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I would prefer content not to be prohibited at all. Content is not a problem. Actions are a problem. Watch all the videos you like telling you to burn down a ce

by imgabe 7y ago

I would prefer content not to be prohibited at all. Content is not a problem. Actions are a problem. Watch all the videos you like telling you to burn down a cell tower. Once you do burn down a cell tower, then you go to jail. Perhaps we should also then hold the people telling people to burn down cell towers responsible, criminally and civilly, for the people who listen to them. David Icke might not be so cavalier about telling people to burn down cell towers if he could be sued and/or jailed after people took him up on it. As a general principle, I think we should focus on actual consequences, not imagined, potential consequences. This has the effect of also encouraging useful dissent. If you disagree with WHO and you turn out to be right, you can be properly credited with it. You are not automatically punished for the crime of daring to disagree with the WHO, and we all benefit from having more accurate, useful information.

knzhou 7y ago
> Content is not a problem. Actions are a problem. This is an absurd standard that would excuse literally Hitler. When the Nazi party was coming to power, he never fired a shot himself -- he just talked a lot.
- imgabe 7y ago
  I have no idea how you managed to misconstrue what I said so badly that you came to that conclusion, but that is not the case at all. The people in the concentration camps did not get talked to death. They died because of actions that people took.
  - throwaway2048 7y ago
    But under your logic, Hitler was not the problem, and should have been free to say whatever he liked, correct?
    - imgabe 7y ago
      People are responsible for their own actions. "Hitler told me to" or "David Icke told me to" do not excuse anything someone does. I believe we established particularly after WWII that "I was just following orders" is not a valid defense to committing atrocities. You might also want to remember that one of the first things Hitler did after getting power was to outlaw any opposition parties and violently break up meetings of any dissenters, then arrest and torture anyone who was promoting anything other than the Nazi party line. Hmm, sound familiar?
      - quazeekotl 7y ago
        So Hitler was guilty of no crimes then? It would have been a good, or at least morally obligated thing that nobody stopped him, yes?
        imgabe 7y ago
        Is giving a speech a crime? Which speeches are crimes? Who is going to determine that? You? More importantly, who would you like to put in charge of determining whether your speech is a crime? Contrary to what is expressed above, Hitler did much more than give speeches. He also gave orders which is a different thing entirely. Saying "Gee I wish so-and-so were dead" is not a crime in any reasonable democracy. Telling your subordinate "I order you to go and kill so-and-so" is. Do you see the difference? The person following and the person giving the order are both responsible. Are you arguing that the people who physically pulled the triggers or shoved prisoners into gas chamber do not bear any responsibility? At any point, all that was necessary to stop Hitler was for people to not listen to him. What would help that is providing an environment of healthy dissent, not stifling it. I also mentioned above specifically that we should hold people accountable for the actual consequences of their speech. How you get from that to "Hitler did nothing wrong" is completely beyond me. Actual consequences mean real things that occur in reality. Not "I think something might possibly happen because of this" or "You dared to contradict an authority so you must be silenced".
        quazeekotl 7y ago
        So you would be perfectly fine with Hitler at least being elected then, and anyone who tried to stop him would be a bad person?
ashtonkem 7y ago
If you’re worried about freedom of speech, then giving more people standing to sue David Icke for taking his dumb advice would be far more stifling than allowing YT to ban people. This would basically allow anyone with deep enough pockets to police speech using the courts.
- zimpenfish 7y ago
  > This would basically allow anyone with deep enough pockets to police speech using the courts. Which, tbf, the US and UK already have to some degree.
  - ashtonkem 7y ago
    Which is what I was thinking of. But there is a big difference between the U.K. and America here; in the U.K. if you lose a litigation, you have to pay your opponents legal bills. In America the cases where the loser must pay are very limited with high bars to clear. This means that it’s absolutely possible to bankrupt someone in America with frivolous lawsuits, so long as those lawsuits aren’t bad enough to trigger the limited exceptions.
- imgabe 7y ago
  If you're going to give people advice, you should be prepared to take at least partial responsibility for what happens when they take that advice. If a lawyer, doctor, accountant, engineer, or any professional gives you bad or malicious advice, they expose themselves to liability for the results of it. If you want to present yourself as an expert on some topic and expect people to listen to you, put some skin in the game and stand behind what you say. If you can't do that, you shouldn't be advising people on anything.
jfoster 7y ago
They could even keep the content available but give it a ranking penalty. This way they stop short of full on censorship, but also prevent the spread of terrible quality information.

by imgabe 7y ago

knzhou 7y ago

> Content is not a problem. Actions are a problem. This is an absurd standard that would excuse literally Hitler. When the Nazi party was coming to power, he never fired a shot himself -- he just talked a lot.

imgabe 7y ago
I have no idea how you managed to misconstrue what I said so badly that you came to that conclusion, but that is not the case at all. The people in the concentration camps did not get talked to death. They died because of actions that people took.
- throwaway2048 7y ago
  But under your logic, Hitler was not the problem, and should have been free to say whatever he liked, correct?
  - imgabe 7y ago
    People are responsible for their own actions. "Hitler told me to" or "David Icke told me to" do not excuse anything someone does. I believe we established particularly after WWII that "I was just following orders" is not a valid defense to committing atrocities. You might also want to remember that one of the first things Hitler did after getting power was to outlaw any opposition parties and violently break up meetings of any dissenters, then arrest and torture anyone who was promoting anything other than the Nazi party line. Hmm, sound familiar?
    - quazeekotl 7y ago
      So Hitler was guilty of no crimes then? It would have been a good, or at least morally obligated thing that nobody stopped him, yes?
      - imgabe 7y ago
        Is giving a speech a crime? Which speeches are crimes? Who is going to determine that? You? More importantly, who would you like to put in charge of determining whether your speech is a crime? Contrary to what is expressed above, Hitler did much more than give speeches. He also gave orders which is a different thing entirely. Saying "Gee I wish so-and-so were dead" is not a crime in any reasonable democracy. Telling your subordinate "I order you to go and kill so-and-so" is. Do you see the difference? The person following and the person giving the order are both responsible. Are you arguing that the people who physically pulled the triggers or shoved prisoners into gas chamber do not bear any responsibility? At any point, all that was necessary to stop Hitler was for people to not listen to him. What would help that is providing an environment of healthy dissent, not stifling it. I also mentioned above specifically that we should hold people accountable for the actual consequences of their speech. How you get from that to "Hitler did nothing wrong" is completely beyond me. Actual consequences mean real things that occur in reality. Not "I think something might possibly happen because of this" or "You dared to contradict an authority so you must be silenced".
        quazeekotl 7y ago
        So you would be perfectly fine with Hitler at least being elected then, and anyone who tried to stop him would be a bad person?

ashtonkem 7y ago

If you’re worried about freedom of speech, then giving more people standing to sue David Icke for taking his dumb advice would be far more stifling than allowing YT to ban people. This would basically allow anyone with deep enough pockets to police speech using the courts.

zimpenfish 7y ago
> This would basically allow anyone with deep enough pockets to police speech using the courts. Which, tbf, the US and UK already have to some degree.
- ashtonkem 7y ago
  Which is what I was thinking of. But there is a big difference between the U.K. and America here; in the U.K. if you lose a litigation, you have to pay your opponents legal bills. In America the cases where the loser must pay are very limited with high bars to clear. This means that it’s absolutely possible to bankrupt someone in America with frivolous lawsuits, so long as those lawsuits aren’t bad enough to trigger the limited exceptions.
imgabe 7y ago
If you're going to give people advice, you should be prepared to take at least partial responsibility for what happens when they take that advice. If a lawyer, doctor, accountant, engineer, or any professional gives you bad or malicious advice, they expose themselves to liability for the results of it. If you want to present yourself as an expert on some topic and expect people to listen to you, put some skin in the game and stand behind what you say. If you can't do that, you shouldn't be advising people on anything.

jfoster 7y ago

They could even keep the content available but give it a ranking penalty. This way they stop short of full on censorship, but also prevent the spread of terrible quality information.