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You have not made a case for why you think that public health issues — such as Covid — should be a topic fully exempt from restriction by YouTube. You've made t

You have not made a case for why you think that public health issues — such as Covid — should be a topic fully exempt from restriction by YouTube. You've made the case that freedom is good and that YouTube can take all sorts of steps, but you haven't explain at all what your position on this tradeoff is. As a country that restricts public behaviors when they conflict with public welfare, it is plausible to expect that YouTube would restrict contradictory information about Covid at this time. There are millions of views on content suggesting that Covid isn't real, for example, and those will — under this plausibly correct approach — end up terminated and removed. What public good do you suggest outweighs the public harm done by allowing (for example) "Covid isn't real" content to remain visible online? You haven't described any public good that lends weight to your argument, and without that, your argument won't sell to anyone who doesn't already agree with you. Freedom is not always a good thing, and we absolutely have laws restricting it for valid and serious reasons. If you wish others to consider that YouTube should exercise less restriction of freedom in this area, you need to be much more specific about why — to you, personally! — you think that good will come of them backing off.

quotemstr 7y ago
By the time the United States was founded, the idea of restricting speech that "conflict[s] with the public welfare" had become so frequently abused for self-serving censorship that a prohibition against the whole idea was written into the the highest laws of the country. The rationale for doing so applies today. A society can't figure out what is true if well-meaning people in power have the ability to censor anything that they don't believe is true. Censors can be mistaken on the facts as much as anyone else, and it's a fundamental weakness in human nature that we apply different standards to claims for and against our interests. Some central body limiting information flows for the "public good" has never led to anything actually good and never will. The public good arising from free speech is truth.
- 361994752 7y ago
  Thanks for your explanation. But one thing still confuses me.. that we should just leave the "covid is a lie" contents there despite the high possibility that it may kill people?
  - quotemstr 7y ago
    Yes. Censorship is worse than any falsehood that might circulate.
    - La1n 7y ago
      >Yes. Censorship is worse than any falsehood that might circulate. That was not the question. The question was, are people losing their lives worth having no censorship of a specific topic.
- floatingatoll 7y ago
  The highest laws of the country were written specifically to ensure that restriction of speech is permissible when it causes significant harm to the population without any benefit outweighing that harm. It is illegal to yell “fire” in a crowded theater and that is permitted under our country’s highest laws. The case you’re making is that corporations, who do not have the power of military force over their citizens, should be held to the same standard of law as the governments that do. As those governments legally have the right to prioritize the greater public gonod over individual rights, your logic implies that corporations, too, should be expected to prioritize the greater public good over individual rights. This seems in direct contradiction to your point that speech should not be restricted, and so I cannot accept your reasoning as presented. I think the root of my disagreement is with your phrase “self-serving speech”: the nation’s free speech restrictions must serve the nation’s citizens as a whole, in order to be legal. They must prioritize the welfare of most over the welfare of few, and do so only in circumstances where the harm is great if left unrestricted. The nation did not put into place such protections at the corporate level, resulting in YouTube, a platform with a population greater than that of our nation, having no legal requirement to prioritize the welfare of most over the welfare of few. If your position is that YouTube should be bound to the same onus of responsibility as our nation, then YouTube should be taking much more aggressive action to censor content than it has done to date. It should be restricting individual speech where the welfare of the world’s citizens is at risk of significant harm, exactly as our nation’s laws are. It seems like your true argument is not with YouTube, but is in fact with the theory that the welfare of the entire population is sufficient cause to restrict individual freedoms; and that this view applies both to YouTube’s policies, and to United States constitutional law. It’s your right to hold that view and express it in general, but I cannot agree, as I consider its outcomes both unjust to the greater good and unsupported by law.
  - quotemstr 7y ago
    The "fire in a crowded theater" case was overturned: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-time-to-stop-using-the-fire-in-a-crowded-theater-quote/264449 https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim... You have no idea what you're talking about.

quotemstr 7y ago

By the time the United States was founded, the idea of restricting speech that "conflict[s] with the public welfare" had become so frequently abused for self-serving censorship that a prohibition against the whole idea was written into the the highest laws of the country. The rationale for doing so applies today. A society can't figure out what is true if well-meaning people in power have the ability to censor anything that they don't believe is true. Censors can be mistaken on the facts as much as anyone else, and it's a fundamental weakness in human nature that we apply different standards to claims for and against our interests. Some central body limiting information flows for the "public good" has never led to anything actually good and never will. The public good arising from free speech is truth.

361994752 7y ago
Thanks for your explanation. But one thing still confuses me.. that we should just leave the "covid is a lie" contents there despite the high possibility that it may kill people?
- quotemstr 7y ago
  Yes. Censorship is worse than any falsehood that might circulate.
  - La1n 7y ago
    >Yes. Censorship is worse than any falsehood that might circulate. That was not the question. The question was, are people losing their lives worth having no censorship of a specific topic.
floatingatoll 7y ago
The highest laws of the country were written specifically to ensure that restriction of speech is permissible when it causes significant harm to the population without any benefit outweighing that harm. It is illegal to yell “fire” in a crowded theater and that is permitted under our country’s highest laws. The case you’re making is that corporations, who do not have the power of military force over their citizens, should be held to the same standard of law as the governments that do. As those governments legally have the right to prioritize the greater public gonod over individual rights, your logic implies that corporations, too, should be expected to prioritize the greater public good over individual rights. This seems in direct contradiction to your point that speech should not be restricted, and so I cannot accept your reasoning as presented. I think the root of my disagreement is with your phrase “self-serving speech”: the nation’s free speech restrictions must serve the nation’s citizens as a whole, in order to be legal. They must prioritize the welfare of most over the welfare of few, and do so only in circumstances where the harm is great if left unrestricted. The nation did not put into place such protections at the corporate level, resulting in YouTube, a platform with a population greater than that of our nation, having no legal requirement to prioritize the welfare of most over the welfare of few. If your position is that YouTube should be bound to the same onus of responsibility as our nation, then YouTube should be taking much more aggressive action to censor content than it has done to date. It should be restricting individual speech where the welfare of the world’s citizens is at risk of significant harm, exactly as our nation’s laws are. It seems like your true argument is not with YouTube, but is in fact with the theory that the welfare of the entire population is sufficient cause to restrict individual freedoms; and that this view applies both to YouTube’s policies, and to United States constitutional law. It’s your right to hold that view and express it in general, but I cannot agree, as I consider its outcomes both unjust to the greater good and unsupported by law.
- quotemstr 7y ago
  The "fire in a crowded theater" case was overturned: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-time-to-stop-using-the-fire-in-a-crowded-theater-quote/264449 https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim... You have no idea what you're talking about.