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I very strongly feel that we should be very careful to avoid adopting a legalistic attitude towards freedom of speech. That is, I am opposed to the argument tha

• clarkmoody 6y ago
  The very nature of scientific inquiry is to question conventional wisdom. Often those new ideas are heretical. That is not to say that all ideas are valid forms of scientific inquiry. But suppressing all but the "blessed" opinions of the WHO goes against the scientific process.
  • zentiggr 6y ago
    Suppressing blatantly false, inflammatory ideas isn't "all but the 'blessed'". It is taking the man on the corner who is shouting "Ducks are responsible for your failure!" and "Letting the blacksmith build a second shack will cause insanity in all the children!" off to a quiet room where he no longer causes people to throw stones at the blacksmith, or shoot ducks on sight. Icke was that special kind of conspiracy nut who wouldn't dare fact check his own bile because he'd find his whole worldview based on nothing. Slippery slope questions aside, we tend to put controls on things like schizophrenic rambling and people having psychotic breaks... I consider him in that same category. He should be isolated for his own protection and those around him.
    • ProvideEvidence 6y ago
      Have you actually read any of his books, or simply believed the misinformation spread by the media? If you had read his work first hand you would be aware of how much research, references and citations are included. It's amusing that you say David Icke doesn't fact check, as this only highlights that you haven't..
• kiba 6y ago
  COVID-19 has added the additional element of this new concept of "disinformation". The argument is seductively simple: "being exposed to this information could lead you to engage in patterns of behavior that harm society. Therefore we can conceptualize this speech as being an indirect form of violence/negligence and therefore we have a moral obligation to remove such content". Some people, after being exposed to misinformation, chose to believe them. I don't believe in fighting "bad ideas" by suppressing them, I believe in shining a light on them. Let the truth fight for itself. (And of course now comes the classic counter-argument: that the evils of disinformation possess a virality that makes them spread far more easily than the truth, being that truth is nuanced and difficult to acquire whereas bad information is seductively simple. I won't address that argument here but personally I think it's a very dangerous way of thinking) Do you have evidence that the truth more often than not win over lies? It is possible that platforms, being designed the way they are to maximize corporations' interest naturally lead to unintended consequences. There are billion of youtube video, nobody will be able to watch them all. So the youtube algorithm can recommend videos that are necessarily harmful based on what the person watched before.
  • CapitalistCartr 6y ago
    "Do you have evidence that the truth more often than not win over lies?" We have a myriad of evidence that societies that suppress the truth for "the public good" don't go in a desirable direction or end well.
    • untog 6y ago
      That isn’t an answer to the question the OP posed, though. And it’s an important question.
    • joshuamorton 6y ago
      Are you saying that the truth is "Covid-19 is caused by 5-g towers"?
      • schoen 6y ago
        That's an example of a very bizarre view that seems to have almost no chance of being right and almost no evidence in its favor. And presumably many truths sounded weirder (less plausible) than that in past societies, and many truths are going to sound weirder than that in future societies. It's harder to say this because of the implied criticism of the common sense and rationality of people now living (including everyone in this conversation), but perhaps there are many truths that sound weirder than that to us, too.
• mythrwy 6y ago
  When the platform receives 85% (or whatever the percent is) of all video sharing internet traffic "we are a private organization!" shouldn't really apply. Become a semi-monopoly of public discourse and obey the rule of free speech!
• ravenstine 6y ago
  Private institutions should be bound by the first amendment once they've reached a critical mass. The reason I say this is that, if a small number of entities control the flow of information, and they get away with picking and choosing who has the opportunity to be heard, then the first amendment is effectively made meaningless. I want to be able to choose what comments to allow on my block and, at the same time, I want to be able to express myself on a prominent platform in a way that may or may not offend the powers that be. Big friendly looking corporations like Google shouldn't be used as proxies for the government to bypass the rights of Americans(or anyone for that matter). For whatever reason, people see corporations as being different from governments. What is a government but a corporation that owns land? What is a corporation but a form of government? They're quick to should about the importance of dissent, telling the government what it cannot do to our rights, yet corporations get a free pass when they are on the right side and hand out free goodies. Beyond the likeness of corporations to governments, big corporate censorship should be opposed on the grounds of principle. America and other countries are founded on the principle of freedom of speech, among other things such as the concept that all "men" are created equal. We don't allow businesses to discriminate people by their race, color, sex, or religion because of that principle. Why then can we not apply the principle of freedom of speech to Silicon Valley and Big Media? It's pretty frightening that the same people who told me how brilliant Nineteen Eighty-Four is(I found it the least convincing of dystopian warnings I've read), easily fall into the trap of believing that we desperately need a centralized Ministry of Truth. In the last year I've been realizing that Nineteen Eighty-Four is more realistic than I had believed.
  • kiba 6y ago
    The big problem with this argument is that youtube is the platform that "recommend" videos based on a hidden algorithm, leading to filter bubbles.
    • ravenstine 6y ago
      I definitely agree. Yet when a platform like YouTube deletes accounts and publicly announces the censoring of information that doesn't conform with the Ministry of Information(aka the World Health Organization), there's no mystery that they're violating people's rights.
• untog 6y ago
  > I don't believe in fighting "bad ideas" by suppressing them, I believe in shining a light on them. Let the truth fight for itself. I used to think this too, but I think the decentralised nature of the internet has broken this notion. There is no universal “light” shining on disinformation because there’s no universal anything. You can spend your entire online life in a very strict filter bubble that means the disinformation you consume never gets corrected (Facebook and YouTube have implemented algorithms that opt people into these bubbles without them even being aware). The only way it gets fixed is if people actively try to find information that disagrees with their preconceived notions, and very, very few people are interested in doing that.
• afrcnc 6y ago
  There's no free speech if the guy is lying on purpose on public issues. You're entering propaganda territory.
  • oyashirochama 6y ago
    That's a slippery and dangerous road to say whats propaganda and whats right speech, and saying propaganda isn't allowed is like saying you can't have the government give announcements either.
  • ryankemper 6y ago
    Are you saying that I am entering propaganda territory, or instead that David Icke is/was? The meaning is not clear to me, although I assume you are referring to myself. Again, the distinction here is that I don't think being wrong (even if you think it's intentional) is something we should try to suppress. And the reason I think that is because right/wrong is ultimately a value judgement, and thus opens the door for equally flawed individuals to castigate a viewpoint as false while conversely spreading their own falsehoods (which they themselves view as truth). As far as advertising revenue is concerned, I understand that business incentive. So, if they want to use Reddit's quarantine concept - or even boot them off their platform as they are doing now - they're free to do so, but I don't think that it's the _right_ thing to do. In other words, we can agree that a business is acting in its own self-interest and thus would want to get rid of these types of people. I believe that they have the legal authority to do so, as well as all the incentives. But where I don't agree is that I don't cheer them on when they do it. Rather I think it's very dangerous. So in other words, I suspect the difference between our beliefs here is that you are cheering on YouTube for doing this. You're (correctly) seeing that David Icke is a total fucking wacko and saying to yourself "good riddance". I certainly understand that inclination. I just don't believe in it myself, for the reasons that I've outlined. (I hope I haven't mischaracterized you there - sorry if I did)
    • throwaway2048 6y ago
      Do you believe that YouTube has an obligation to publish objective, demonstrable lies that harm people? What about cryptocurrency scams, what about media co-coordinating assassinations of targets they don't like?
• gamblor956 6y ago
  Quite often, the damage caused by disinformation is simply allowing it to be spread. Look at all the experts trying to fighting the lies Trump has been spreading. All that effort, and yet almost 50% of this country believes him. Every moment they have to spend debunking yet another lie is time they can't spend on something useful. Look at all the people blaming 5g for COVID19. Every person that acts on that rumor and damages property or makes terrorist threats is drawing police attention away from something more useful. Sometimes, you can't fight bad ideas by debunking them.
  • kiba 6y ago
    That is because the media decided to direct attention in exchange for clicks and ads revenue.
    • gamblor956 6y ago
      No, the media covered it because the president of the most powerful nation on earth making a speech about a global pandemic is newsworthy, and his words and actions have national and global impacts.
• techsupporter 6y ago
  > I won't address that argument here but personally I think it's a very dangerous way of thinking The problem is you’ve just said you won’t address the primary, most compelling reason to take these actions. Assuming that “sunshine is the best disinfectant” presupposes a lot of things about society that are, in my observation, no longer true. We do not have the time, through our own actions or not, for quiet contemplation and retrospection into deep topics. We have polarized ourselves into camps of right and wrong. We are exposed to a staggering volume of information that all seems mostly the same with some slight differences but widely varying outcomes. Your theory of how the world should work is very, almost simplistically, seductive. Woe but for the world to be like that, like the “perfectly rational actor” assumed in economic textbooks or the “perfectly smooth sphere on a frictionless plane” in physics.
  • ryankemper 6y ago
    Yes, by not addressing that I put myself in the trap where I was forced to respond to it anyway in a later comment. So, in order to avoid repeating myself, I believe I addressed that notion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23063309 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23063309 In short, I am not saying that the truth will necessarily "win out" over the false. Rather I am saying - and this was my fault for not being clear enough - that I reject the notion that we should try to pick a side to suppress. Because the same part of human nature that leads to rampant spread of disinformation is the part of human nature that tries to decide what the capital-T Truth is. So, my personal belief system - and I know how unpopular this viewpoint is, especially in current times - is just let them have at it. Remove blatant calls for violence, and nothing more. ("nothing more" should include racism and other unpopular beliefs, by the way, in case my viewpoint isn't controversial enough thus far). So, saying "We should go out and attack $GROUP" should be removed. But saying "I think $GROUP is inferior due to highly discredited scientific-seeming reasons" should not be removed, because however wrong or distasteful it is, it's not directly advocating for violence. Similarly, something like holocaust denial or anti-vax beliefs, etc should similarly not be suppressed. Again, I know I'm probably in the minority here, but I hope that helps you understand my thoughts on these issues.
    • 6y ago
• cmckn 6y ago
  The first amendment is about the government. Your speech is not illegal. The government cannot persecute you for your opinion or beliefs. It has absolutely nothing to do with your ability to be heard on the internet.
  • colejohnson66 6y ago
    > The government cannot persecute you for your opinion or beliefs. United States v. O’Brien? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._O%27Brien https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._O%27Brien Edward Snowden? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden
    • joshuamorton 6y ago
      Neither of those are cases of the government prosecuting you for opinion or belief. One is the government prosecuting you for destroying government property. The other is the government prosecuting you for sharing information that you are not allowed to share. It has always been the case that certain forms of protest are legal, and certain forms are not. Protesting in ways that are illegal doesn't mean that your right to free speech is curtailed. You can still say whatever you want, you just can't say it while burning cars or whatever.
      • colejohnson66 6y ago
        > Neither of those are cases of the government prosecuting you for opinion or belief. Really? > One is the government prosecuting you for destroying government property. A draft card is not government property. > The other is the government prosecuting you for sharing information that you are not allowed to share. Which is protected under whistleblower protection laws. Maybe I’m not convincing you? What about Schenck v. United States? In this case, all the prosecuted did was distribute flyers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States Abrams v. United States? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrams_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrams_v._United_States Dennis v. United States? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_v._United_States > It has always been the case that certain forms of protest are legal, and certain forms are not. Protesting in ways that are illegal doesn't mean that your right to free speech is curtailed. You can still say whatever you want, you just can't say it while burning cars or whatever. All four cases involve some form of protest against the government. All four were peaceful; They did not harm others. All four involve the Supreme Court upholding their convictions. > Your speech is not illegal. The government cannot persecute you for your opinion or beliefs. Don’t you tell me that the government doesn’t try to censor speech or that they can’t.
• nrr 6y ago
  Unfortunately, I fear the reality of this situation is a lot less nuanced than you're expressing here. It's more likely that the advertisers who give YouTube a lot of money simply threatened not to advertise on the platform should he continue to have a presence there. In David Icke's case, he directly threatens telecommunications carriers' ability to sell 5G services. That's directly counter to said carriers' marketing goals. Not to anthropomorphize YouTube too much here, services like them derive their morality from profit. If something threatens profitability, they'll do what's required to correct that problem. Moreover, there are a number of feedback loops in place that reinforce this behavior. This isn't a matter of YouTube judging a bad idea on its merit; this is a matter of them judging a bad idea on how it affects advertising revenue. Put in a somewhat more uncouth manner: Money talks, bullshit walks.
  • ryankemper 6y ago
    Couldn't YouTube have adopted Reddit's quarantine concept? (Ignoring for the time-being the inherent tendency of such a concept being used to drive out dissent as happened with Reddit with respect to fringe conservative voices)
    • nrr 6y ago
      If YouTube's advertisers found that kind of thing agreeable, I suppose they could. That said, I'm not sure the incentive exists for them to undertake that kind of work. The platform existing for everyday people to disseminate their views is secondary to using user-submitted content as a vehicle for advertising revenue. Another way of thinking about it is that the popular content subsidizes the not-so-popular content. As a corollary: The more popular your content is, the more advertising revenue it needs to bring in. There was even some controversy somewhat recently about this very thing.
• tootie 6y ago
  I disagree. I think you have to accept the consequences of destructive behavior. If someone was talking like this at my office, I'd expect them to be fired. Same as if they were outwardly racist or sexist. It's detrimental to other people's well-being.
  • zalkota 6y ago
    What if the person was in the street? Should they be removed?
    • zalkota 6y ago
      Who chooses whether it’s detrimental to other well being? What if that person who chooses is tyrannical like the CEO of Reddit, who suppresses all right wing posts?
      • tootie 6y ago
        Reddit has tons of right wing content. Even TOS violations were permitted on Trump subs for years before being quarantined.
    • tootie 6y ago
      No. Not unless it's outwardly threatening.
• jariel 6y ago
  This is a valid point, but as a matter of pragmatism, these platforms are going to have to police information there's no way around it. It looks specious right now ... but in reality, they and everyone else have been doing it from the start. It's really easy to garner attention, and even easier to buy it. Foreign agents, like governments, can use this as a tool to nudge populations, and in many cases, that's all that's needed to change outcomes, particularly in things like elections. As just one example. I do however believe that platforms of sufficient scale also become a platform of public, like 'papers of record' have a special status, maybe some sites should as well. What we need for the 'big platforms' is some kind of smart, modern regulation that maximizes freedom of expression, maybe flags the rubbish as rubbish and very rarely moves stuff off-platform.
• stevebmark 6y ago
  > I believe in shining a light on them I hear this a lot. Light is the best disinfectant. What evidence do you have for this? I've never seen a bad or immoral or harmful idea die out when more people learn about it and scrutinize it. However, I have repeatedly seen the opposite: Sharing bad ideas increases their audience, increases ignorance, hate, fear, and human suffering. You're looking at an article describing this phenomena right now. More importantly, I've also seen the opposite: Private platforms actively suppressing people trying to harm humanity does work. Deplatforming these people and, importantly, showing social pressure that these are bad ideas and shouldn't even be entertained as valid debate, has shown to work repeatedly. In fact, social pressure is one of the most effective tools against hate and ignorance like this. I don't think you're basing your "shine the light" argument in evidence, which I suspect is ironic because I suspect you believe you're objective and use evidence to judge things.
  • 2019-nCoV 6y ago
    > I've never seen a bad or immoral or harmful idea die out when more people learn about it and scrutinize it. Communism.
  • catalogia 6y ago
    > I hear this a lot. Light is the best disinfectant. What evidence do you have for this? The propensity of totalitarian governments to censor dissidents is proof of it.
    • DuskStar 6y ago
      Ah, but it's not bad when we're censoring the wrong opinions, don't you see? /s if it wasn't obvious.
  • colordrops 6y ago
    I know that HN is an international community but it's based in the US and most users are Americans. In the US, you need strong evidence of negative repercussions to restrict speech, and even then it's extremely difficult, due to the 1st amendment being one of the most important laws of the land. It's not the other way around - evidence is not needed to show that allowing speech is helpful.
• klyrs 6y ago
  Please consider the following situation. 1. Government passes law that websites that get a million eyeballs a day and display user-generated content are forbidden from curating the content on their site. 2. Government produces propaganda, or through some legal indirections, arranges the production of propaganda. 3. Producers of above propaganda publishes or arranges astroturfing of the propaganda onto every large platform. So this is a situation where the government has the power to dictate speech of private parties. Is that seen as a positive outcome by free speech advocates? And what happens when the government lowers the bar? With precedent set that the government has the right to halt censorship by private parties, will they stop at a million views per day? Will they expand to things such as messaging services? And what will happen to spam content? After a website crosses the million views threshold, must its genuine content be diluted into oblivion?
• CapriciousCptl 6y ago
  I'm sorry, but "freedom of speech," as in the first amendment protects the right to express opinions. It does not protect misstatements of fact. Not all people are rational animals that objectively acquire and then review all the information in front of them to weigh the merits of "5g versus virus." Sometimes, when you see a guy gaining a following by telling others that vaccines have secret microchips in them and that humanity has to fight 5g in order to survive, you tell him to go to hell and host his vile videos somewhere else.
  • james_s_tayler 6y ago
    >It does not protect misstatements of fact. What about alternative facts?
• mattigames 6y ago
  At small groups shinning light on falsehoods does help, at the scale of internet where 8 billion people are interconnected on social networks is not working at all, I would like to see research proving otherwise but it's as the old saying goes: A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can even get its boots on.
• jonathanyc 6y ago
  > Many may disagree, but I think we need to throw out this concept of "disinformation" entirely. I don't believe in fighting "bad ideas" by suppressing them, I believe in shining a light on them. Let the truth fight for itself. Your argument is flawed on many counts. (1) You’re forgetting that the people subscribing these 5G conspiracy channels on YouTube by definition already have access to YouTube and likely the rest of the web. A plethora of true information is already available to them. (2) Stop anthropomorphizing truth: people fight to promote what they think is true. (3) Even if the first amendment applied here, recall that it has been established that the first amendment does not protect shouting “fire!” in a crowded theater. (4) How can you claim that the truth will fight for itself when you’re unwilling to even address the very convincing counter argument you so helpfully included at the end of your comment?
  • vixen99 6y ago
    The 'shouting fire' example is not a trump card that's valid outside non-live situations. It's not applicable in a live situation where someone [as in your (2)] believes the fire, for what appeared to be a good reason, to be a true risk. Finally, in (4) you seem to believe that an abstract statement is necessarily rendered invalid by someone's failure to adhere to the thrust of its message. It isn't.
• MR4D 6y ago
  My argument is a bit different. YouTube is a public platform because it is viewable without an account or membership. If you had to log in to view a video or read an article, then it would truly be private. I think we’ve gotten to the point where we need to define a clearer set of rules with stronger protections of speech on these open platforms. (Closed platforms can do whatever the they want, as always.)
• pvg 6y ago
  You say this as if the converse hasn't been attempted - platforms without moderation. They exist and instantly fill up with trolls, kooks and nazis to the point where they become unusable by anyone but trolls, kooks and nazis.
• charred_toast 6y ago
  I agree. It's the spirit in which these actions have been taken, as if to conform to a narrative, which in itself, has see-sawed between facts and fiction, as to almost being intentionally confusing. It's not a "conspiracy theory" to ask questions, critical thinking has taken a huge blow since 9/11.
• rojoca 6y ago
  The following may seem frivolous and/or uncharitable but I think you would find them hard to disagree with: - booting people off platforms is a "bad idea" which you wish to "suppress". - booting people off platforms shines a light on their "bad ideas" I'm sympathetic to the spirit of your comment, but I think Mr Icke has plenty of other ways to publish his ideas, and I don't believe youtube is suppressing them in a way that necessitates suppression of theirs.
  • AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    > booting people off platforms is a "bad idea" which you wish to "suppress". Not censoring an idea and arguing that an idea should not be implemented are not equivalent. > booting people off platforms shines a light on their "bad ideas" If this is true, i.e. reporting of the censorship increases the visibility of the bad idea, then it completely destroys the pro-censorship argument that it reduces the visibility of bad ideas. It would also immediately cease to be true if censorship ever became uncontroversial, in which case you couldn't claim that it's giving the allegedly bad idea a chance at a fair debate. > I'm sympathetic to the spirit of your comment, but I think Mr Icke has plenty of other ways to publish his ideas, and I don't believe youtube is suppressing them in a way that necessitates suppression of theirs. Is somebody suggesting that YouTube should be prohibited from creating and distributing their own videos?
    • rojoca 6y ago
      > Not censoring an idea and arguing that an idea should not be implemented are not equivalent. I'm not sure this is correct, but I'm willing to be convinced if you can expand a little more. I guess I see it as censoring the act of censoring. > If this is true, i.e. reporting of the censorship increases the visibility of the bad idea, then it completely destroys the pro-censorship argument that it reduces the visibility of bad ideas. It would also immediately cease to be true if censorship ever became uncontroversial, in which case you couldn't claim that it's giving the allegedly bad idea a chance at a fair debate. In this case, it is true. But youtube censorship is not equivalent to societal censorship, it just signals that youtube does not endorse Icke's ideas and does not wish to publish them, but people can still evaluate them somewhere else. > Is somebody suggesting that YouTube should be prohibited from creating and distributing their own videos? No, the suggestion is they should not be allowed to write their own terms and enforce them.
• clouddrover 6y ago
  > I don't believe in fighting "bad ideas" by suppressing them, I believe in shining a light on them. Let the truth fight for itself. The truth often doesn't get the chance to fight for itself on platforms like YouTube and Facebook. They are designed to keep showing you more of what they think you want to see because that drives engagement and engagement is what's profitable. You simply won't see opposing views. You go further down the rabbit hole and your existing ideas are reinforced, no matter how faulty they are. Sometimes the truth doesn't have the resources to fight for itself. For example, this woman has been falsely accused of starting the coronavirus pandemic: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/27/tech/coronavirus-conspiracy-theory/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/27/tech/coronavirus-conspira... It's a lie concocted by one of her fellow Americans. It's a lie that's now been spread all over the world resulting in death threats to her and her family. She simply doesn't have the resources to stop it. The police haven't helped her. YouTube hasn't helped her. She doesn't have the money to pursue a civil lawsuit. The best she can do is get in the media and hope that somehow helps. Once a lie is spread far enough it will eventually find someone who believes it and is unstable enough to act on it. We've seen that before as well: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/22/us/pizzagate-attack-sentence.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/22/us/pizzagate-attack-sente... A contest of ideas presupposes a level playing field, a balanced presentation, equal voices, and a basic agreement of the facts. That is, unfortunately, not the practical reality.
• knzhou 6y ago
  > now comes the classic counter-argument: that the evils of disinformation possess a virality that makes them spread far more easily than the truth, being that truth is nuanced and difficult to acquire whereas bad information is seductively simple This is such a knockdown argument that I can't believe you just refused to address it! The mirror image of David Icke is the genuine experts that are trying to get good, nuanced information out there, often fresh out of research papers. Most of these people have single digit reach, i.e. so little that they could spend their whole lives getting less reach that Icke gets in 5 minutes. The asymmetry in potency between good and bad information is far higher today than at any time in the past, and I applaud Youtube for doing a tiny bit to stop the bleeding.
• chrononaut 6y ago
  > Hacker News Guidelines > What to Submit > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. > In Comments > Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email us and we'll look at the data. These guidelines seem like a private corporation censoring content. Are platform guidelines like these also an example of censorship? To me, these guidelines shape the content and quality of discussions of the community, but also it's one of the reasons why it's a highly effective community. I don't see why YouTube cannot do the same.
  • nyanpasu64 6y ago
    From my perspective, Hacker News is a website built for the tech community. However I don't view Youtube as a community, but as a platform for individuals to publish videos, broadcast, and sometimes form sub-communities. It's possible that some people who don't login and hang around on the homepage of algorithmically selected videos treat Youtube as a publisher for curating.
  • identity0 6y ago
    It’s an issue that’s difficult to distill in a way that could work as a law or as a winning argument against snarky commenters playing Devil’s Advocate. In theory the line between rules and censorship is vague and grey, but in practice it’s pretty easy to tell what is rule enforcement and what is political censorship. I guess a good place to start would be examining the rules of a website and determining if the takedowns follow the rules and the rules are not overly broad.
    • close04 6y ago
      While banning or deleting accounts could go all the way from legitimate to oppression, it doesn't seem like banning the account of someone spreading false information that leads to dangerous situations to be an abuse in any way. Yes, we have to hold YouTube to higher standards than others simply because of the disproportionate power the platform has. But this doesn't change the fact that in such cases the measure was warranted. People constantly misunderstand "freedom of speech" as something that somehow entitles one to trample over someone else's freedom. For example every time there's a discussion about "hate speech" someone will say that the laws are routinely abused to punish people for their legitimate free opinions. Yet no such examples of routine abuse are ever given. There's room for common sense when judging a situation. Common sense can't be put in law but you also can't really judge these gray areas without it.
• ekianjo 6y ago
  > COVID-19 has added the additional element of this new concept of "disinformation". The argument is seductively simple: "being exposed to this information could lead you to engage in patterns of behavior that harm society. Therefore we can conceptualize this speech as being an indirect form of violence/negligence and therefore we have a moral obligation to remove such content". Which is actually extremely funny, since Youtube directly links to all WHO content as it were the Word of God, and WHO just a month and a half ago was crying on all rooftops that masks were useless and should not be used before completely reversing their stance. So by their own standards WHO is propagating disinformation/negligence and harming society as well.
  • Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
    Wouldn't you want a health organization to be able to quickly adjust their advice if needed, if new information has been found? Or if a fault in the old studies or information has been found? Or how would you have them behave instead?
  • Kiro 6y ago
    Looks like they haven't changed their stance, so not sure what you are referring to: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public/when-and-how-to-use-masks https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2...
• ebg13 6y ago
  > Booting people off of platforms merely reinforces their pre-existing beliefs, and further radicalizes them. Ok, except that you 1) just made this up from whole cloth and 2) have missed the point of deplatforming entirely. Deplatforming trashbags reduces their reach. It doesn't need to change their minds. The trashbag is one person. The gullible are many. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bjbp9d/do-social-media-bans-work https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bjbp9d/do-social-media-ba... > I believe in shining a light on them. Let the truth fight for itself. It's very convenient that you then handwave away the very reason why this is wishful thinking.
  • colordrops 6y ago
    If you are to just claim that someone made something up, you must yourself raise the standard and provide a scientific or otherwise evidential source. And Vice ain't it.
    • ebg13 6y ago
      > If you are to just claim that someone made something up, you must yourself raise the standard and provide a scientific or otherwise evidential source. Vice in this article links to evidential sources while summarizing the findings. You should bother reading it and what it links to. ALSO, and this is a bug fucking also, that's not how the burden of evidence for claims works! You just argued against falsifiability! OP is responsible for providing evidence for their own made up claim!
      • colordrops 6y ago
        I was responding to you, not the OP. Most statements on HN are not immediately backed by sources, as this is not a scientific forum. But if you are just gonna tell someone they are full of shit, you should have some solid data behind it rather than a questionable clickbait rag that may or may not be cherry picking and massaging its own sources.
        • heimdall 6y ago
• pacomerh 6y ago
  > Let the truth fight for itself. umm, that's a very nice thought, but we've seen it doesn't work, and it actually causes more harm than good. i.e Fox News
• yamrzou 6y ago
  > Booting people off of platforms merely reinforces their pre-existing beliefs, and further radicalizes them. > Let the truth fight for itself. We tend to think of humans as very rational beings, that they should have the ability to make the best decisions for themselves, and that we should not take actions to influence those decisions. Unfortunately, this is not always true, which is why deplatforming works. Deplatfoming is controversial because it is a "negative action", that involves censorship, but we tend to ignore "positive actions" that can change toughts in exactly the same way, like recommendation algorithms, or simply default choices (because default matters and humans rarely deviate from default choices). The existence of something like The illusory truth effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect) says a lot about human beliefs and how familiarity can overpower rationality.
• Consultant32452 6y ago
  I could accept almost any standard if I felt it was credibly being applied to all members of the platform. We're far from that world today.
• ashtonkem 6y ago
  The “platform” (section 230) discussion has always been based around a bad faith reading of the law; Ken White (1st amendment lawyer) covered that in his podcast “Make no Law”. I think the troubling thing is that binding corporations to the first amendment would have all kinds of troubling consequences, including eliminating the ability of moderators to ban people for misbehavior.
• streb-lo 6y ago
  At the heart of your opinion is a contradiction. Corporations are just people. You are suggesting that when people speak in groups (e.g. enforcing the Youtube EULA) that is not protected free speech but when an individual speaks it is. Good luck translating this half-baked idea into a legal framework that is consistent and sensical.
• thdrdt 6y ago
  There are other ways to censor content. On HN bad comments get very light. Still readable but everybody knows they were downvoted. YouTube could add labels over the videos like "this content contains false and dangerous information". Then the content can still be discussed but everybody will be alerted to be very sceptical about the information.
• deminature 6y ago
  Deplatforming has proven highly effective at preventing bad actors from continuing to spread misinformation on Reddit and other social media sites [1]. I support free speech in principle, but internet platforms are such a powerful megaphone for spreading misinformation, the likes of which history has never seen, that platform owners may feel ethically obligated to act against those who would misuse their systems to cause global societal harm. Some misinformation is just unambiguously harmful and so profoundly incorrect that no reasonable person could see stopping it as a slippery slope of free speech. For example, the misinformation being proliferated by Icke, that 5G spreads coronavirus and that people should destroy 5G towers. People actually went out and set 5G towers alight in response to Icke's posts [2]. It's quite reasonable that Youtube or any other social media platform would not want to be responsible for disseminating information to leads to real-life crimes. [1] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bjbp9d/do-social-media-bans-work https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bjbp9d/do-social-media-ba... [2] https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/4/21207927/5g-towers-burning-uk-coronavirus-conspiracy-theory-link https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/4/21207927/5g-towers-burning...
  • rlt 6y ago
    "Deplatforming" is some pretty great doublespeak for "censoring". We already have a solution to idiots vandalizing 5G towers: arrest them.
    • deminature 6y ago
      This board regularly ‘censors’ people who break the rules. It’s the price of having a reasonably nice board to post on. There’s a difference between censorship and punishing bad behavior.
      • rlt 6y ago
        See this comment which makes this point already, and the subthread discussing the differences between YouTube and Hacker News https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23064505 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23064505
• joshfraser 6y ago
  "Give your worst political enemy the power to decide what is "hate speech" and what is "disinformation" and then you'll realize that free speech isn't something we should ever compromise on". - Naval Ravikant
  • rahidz 6y ago
    By this logic we shouldn't let governments regulate anything, for fear of Hypothetical Hitler one day abusing it.
    • jshevek 6y ago
      No. Regulating the speed of cars on the freeway is radically different than giving a group the ability to decide what does or does not qualify as "disinformation" and regulating accordingly.
• rahidz 6y ago
  >I don't believe in fighting "bad ideas" by suppressing them, I believe in shining a light on them. Let the truth fight for itself. I mean, this is testable. Look at websites where "bad ideas" aren't suppressed, and instead anyone can chime in with their reasoned or unreasoned opinion and duke it out without any real-life consequences. ...and you end up with 8chan, the site where people discuss the best ways to murder Jews. Science, facts, truth, those don't matter on chan boards, what does is virality, fear, anger, emotion. Or since it's Star Wars day, The Dark Side wins unless people are willing to stop it.
  • jv22222 6y ago
    Related: Gresham's law as a mental model - Bad drive out good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham%27s_law
    • jdsully 6y ago
      That is related to currency and none of its backing arguments have any applicability to speech. Using it in this matter is highly misleading, and could be cited as a form of misinformation.
      • jv22222 6y ago
        https://fs.blog/2009/12/mental-model-greshams-law/ https://fs.blog/2009/12/mental-model-greshams-law/ > The outcome described by Aristophanes is common in competing human groups or organizations: When bad behavior has taken root, and that bad behavior has a “survival advantage” against good behavior, it becomes difficult, and occasionally impossible, to drive out the bad behavior; a process akin to natural selection. This is the mental model reference I was thinking about when posting.
• jsgo 6y ago
  I understand that you’re arguing they should honor the spirit of it, but the language is: “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.“ Could be argued that this is a covenant of sorts the federal government is making with the people and/or states. In a sense, could be argued individual states wouldn’t need to honor it to individuals provided they don’t include such language in their own constitutions (I’d assume there is said language, but don’t know). The only issue I see with the “bad ideas” thing is that it requires a lot of effort on the part of the person doing the debunking. They have to provide data points, citations, etc. to counter whatever was put out and in a lot of cases, it is just ignored in favor of the bogus bit that started the whole thing (which in some cases requires some degree of effort on the part of the originator, in other cases spitballing gets them there). I’m somewhere in the middle. I worry about cases where seemingly the only wrong committed is to hold an opposing view, but in cases where someone willfully put forth bogus information, I’m not terribly opposed. Would rather that the sources for where the conclusions were drawn were similarly provided, at least then I could assume some degree of good faith. But if you and I are looking at two pieces of data and come to differing conclusions, that in and of itself should not lead to either of us being “silenced.”
• FranzFerdiNaN 6y ago
  The idea that you can convert people who hold racist, misogynistic, anti-Semitic or other repulsive thought by just presenting them better facts is of course naive. We have the entirety of human history that shows that the liberal idea of a market place of ideas is ridiculous. It doesn’t work, if only because for example the far right isn’t playing the same game and isn’t interested in fair debate.
  • megablast 6y ago
    Lots of people change their views. Lots of people were racist and aren't now.
  • dntbnmpls 6y ago
    > The idea that you can convert people who hold racist, misogynistic, anti-Semitic or other repulsive thought by just presenting them better facts is of course naive. What? We have countless examples of it. What world are you living in? It's free speech, facts, ideas that change individuals and society. > We have the entirety of human history that shows that the liberal idea of a market place of ideas is ridiculous. Entire human history? What are you talking about. For most of history, censorship was the norm. That's what made america and our concept of "free speech" unique and exceptional. It was new and rare. > It doesn’t work, if only because for example the far right isn’t playing the same game and isn’t interested in fair debate. Neither are the far left - which in america is the greater threat. But guess what? Neither the far right or the far left can take over the US precisely because of free speech. We can call them out. Which is what you are really upset about. The best protection against extremist far right and far left lunatics is free speech. Also, one of the easiest way to spot far right and far left lunatics is their hatred of free speech.
    • DaedalusPsyk_ 6y ago
      I'm sorry to burst your bubble but the best protection is not free speech and studies have shown cognitive bias enables people to effectively ignore what disrupts their beliefs. http://ubplj.org/index.php/jpm/article/view/974 http://ubplj.org/index.php/jpm/article/view/974 In fact we've known this for some time https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fh0082790 https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fh0082790 And very likely you yourself are also affected, in this case by your very belief in free speech. You hold it so intimately that it has become a core of your own self.
• endymi0n 6y ago
  > Let the truth fight for itself. I used to have a very similar opinion to yours until I found out the truth rarely fights for itself if there's an alternative, much more convenient lie — preferably one that plays into peoples' confirmation bias or makes someone richer. We've got an aysmmetry here that never existed before in human history. Any kind of large scale public addressing: newspapers, TV, books, had some kind of controlling mechanism and instances who stood in for the quality with their reputation: Editors, printers, TV stations. All legislation, including the First Amendment (which, just picking nits here, is probably too simple to slap onto YouTube as a global content platform as a US-only law) was written regarding these conventions. YouTube goes out there and hands everyone a big fat mike who wants to be heard, and then amplifies this voice to believers via recommendations. I used to think the Internet would be a net benefit to the world. After witnessing Cambridge Analytica, the "Internet Research Agency", large scale online harrassment and Anti-Vaxxers, I'm not so sure anymore. I don't claim to know what the answer is. I just claim I'm pretty sure it's not the unbounded freedom to anonymous and partly highly maliciously motivated actors to spread their message without oversight.
  • acqq 6y ago
    I also like to cite Ben Franklin, writing about the time more than 250 years ago, about him being one of a very few printers in the whole new nation, and facing the same dilemma: "In the conduct of my newspaper, I carefully excluded all libeling and personal abuse, which is of late years become so disgraceful to our country. Whenever I was solicited to insert anything of that kind, and the writers pleaded, as they generally did, the liberty of the press, and that a newspaper was like a stage-coach, in which anyone who would pay had a right to a place, my answer was, that I would print the piece separately if desired, and the author might have as many copies as he pleased to distribute himself, but that I would not take upon me to spread his detraction; and that, having contracted with my subscribers to furnish them with what might be either useful or entertaining, I could not fill their papers with private altercation, in which they had no concern, without doing them manifest injustice. Now, many of our printers make no scruple of gratifying the malice of individuals by false accusations of the fairest characters among ourselves, augmenting animosity even to the producing of duels; and are, moreover, so indiscreet as to print scurrilous reflections on the government of neighboring states, and even on the conduct of our best national allies, which may be attended with the most pernicious consequences. These things I mention as a caution to young printers, and that they may be encouraged not to pollute their presses and disgrace their profession by such infamous practices, but refuse steadily, as they may see by my example that such a course of conduct will not, on the whole, be injurious to their interests." From "The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin", written between from 1771 to 1790, now in public domain.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• bobmaxup 6y ago
  > I believe in shining a light on them. Let the truth fight for itself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Earth_creationism#/media/File:Views_on_Evolution.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Earth_creationism#/media... https://news.gallup.com/poll/210956/belief-creationist-view-humans-new-low.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/210956/belief-creationist-view-...
• boudin 6y ago
  In theory I agree, but freedom speech should come with responsibilty of speech, especially when you have a broad audience. When you built an audience that you make believe "science is bollocks" and spread that 5g is responsible for the spread of COVID-19, how do you prevent the potential death and destruction it's gonna result in? I agree that just shutting down a youtube account is not the best approach, but in this case, something has to be done and there's no good framework for that currently. I do believe strongly that people should be held responsible for any act caused by them spreading lies.
  • DougBTX 6y ago
    Even constitution-level free speech shouldn't be thought of as blanket freedom to lie, but exactly where the line lies is still under debate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_statements_of_fact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_statements_of_fact
• amelius 6y ago
  By the way, there is a different form of censoring which YouTube uses: its discovery/recommendation system.
• sagichmal 6y ago
  > Booting people off of platforms merely reinforces their pre-existing beliefs, and further radicalizes them. It does not "merely" do that. It also prevents their message from reaching others.
• NiceWayToDoIT 6y ago
  I kind of agree and disagree, we should somehow remove it, but again we need to withdraw root causes for those. Sometimes it is just lack of public answers and experts inability to simplify really complex knowledge to drive people to those "alternative" stories in case of covid for instance.
• throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
  > I believe in shining a light on [bad ideas] You can bring megawatt lasers to bear on a bad idea from all angles and fools will not budge. Many people are not rational, it's impossible that you've not realised that yet you push this POV. Saying we can deal with idiot ideas with rationality is itself disinformation because for some groups it clearly doesn't work. > ...whereas bad information is seductively simple. I won't address that argument here Odd that you won't, because this is the exact forum to address that argument. Please address it. Someone I know has repeatedly told me that "they[0] added HIV to covid to make it so dangerous" and telling them for the Nth time there's no evidence of that has not changed anything, nor will it ever I suspect. [0] Unstated who 'they' are but implication is the chinese.
• kitd 6y ago
  Many may disagree, but I think we need to throw out this concept of "disinformation" entirely. I don't believe in fighting "bad ideas" by suppressing them, I believe in shining a light on them. Let the truth fight for itself. This argument reminds me of when the WWW first appeared. Everyone thought that at last Truth and Reason would be available to all and "win out" naturally. And all that happened is that you can now find supporting arguments for any perverse or dangerous theory you are already predisposed towards online. They propagate and multiply because we are primarily emotional creatures, no matter how rational or educated we think we are. So "shining light" on disinformation only has an effect on people if they are already predisposed to rejecting that disinformation, which makes it redundant. There's a powerful argument about substantially improving educational equality, which I would wholeheartedly support, but in the intervening generation(s), removing disinformation from platforms that has been shown to be dangerous (ie endangered lives, which David Icke's videos have) is an acceptable compromise IMHO.
• baq 6y ago
  this is very naive. freedom of speech gives adversaries a way of saturating the information channel to capacity with at best noise, at worst actively incorrect but otherwise coherent data (see conspiracy theories). end result is people either believing the misinformation (because truth is impossible to discern) or stopping the use of the channel at all (same cause, different rationale). it's a losing proposition in the age of information. it was a great idea before while technology didn't allow capture of the channel at such a low cost. freedom of speech is now a tool used against democracy with great success. yes, i'm super pissed about it and no, i don't have a solution. i believe we're witness to a crawling fall of rome scenario which is carefully helped by nation states outside of the west.
• Spooky23 6y ago
  The high and mighty freedom argument is tired. Freedom of speech doesn’t mean an inalienable right to broadcast or use someone else’s property in a way that is against their wishes. A newspaper had no obligation to publish some crazy letter to the editor. Nor does YouTube have an obligation to publish some crazy video.
• DagAgren 6y ago
  > Booting people off of platforms merely reinforces their pre-existing beliefs, and further radicalizes them. This is just not true. Or rather, it may be true, but it is entirely irrelevant. We as a society don't care who radicalised David Icke is. It just doesn't matter. What matters is that letting him spread his misinformation causes harm and death. Actual people die because of this. And that can be stopped by denying him a platform. If it makes him more angry, that is absolutely irrelevant.
• fragmede 6y ago
  We tried shining light on bad ideas. It didn't work. All the light the world could muster was being shined onto the lack of a link between vaccines and autism, yet there was a measles is having a resurgence. Suppression doesn't really sit well with me either, but "disinformation" is nothing new. There are plenty of ideas that are similar to David Icke's nonsense and most of them predate 2020. Things like "the moon landing was faked", "the Earth is flat", and "the government is controlling us through chemtrails". The difference is, someone else believing the Earth is flat doesn't affect me the same way a measles outbreak does. This isn't a conversation to have in the abstract. The idea that David Icke is spreading is that the COVID-19 pandemic is linked to 5g cellphone service. 5g being deployed in Wuhan is somehow evidence of the link between the two. What light can you shine on that idea, to get people to stop shooting telecommunications workers and burning cellphone towers down?
• gameswithgo 6y ago
  what evidence do you have that shining light on bad ideas is effective? ive spent 30 years online trying to shine light on bad ideas like creationism and climate change denial and seen way way less penetration than a hastily made conspiracy video. i'm not sure suppression is the answer either but i have sure not seen shining light winning this war.
• wazoox 6y ago
  Exactly. In France there is a set of laws that forbids the denial of various genocides, in particular the Holocaust. Unfortunately this backfired badly, as several prominent Holocaust deniers, who are generally despicable nazis over that, got condemned and from then hailed by their hateful followers as "martyrs" and even "martyrs of free speech". One even managed to have Chomsky say something nice about his "oppression" (which is quite ironic given the guy's an antisemite). Since then, antisemitism has risen, and prominent antisemites still fills up theatres, garners millions of views of their videos, always speaking in transparent allusions to keep barely out of the reach of law (Don't say "Jews rule finance worldwide", say "'The organised community' rules the world's finance"). In retrospect, that looks like an utter failure to me.
• funny948 6y ago
  Our society is based on science. I would prefer to add an amendment to allow to censor extreme views contradicting modern science knowledge. It is, indirect, what happens and to be honest, i do believe that people doing the youtube videos about aliens and flatearth have often enough some agenda. It hurts our society and we need to find a proper solution.
  • neilwilson 6y ago
    And those in 'science' captured by a groupthink? How do we deal with them? Don't forget that the 'lipid hypothesis' was everywhere just a few years ago and everybody believed it. Now you have more chance of finding somebody who will admit to be being a member of the Stasi. Science is, at its base, the rejection of hypotheses by experimental validation. Quite a lot of what is touted as science either hasn't or can't be experimentally validated. The non-falsifiable stuff dressed up as science, when it is really philosophy (or perhaps religion) is just flat earth thinking with better PR and credentials. This is the reason free speech has to be defended. Remember Cromwell's Plea: "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken." Not every nutter turns out to be nuts.
  • waynenilsen 6y ago
    This is a very dangerous viewpoint in my opinion. There is no true science without free speech. Kepler for example was censored due to his highly controversial views about the sun being at the center of the solar system. If the science is so shaky as to be blown over by some crackpots then it is no science good at all. Interestingly, some among the flat earthers have independently verified the curvature of the earth. This is a beautiful outcome for these true skeptics and critical thinkers. These are true scientific minds in my opinion.
    • funny948 6y ago
      I'm not talking about 'science' which is sho shaky as to be blown over by some crackpots. The science for 'we are not on a flat earth' is here. We still have YouTube Channels saying otherwise without being able to prove it at all. And they do create issues in our society.
• coldtea 6y ago
  >I very strongly feel that we should be very careful to avoid adopting a legalistic attitude towards freedom of speech. That is, I am opposed to the argument that private corporations are not bound by the first amendment, and therefore it's okay for them to suppress content. I agree that they're not bound by the first amendment (I don't claim to understand the nuances of the "platform" laws so I won't address that), but that's different from saying that we as a society should want our private platforms to engage in such censorship and suppression. Not to mention the "first amendment" is a US thing. We need better global laws imposed upon them, because those private corporations operate globally, and have influence (as social media platforms, etc) in all countries, not just the US.
• api 6y ago
  I want to believe what you write here, but reality seems to be proving that there are just far more absurdly gullible people out there than I would like to believe. I mean flat Earth is an actual thing. That proves to me that there are no limits. What I don't know is whether this is new or an eternal part of the human condition that was just masked in the past. I know there have always been gullible fools, but have there always been this many? I personally wonder if there might be more today due to too many people being too insulated from the "real world" beyond the easy cushy paths of school -> college -> office job. There are too many people who have never deviated from these paths and thus have never seen the "real world." I don't think it's stupidity. A lot of these people seem relatively intelligent. They just seem shockingly naive.
• christophilus 6y ago
  I think they’d be more effective if they added an un-skippable ad before each video which contains the best argument against the content that follows. I guess the expense would make that an unrealistic option, but it would be much more effective than chasing folks away to their own uncensorable corner of the web.
• stefs 6y ago
  the askhistorians mods adressed this - the problem is the bullshit asymmetry principle: 'Bullshit Asymmetry Principle' states the amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude greater than that needed to produce it. Bullshit can be propagated quickly, but can be more difficult to disprove. see https://slate.com/technology/2018/07/the-askhistorians-subreddit-banned-holocaust-deniers-and-facebook-should-too.html https://slate.com/technology/2018/07/the-askhistorians-subre...
• RIMR 6y ago
  You're basically just saying about YouTube/Google what people have been saying about any large corporation that does things that are legal but less than agreeable. The difference is, if you think that WalMart's practices are bad for small businesses, you can stop going to WalMart and only shop at small businesses, and pretty much get the exact same products. You can vote with your wallet. But on YouTube, you have no power as a consumer. You are the product. And boycotting YouTube traps you in a world of YouTube rejects, forced to construct their own platforms, who more often than not are right-wing extremists pushing violence, intolerance, and misinformation. YouTube is a town where WalMart is the only grocer. You can give in to the large corporation to get what you need, or you can eat out at fast food joints for every meal. So really, you have only three choices: 1. Get the laws changed so that the First Amendment applies to private companies, stripping them of their own freedom to cull what they publish, and making misinformation and violent speech much more difficult to address. 2. Accept that there is nothing you can do to compel Google to do or not to do things that they aren't legally compelled to, especially when the decisions they are making revolve around selling as many ads as they can to their customers (the advertisers) not making the product the sell (you, the viewer) happy. 3. Accept that Capitalism is why you have no power here, and work towards a future in which large corporations don't have the power to control and suppress you without recourse. Or sell your data and attention as a product as they act as the largest VoD platform in existence.
• dredmorbius 6y ago
  "But, indeed, the dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution, is one of those pleasant falsehoods which men repeat after one another till they pass into commonplaces, but which all experience refutes. History teems with instances of truth put down by persecution. If not suppressed forever, it may be thrown back for centuries. To speak only of religious opinions: the Reformation broke out at least twenty times before Luther, and was put down. Arnold of Brescia was put down. Fra Dolcino was put down. Savonarola was put down. The Albigeois were put down. The Vaudois were put down. The Lollards were put down. The Hussites were put down. Even after the era of Luther, wherever persecution was persisted in, it was successful. In Spain, Italy, Flanders, the Austrian empire, Protestantism was rooted out; and, most likely, would have been so in England, had Queen Mary lived, or Queen Elizabeth died. Persecution has always succeeded, save where the heretics were too strong a party to be effectually persecuted. No reasonable person can doubt that Christianity might have been extirpated in the Roman empire. It spread, and became predominant, because the persecutions were only occasional, lasting but a short time, and separated by long intervals of almost undisturbed propagandism. It is a piece of idle sentimentality that truth, merely as truth, has any inherent power denied to error, of prevailing against the dungeon and the stake. Men are not more zealous for truth than they often are for error, and a sufficient application of legal or even of social penalties will generally succeed in stopping the propagation of either. The real advantage which truth has, consists in this, that when an opinion is true, it may be extinguished once, twice, or many times, but in the course of ages there will generally be found persons to rediscover it, until some one of its reappearances falls on a time when from favourable circumstances it escapes persecution until it has made such head as to withstand all subsequent attempts to suppress it." -- John Stuart Mill, On Liberty https://www.utilitarianism.com/ol/two.html https://www.utilitarianism.com/ol/two.html
• stillbourne 6y ago
  > That is, I am opposed to the argument that private corporations are not bound by the first amendment There is no right conferred by the constitution that guarantees you a public platform in a private forum, it is simply an exemption from persecution by the government for statements made on any platform. That does not mean that the private owner of a forum must provide a platform of statements it does not endorse or condone for content that would be contrary to the forum owner or administrator's intended audience. That would be like forcing a restaurant that has been vandalized with graffiti from washing the exterior because the vandal has the right to have his work displayed regardless of the content, audience, or message. > COVID-19 has added the additional element of this new concept of "disinformation". This is not in any way a new concept. Furthermore this kind of disinformation can destroy the lives on innocent bystanders. Don't believe me? Ask all the people that have been effected by Sandy Hook truthers, Pizza Gate, and if you want to go back to the 80s, the daycare satanic moral panics.
• ehvatum 6y ago
  Who decides the truth? When conventional knowledge is fatally flawed, how can it be changed? Democracy is necessarily a battleground of ideas. The alternative is battlegrounds between groups with competing ideas. For this reason, the by-any-means-necessary aspect of modern wokeism is terribly dangerous. What if these fuckers are wrong? Whenever we are urged to discard debate and the free exchange of ideas so that truth may prevail - watch the hell out.
  • dang 6y ago
    Please don't use HN for ideological battle. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys the curious conversation that it is for. (Ditto for nationalistic battle, which I add because made an appearance in your previous comment.) https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• anthonypasq 6y ago
  This is a frighteningly naive take on the rationality of humans. If you are an engineer at a tech company you really don't have a grasp of how unfathomably dumb most people are because you only associate with smart people all the time.
• gremlinsinc 6y ago
  So, operatives for ISIS, should be allowed to put up bomb-making or even just videos on how to shoot a gun properly with infidel-like targets (manequins in business suits for example), and it should just be allowed? Should they be allowed to put up recruitment videos to get more kids willing to become walking bombs? People literally are using the mis-information about covid-19/5G and setting 5G towers on fire. Mis-information is dangerous. It's a tool used by governments and terrorist organizations alike, information can be propagandized to create upheavals that benefit specific groups.
• amaajemyfren 6y ago
  > I don't believe in fighting "bad ideas" by suppressing them What is a "bad idea" is also hard to know sometimes. If I was there in the time of Galileo I would probably be fighting his "the earth goes round the sun" argument as well. Many times great ideas first appear seemingly as "bad ideas". Which then are the good "bad ideas" and the bad "bad ideas"? It is unclear if corporates can answer that better than the world as a whole. Maybe they should just explicitly mark the content with "this may be a bad idea" and leave it online - trusting the users?