7 ms·

I dont get this mindset. They aren't stopping them voicing their opinions or views... they're just stopping them posting it on THEIR service. Newspapers do th

I dont get this mindset. They aren't stopping them voicing their opinions or views... they're just stopping them posting it on THEIR service. Newspapers do that all the time, TV and Radio does it all the time. Why is this different?

TechBro8615 7y ago
It’s not like these are crackpot doctors that uploaded the video themselves. It was a press conference that a local news station uploaded to YouTube. https://www.turnto23.com/news/coronavirus/video-interview-with-dr-dan-erickson-and-dr-artin-massihi-taken-down-from-youtube https://www.turnto23.com/news/coronavirus/video-interview-wi...
- busymom0 7y ago
  Yep. The video was a news conference from Dr. Dan Erickson, who along with Dr. Artin Massihi, own the largest testing site in Kern County, Accelerated Urgent Care, California. It wasn't some random joe making claims.
forgot_my_pwd 7y ago
Imbalance. There has always been the assumption in media that all sides will have their champions, and this has traditionally been the case. Unfortunately that no longer holds as certain entities have a stranglehold on online communication. Perhaps the free market will fix this. Perhaps not. Are we willing to allow a small cadre of like minded individuals manipulate the internet in the meantime? I believe that's an intolerant situation and am not willing to wait.
busymom0 7y ago
> Newspapers do that all the time, TV and Radio does it all the time. And that's why newspapers are classified as publishers and therefore are able to be sued. "Platforms" like YouTube are can't be sued because they are supposed to act like platforms - which they are not. Right now YouTube is acting like publishers while using the advantage of being called a platform. This is the Communications Decency Act section 230.
- olliej 7y ago
  That would mean compelling them to host all content, including child pornography and calls to commit terrorism. That is clearly nonsense. The CDA doesn’t say “in order to not be liable you must host everything regardless of what it is” it allows you to host potentially anything that is uploaded without being considered directly liable for that (which would be far more censorious)
  - perf1 7y ago
    No Platdforms still have to delete illegal content and react to take down notices.
    - olliej 7y ago
      Ok, pornography then, that’s legal. Content that promotes terrorism is (to my understanding) not illegal, because that we shut down all those freedom loving “militias”.
- javagram 7y ago
  Section 230 of the CDA was written expressly to give YouTube-like companies the right to do this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communications_Decency_Act#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicati... > One of the first legal challenges to Section 230 was the 1997 case Zeran v. America Online, Inc., in which a Federal court affirmed that the purpose of Section 230 as passed by Congress was "to remove the disincentives to self-regulation created by the Stratton Oakmont decision".[8] Under that court's holding, computer service providers who regulated the dissemination of offensive material on their services risked subjecting themselves to liability, because such regulation cast the service provider in the role of a publisher. Fearing that the specter of liability would therefore deter service providers from blocking and screening offensive material, Congress enacted § 230's broad immunity "to remove disincentives for the development and utilization of blocking and filtering technologies that empower parents to restrict their children's access to objectionable or inappropriate online material." [. . .] > Blumenthal v. Drudge, 992 F. Supp. 44, 49-53 (D.D.C. 1998).[71] > The court upheld AOL's immunity from liability for defamation. AOL's agreement with the contractor allowing AOL to modify or remove such content did not make AOL the "information content provider" because the content was created by an independent contractor. The Court noted that Congress made a policy choice by "providing immunity even where the interactive service provider has an active, even aggressive role in making available content prepared by others."
irjustin 7y ago
It's that youtube, reddit take on more of a public forum than TV, radio at least that was the feeling in the past. The idea that anyone can be a content creator is, it's supposed to be as neutral as possible. Let the world battle it out against itself. Once you start taking sides of opinions (as opposed to legal ones) then you become a content curator. For better or worse, America was built on the idea that I can have an absolutely stupid idea and that's my right. We'll fight to my death but it is my right to hold said stupid idea and voice it with youtube being my megaphone. That's a core tenant of free speech and youtube was supposed to be able to help that. Now they're taking sides and it's not comforting
- paulcole 7y ago
  > America was built on the idea that I can have an absolutely stupid idea and that's my right. Was it though? First Amendment says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” Until YouTube joins the Senate, I think they’re fine doing whatever they want.
  - dpatru 7y ago
    > Until YouTube joins the Senate, I think they’re fine doing whatever they want. I think it's reasonable to assume that the American government contains the same kind of people that are in governments the world over and throughout history. And governments have always attempted to suppress speech: that's why the First Amendment was written. Given Snowden's revelations, can you be sure that Youtube's censoring is simply a business decision by executives and not a result of government influence? How would things be different if the government were pressuring the big platforms to squelch speech?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - paulcole 7y ago
dpatru 7y ago
> they're just stopping them posting it on THEIR service. Newspapers do that all the time, TV and Radio does it all the time. Why is this different? Newspapers, TV programs, and radio programs are publishers. In contrast, Youtube, Facebook, and other services like them are platforms. They are more like the theater building, the radio/TV station, or a telephone company. This gives them some legal protection against being held responsible for the conduct of their users. See [1]. Without this distinction, these services could not have taken off, because Youtube and Facebook would have had to sign off on each user's post. But advancing technology is making it possible to police speech automatically. So the distinction between the publisher and platform is fading. Because platforms can regulate their users' speech now in almost real time, very cheaply, they are kind of forced to do it. Some speech is very hard to defend. The best, and easiest argument for allowing offensive speech on these platforms has been that the offensive speech could not be technically prevented without squelching a lot of acceptable speech. But now that argument is going away. [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=youtube+publisher+or+platform&rlz=1C1SQJL_enUS899US899&oq=youtube+publisher+or+platform&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i64.10297j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=youtube+publisher+or+platfor...
- roywiggins 7y ago
  In what sense is a radio station a platform? Most commercial radio is just piped playlists from a corporate office and a few DJs on top. Newspapers don't have to publish your letter to the editor and your local TV station won't publish your sternly worded letter either...
kerkeslager 7y ago
> They aren't stopping them voicing their opinions or views... they're just stopping them posting it on THEIR service. It's certainly their right under ownership laws to censor on their platform. But just because it's your right to do something doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. The question isn't "do social media platforms have the right to censor?". The question is, "given social media platforms have the right to censor, should they censor?". Like it or not, these platforms make up a significant portion of how our society communicates, and if you believe that free speech is a human right that's important for a free society, I don't see how you can say that it suddenly doesn't matter because we put a corporation in charge of a huge portion of our communications. I don't think that social media platforms should allow free speech because they're obligated to, I think that social media platforms should allow free speech because free speech has importance and inherent value. > Newspapers do that all the time, TV and Radio does it all the time. Why is this different? Newspapers, TV, and radio didn't sell themselves as platforms for conversation. They've always created their content (or paid someone else to create it) and curated it. Op/eds and viewer/listener calls are only a small fraction of the service these media channels provide, and frankly, these are usually more valuable for the producers of the media than the consumers in most cases. And even op/eds and viewer/listener calls are curated, with no pretense of anything else. Social media initially gained traction on the false idea that they were platforms where anyone could have a conversation. Many people (myself included) warned that we shouldn't be giving up so much of our communications to corporations, but here we are decades later and everyone is using these as communications platforms.
pnako 7y ago
It's YOUtube, not CNN. Or maybe that's what they ultimately want to become?

TechBro8615 7y ago

It’s not like these are crackpot doctors that uploaded the video themselves. It was a press conference that a local news station uploaded to YouTube. https://www.turnto23.com/news/coronavirus/video-interview-with-dr-dan-erickson-and-dr-artin-massihi-taken-down-from-youtube https://www.turnto23.com/news/coronavirus/video-interview-wi...

busymom0 7y ago
Yep. The video was a news conference from Dr. Dan Erickson, who along with Dr. Artin Massihi, own the largest testing site in Kern County, Accelerated Urgent Care, California. It wasn't some random joe making claims.

forgot_my_pwd 7y ago

Imbalance. There has always been the assumption in media that all sides will have their champions, and this has traditionally been the case. Unfortunately that no longer holds as certain entities have a stranglehold on online communication. Perhaps the free market will fix this. Perhaps not. Are we willing to allow a small cadre of like minded individuals manipulate the internet in the meantime? I believe that's an intolerant situation and am not willing to wait.

busymom0 7y ago

> Newspapers do that all the time, TV and Radio does it all the time. And that's why newspapers are classified as publishers and therefore are able to be sued. "Platforms" like YouTube are can't be sued because they are supposed to act like platforms - which they are not. Right now YouTube is acting like publishers while using the advantage of being called a platform. This is the Communications Decency Act section 230.

olliej 7y ago
That would mean compelling them to host all content, including child pornography and calls to commit terrorism. That is clearly nonsense. The CDA doesn’t say “in order to not be liable you must host everything regardless of what it is” it allows you to host potentially anything that is uploaded without being considered directly liable for that (which would be far more censorious)
- perf1 7y ago
  No Platdforms still have to delete illegal content and react to take down notices.
  - olliej 7y ago
    Ok, pornography then, that’s legal. Content that promotes terrorism is (to my understanding) not illegal, because that we shut down all those freedom loving “militias”.
javagram 7y ago
Section 230 of the CDA was written expressly to give YouTube-like companies the right to do this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communications_Decency_Act#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicati... > One of the first legal challenges to Section 230 was the 1997 case Zeran v. America Online, Inc., in which a Federal court affirmed that the purpose of Section 230 as passed by Congress was "to remove the disincentives to self-regulation created by the Stratton Oakmont decision".[8] Under that court's holding, computer service providers who regulated the dissemination of offensive material on their services risked subjecting themselves to liability, because such regulation cast the service provider in the role of a publisher. Fearing that the specter of liability would therefore deter service providers from blocking and screening offensive material, Congress enacted § 230's broad immunity "to remove disincentives for the development and utilization of blocking and filtering technologies that empower parents to restrict their children's access to objectionable or inappropriate online material." [. . .] > Blumenthal v. Drudge, 992 F. Supp. 44, 49-53 (D.D.C. 1998).[71] > The court upheld AOL's immunity from liability for defamation. AOL's agreement with the contractor allowing AOL to modify or remove such content did not make AOL the "information content provider" because the content was created by an independent contractor. The Court noted that Congress made a policy choice by "providing immunity even where the interactive service provider has an active, even aggressive role in making available content prepared by others."

irjustin 7y ago

It's that youtube, reddit take on more of a public forum than TV, radio at least that was the feeling in the past. The idea that anyone can be a content creator is, it's supposed to be as neutral as possible. Let the world battle it out against itself. Once you start taking sides of opinions (as opposed to legal ones) then you become a content curator. For better or worse, America was built on the idea that I can have an absolutely stupid idea and that's my right. We'll fight to my death but it is my right to hold said stupid idea and voice it with youtube being my megaphone. That's a core tenant of free speech and youtube was supposed to be able to help that. Now they're taking sides and it's not comforting

paulcole 7y ago
> America was built on the idea that I can have an absolutely stupid idea and that's my right. Was it though? First Amendment says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” Until YouTube joins the Senate, I think they’re fine doing whatever they want.
- dpatru 7y ago
  > Until YouTube joins the Senate, I think they’re fine doing whatever they want. I think it's reasonable to assume that the American government contains the same kind of people that are in governments the world over and throughout history. And governments have always attempted to suppress speech: that's why the First Amendment was written. Given Snowden's revelations, can you be sure that Youtube's censoring is simply a business decision by executives and not a result of government influence? How would things be different if the government were pressuring the big platforms to squelch speech?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - paulcole 7y ago

dpatru 7y ago

> they're just stopping them posting it on THEIR service. Newspapers do that all the time, TV and Radio does it all the time. Why is this different? Newspapers, TV programs, and radio programs are publishers. In contrast, Youtube, Facebook, and other services like them are platforms. They are more like the theater building, the radio/TV station, or a telephone company. This gives them some legal protection against being held responsible for the conduct of their users. See [1]. Without this distinction, these services could not have taken off, because Youtube and Facebook would have had to sign off on each user's post. But advancing technology is making it possible to police speech automatically. So the distinction between the publisher and platform is fading. Because platforms can regulate their users' speech now in almost real time, very cheaply, they are kind of forced to do it. Some speech is very hard to defend. The best, and easiest argument for allowing offensive speech on these platforms has been that the offensive speech could not be technically prevented without squelching a lot of acceptable speech. But now that argument is going away. [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=youtube+publisher+or+platform&rlz=1C1SQJL_enUS899US899&oq=youtube+publisher+or+platform&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i64.10297j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=youtube+publisher+or+platfor...

roywiggins 7y ago
In what sense is a radio station a platform? Most commercial radio is just piped playlists from a corporate office and a few DJs on top. Newspapers don't have to publish your letter to the editor and your local TV station won't publish your sternly worded letter either...

kerkeslager 7y ago

> They aren't stopping them voicing their opinions or views... they're just stopping them posting it on THEIR service. It's certainly their right under ownership laws to censor on their platform. But just because it's your right to do something doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. The question isn't "do social media platforms have the right to censor?". The question is, "given social media platforms have the right to censor, should they censor?". Like it or not, these platforms make up a significant portion of how our society communicates, and if you believe that free speech is a human right that's important for a free society, I don't see how you can say that it suddenly doesn't matter because we put a corporation in charge of a huge portion of our communications. I don't think that social media platforms should allow free speech because they're obligated to, I think that social media platforms should allow free speech because free speech has importance and inherent value. > Newspapers do that all the time, TV and Radio does it all the time. Why is this different? Newspapers, TV, and radio didn't sell themselves as platforms for conversation. They've always created their content (or paid someone else to create it) and curated it. Op/eds and viewer/listener calls are only a small fraction of the service these media channels provide, and frankly, these are usually more valuable for the producers of the media than the consumers in most cases. And even op/eds and viewer/listener calls are curated, with no pretense of anything else. Social media initially gained traction on the false idea that they were platforms where anyone could have a conversation. Many people (myself included) warned that we shouldn't be giving up so much of our communications to corporations, but here we are decades later and everyone is using these as communications platforms.

pnako 7y ago

It's YOUtube, not CNN. Or maybe that's what they ultimately want to become?