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I consider your statement to really be saying the following: "According to myself, YouTube is perfectly capable of objectively and correctly deciding that Davi

I consider your statement to really be saying the following: "According to myself, YouTube is perfectly capable of objectively and correctly deciding that David Icke is full of shit."

DonHopkins 6y ago
That's right, because "Lizard People" are technically "Jews", so he's not actually ranting and raving about fictitious lizards, he's ranting and raving about Jews, so maybe he's not technically objectively full of shit because Jews really exist, huh? But maybe YouTube's lawyers advised them that the First Amendment doesn't apply to them because they're not Congress, so they booted him for anti-semitism, and inciting terrorism, and being a menace to public health, among other subjective but perfectly legal and valid and morally justifiable reasons.
- throwaway17_17 6y ago
  Just as a statement of legal fact, the First Amendment applies to more entities than Congress. Just to preempt any question, I’m not saying the First Amendment prevents YouTube from not publishing Icke’s content
joshuamorton 6y ago
The idea that in some cases we do not know what is true is valid. The idea that therefore we can never determine what is true and therefore must, in the name of "free speech" support and help anyone say anything is not. David Icke is not spreading information. He's spreading nonsense about lizard people. That's objectively true.
- ryankemper 6y ago
  I personally agree that what David Icke is spreading is a bunch of nonsense. But I'm against suppressing him because otherwise I can't maintain a logically consistent belief system. That is to say, as soon as we can ban the lizard guy, we can also ban a lot more viewpoints that are not quite as controversial / outright crazy but straddle the line. And just to head this off, the dimension of palatability to advertisers is separate, and if a site chooses to quarantine or whatever, so be it. I'm speaking merely from a framework of, "is this the kind of society we want?", as opposed to, "is it feasible for a profit-seeking corporation to adopt such an open policy"?
  - DonHopkins 6y ago
    >ban the lizard guy He's not "the lizard guy", he's "the antisemitic guy". Lizards = Jews. It's not crazy speech, it's thinly disguised hate speech. Got it? Understand yet? Because all the racists do. Are you against banning the antisemitic guy or not?
    - CapricornNoble 6y ago
      Not the OP, but I'm against banning the anti-Semite. I'm against banning Mein Kampf. I'm against banning the writings of Marquis de Sade. I'm against banning people who advocate for a "spectrum" of non-binary genders. An adult should be capable of consuming information from disparate sources, especially distasteful ones, and formulating logical arguments to deconstruct those positions. It takes some practice. That practice can't be done in an information vacuum. If there are deficiencies in the population's ability to perform the above, then we should be rectifying that through education (whereby I mean improving how people go about mentally solving problems), rather that scrubbing the world of "bad" data or opinions. Entrusting institutions to ban media is essentially saying "These people know what's good for you, better than you do." and I absolutely abhor that sort of arrogant, misplaced, condescension. It often comes from people who are intelligent, but nowhere near as infallible as they think they are.
    - throwaway17_17 6y ago
      But his anti-Semitic content did not result in the ban, his mis-information concerning Covid-19 did. YouTube has not taken any measures to implement a policy of banning for anti-Semitic speech.
    - jshevek 6y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - esoterica 6y ago
    It’s very easy to maintain a logically consistent belief system that allows for private censorship. It’s called “the person who owns the servers makes the rules”, and if you don’t like then rules then buy your own servers.
pjc50 6y ago
Yes? I mean, Icke is the most clear-cut of examples. Otherwise you end up backing into "nobody is ever qualified to determine the truth of any statement objectively and correctly". Nihilist anti-positivism. The thing about the coronavirus is that wrong decisions, both by public health and private individuals, produce real body counts. And quite alarmingly high body counts in those countries which have embraced disinformation. (Before someone starts in on it, the Iraq war was also a body count produced by the embracing of disinformation)

I consider your statement to really be saying the following: "According to myself, YouTube is perfectly capable of objectively and correctly deciding that David Icke is full of shit."

DonHopkins 6y ago

That's right, because "Lizard People" are technically "Jews", so he's not actually ranting and raving about fictitious lizards, he's ranting and raving about Jews, so maybe he's not technically objectively full of shit because Jews really exist, huh? But maybe YouTube's lawyers advised them that the First Amendment doesn't apply to them because they're not Congress, so they booted him for anti-semitism, and inciting terrorism, and being a menace to public health, among other subjective but perfectly legal and valid and morally justifiable reasons.

throwaway17_17 6y ago
Just as a statement of legal fact, the First Amendment applies to more entities than Congress. Just to preempt any question, I’m not saying the First Amendment prevents YouTube from not publishing Icke’s content

joshuamorton 6y ago

The idea that in some cases we do not know what is true is valid. The idea that therefore we can never determine what is true and therefore must, in the name of "free speech" support and help anyone say anything is not. David Icke is not spreading information. He's spreading nonsense about lizard people. That's objectively true.

ryankemper 6y ago
I personally agree that what David Icke is spreading is a bunch of nonsense. But I'm against suppressing him because otherwise I can't maintain a logically consistent belief system. That is to say, as soon as we can ban the lizard guy, we can also ban a lot more viewpoints that are not quite as controversial / outright crazy but straddle the line. And just to head this off, the dimension of palatability to advertisers is separate, and if a site chooses to quarantine or whatever, so be it. I'm speaking merely from a framework of, "is this the kind of society we want?", as opposed to, "is it feasible for a profit-seeking corporation to adopt such an open policy"?
- DonHopkins 6y ago
  >ban the lizard guy He's not "the lizard guy", he's "the antisemitic guy". Lizards = Jews. It's not crazy speech, it's thinly disguised hate speech. Got it? Understand yet? Because all the racists do. Are you against banning the antisemitic guy or not?
  - CapricornNoble 6y ago
    Not the OP, but I'm against banning the anti-Semite. I'm against banning Mein Kampf. I'm against banning the writings of Marquis de Sade. I'm against banning people who advocate for a "spectrum" of non-binary genders. An adult should be capable of consuming information from disparate sources, especially distasteful ones, and formulating logical arguments to deconstruct those positions. It takes some practice. That practice can't be done in an information vacuum. If there are deficiencies in the population's ability to perform the above, then we should be rectifying that through education (whereby I mean improving how people go about mentally solving problems), rather that scrubbing the world of "bad" data or opinions. Entrusting institutions to ban media is essentially saying "These people know what's good for you, better than you do." and I absolutely abhor that sort of arrogant, misplaced, condescension. It often comes from people who are intelligent, but nowhere near as infallible as they think they are.
  - throwaway17_17 6y ago
    But his anti-Semitic content did not result in the ban, his mis-information concerning Covid-19 did. YouTube has not taken any measures to implement a policy of banning for anti-Semitic speech.
  - jshevek 6y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- esoterica 6y ago
  It’s very easy to maintain a logically consistent belief system that allows for private censorship. It’s called “the person who owns the servers makes the rules”, and if you don’t like then rules then buy your own servers.

pjc50 6y ago

Yes? I mean, Icke is the most clear-cut of examples. Otherwise you end up backing into "nobody is ever qualified to determine the truth of any statement objectively and correctly". Nihilist anti-positivism. The thing about the coronavirus is that wrong decisions, both by public health and private individuals, produce real body counts. And quite alarmingly high body counts in those countries which have embraced disinformation. (Before someone starts in on it, the Iraq war was also a body count produced by the embracing of disinformation)