever looked at the slope, considered that it might be slippery, and maybe added a sidewalk or some stairs or a railing or a sign or something. We as a society are already aware that the dynamics involved in something like speech can be complex, and that the potential to abuse freedom of speech exists. Feedback has already been added to the system, because the system is self-aware and self-correcting. It may not be perfect in that regard, but it's still there.
• Gollapalli 7y ago
  >actually hurting people... organizing violence And where precisely has that happened here? Icke floated a theory. Some of his other theories include Hillary Clinton being a literal lizard. Should we ban his videos saying that as well, before people start trying to put chemicals toxic to lizards in the food of politicians?