7 ms·

I don't really care the content at all, but I really wish these platforms took the "phone company" approach, in which they considered themselves neutral carrier

I don't really care the content at all, but I really wish these platforms took the "phone company" approach, in which they considered themselves neutral carriers of information. In the US, I don't know an obvious issue besides legislative change to enforce this. However, once they consider themselves as "curators" of information with near-monopoly status, I hope they are litigated against successfully.

antpls 6y ago
YT, FB and other platforms would like too. For them, more content = more viewers = more ads. The current situation is because governments passed laws to regulate the type of content they are allowed to show. The "phone company" is not the right analogy. They are more like mass media (TV, news papers, etc), which is the rational for censoring them
- generalpass 6y ago
  > YT, FB and other platforms would like too. For them, more content = more viewers = more ads. > The current situation is because governments passed laws to regulate the type of content they are allowed to show. > The "phone company" is not the right analogy. They are more like mass media (TV, news papers, etc), which is the rational for censoring them This assumes they don't have the legal resources to fend off such a case.
- wodenokoto 6y ago
  No they would not like to be the phone company that pipes data around. For example: They could easily - but actively choose not to - host pornography. They do not want to host everything that is legal.
- xhkkffbf 6y ago
  The phone company was regulated by the government to be strictly neutral. We should aim for the same here.
jasode 6y ago
>, but I really wish these platforms took the "phone company" approach, in which they considered themselves neutral carriers of information. This suggestion (and the comparison to phone companies) comes up repeatedly but Youtube can't _be_ a neutral carrier if they are funded by advertising. That's because the businesses' choice to pay for advertising is not a neutral choice. See "advertiser friendly content"[1] and Adpocalypse[2][3]. Land line phones and cell phones are funded by subscriptions and they are also point-to-point communication between 2 private individuals. Phones (barring small-scale exceptions such as conference calls) are not a "broadcasting" medium. There is no broadcasting medium in the world that acts as a neutral carrier. Not newspapers. And not tv like NBC/CBS/ABC. Even the government funded broadcasters like American PBS or UK BBC are not neutral carriers. Ok, let's say you this ambitious idealism to create a new broadcasting website that allows anything except for child pornography. How are you going to fund it? Advertising?!? That's just recreating the Youtube "ad friendly" dilemma. Subscriptions? Most people don't want to pay a subscription fee for user-generated-content. Yes some die-hard web surfers pay for Youtube Red/Premium to avoid ads but they are a small minority that's not enough to pay for the entire Youtube infrastructure. So far, only funding based on advertising seems to be viable. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Google#Advertiser-friendly_content https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Google#Advertise... [2] https://www.google.com/search?q=biggest+advertisers+abandon+youtube+adpocalypse https://www.google.com/search?q=biggest+advertisers+abandon+... [3] https://www.tubefilter.com/2018/04/20/pg-resumes-youtube-spend-new-ad-controversy/ https://www.tubefilter.com/2018/04/20/pg-resumes-youtube-spe...
- coldtea 6y ago
  >This suggestion (and the comparison to phone companies) comes up repeatedly but Youtube can't _be_ a neutral carrier if they are funded by advertising. That's because the businesses' choice to pay for advertising is not a neutral choice. It should be as well. Disallow advertising companies from paying for ads on specific content only. They should have a blanket agreement to show N ads, to user demographics, interests, etc. But not the ability to not have their ads shown on particular channels/videos. That just gives the ad companies censorship power. >How are you going to fund it? Advertising?!? That's just recreating the Youtube "ad friendly" dilemma Ban by law "a la cart content/ad choice" across all platforms. Customers/Ad companies either sign to show their ads the platform or they don't. No selection of channels/videos they'll be shown on (except if they have a deal with a specific channel as sponsors). If that's the case for all platforms by law, they can't go to another platform to have it cater to their demands... That way a platform doesn't have to cater for specific "ad friendly" content. Just to have popular content, that draws ads in general.
scarface74 6y ago
So should YouTube not be allowed to have any standards about what they want on their platform? Should they be forced to allow porn? YouTube does not have a monopoly on video streaming. There is nothing stopping anyone from paying for the bandwidth and streaming anything they want by renting computer hardware and bandwidth from a colo.
- t0ughcritic 6y ago
  The monopoly is based on current market share not just the technology
  - scarface74 6y ago
    The entire idea behind monopoly for legal reasons is that it harms consumers and it takes away choice. How does Youtube dominating stop anyone else from distributing video? Heck, I can set up a bandwidth adaptive video stream and put it behind a CDN.
Majromax 6y ago
> However, once they consider themselves as "curators" of information with near-monopoly status They're already that. Youtwitgrambook's front-page and suggestion algorithms are forms of curation, specifically designed to maximize some form of engagement metric. Their respective content policies are really just an attempt to correct the failings of algorithmic curation.
wrsh07 6y ago
I disagree I tend to think Ben Thompson has a good way of delineating who should be moderating the internet... that's discussed here (I think the day before he had an excellent interview with the cloud flare CEO) https://stratechery.com/2019/a-framework-for-moderation/ https://stratechery.com/2019/a-framework-for-moderation/ These platforms (fb, YouTube, Twitter) are not fundamental service providers As you move down the stack to fundamental infrastructure, you want them to be more constrained in how they censor. Ultimately, we also need to figure out how to make policy decisions wrt censorship (at all levels of the stack) so that there isn't a single person at a tech company pushing a button. That's a lot of work and needs to be done carefully, but we do need to genuinely consider at what point something is damaging enough that we forbid it.
- istjohn 6y ago
  We had this debate 250 years ago and decided that society is better off with free expression than with someone deciding what speach is and is not OK. It seems to have worked out pretty damn well so far. If we are going to change course, the impetus is on the pro-censorship side to make the case for the change. And no, it's not germane that these websites are operated by private corporations. If anything, the fact that hugely important forums where modern speach takes place are censored by parties without any form of democratic accountability adds weight to the argument against censorship in these spaces. If we had a vibrant tech economy with new platforms arising and competing amongst eachother, it would be a different story, but when we have a stale internet landscape dominated by sprawling behemoths like Alphabet and Facebook, what happens on their platforms are issues of national importance and cannot be left to undemocratic governance and censorship.
  - wrsh07 6y ago
    What myth are you reading? There are lots of things we forbid We can decide that it's too dangerous to encourage people to commit violence, for example We can still change laws (and have recently!) about what types of posts are acceptable. I want a world where we democratically decide that revenge porn is illegal. But it doesn't even seem like you read my post, much less the link.
  - 6y ago
snowwrestler 6y ago
When I end a phone call, Verizon does not call me back with suggested other calls I should listen to next. The opportunity to be a neutral carrier is sacrificed by any platform that deploys a recommendation engine. Recommending content is a form of curation, which makes them a publisher, conceptually. It does not matter if the content curation is done by hand or by an algorithm that was built by hand.

antpls 6y ago

YT, FB and other platforms would like too. For them, more content = more viewers = more ads. The current situation is because governments passed laws to regulate the type of content they are allowed to show. The "phone company" is not the right analogy. They are more like mass media (TV, news papers, etc), which is the rational for censoring them

generalpass 6y ago
> YT, FB and other platforms would like too. For them, more content = more viewers = more ads. > The current situation is because governments passed laws to regulate the type of content they are allowed to show. > The "phone company" is not the right analogy. They are more like mass media (TV, news papers, etc), which is the rational for censoring them This assumes they don't have the legal resources to fend off such a case.
wodenokoto 6y ago
No they would not like to be the phone company that pipes data around. For example: They could easily - but actively choose not to - host pornography. They do not want to host everything that is legal.
xhkkffbf 6y ago
The phone company was regulated by the government to be strictly neutral. We should aim for the same here.

jasode 6y ago

>, but I really wish these platforms took the "phone company" approach, in which they considered themselves neutral carriers of information. This suggestion (and the comparison to phone companies) comes up repeatedly but Youtube can't _be_ a neutral carrier if they are funded by advertising. That's because the businesses' choice to pay for advertising is not a neutral choice. See "advertiser friendly content"[1] and Adpocalypse[2][3]. Land line phones and cell phones are funded by subscriptions and they are also point-to-point communication between 2 private individuals. Phones (barring small-scale exceptions such as conference calls) are not a "broadcasting" medium. There is no broadcasting medium in the world that acts as a neutral carrier. Not newspapers. And not tv like NBC/CBS/ABC. Even the government funded broadcasters like American PBS or UK BBC are not neutral carriers. Ok, let's say you this ambitious idealism to create a new broadcasting website that allows anything except for child pornography. How are you going to fund it? Advertising?!? That's just recreating the Youtube "ad friendly" dilemma. Subscriptions? Most people don't want to pay a subscription fee for user-generated-content. Yes some die-hard web surfers pay for Youtube Red/Premium to avoid ads but they are a small minority that's not enough to pay for the entire Youtube infrastructure. So far, only funding based on advertising seems to be viable. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Google#Advertiser-friendly_content https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Google#Advertise... [2] https://www.google.com/search?q=biggest+advertisers+abandon+youtube+adpocalypse https://www.google.com/search?q=biggest+advertisers+abandon+... [3] https://www.tubefilter.com/2018/04/20/pg-resumes-youtube-spend-new-ad-controversy/ https://www.tubefilter.com/2018/04/20/pg-resumes-youtube-spe...

coldtea 6y ago
>This suggestion (and the comparison to phone companies) comes up repeatedly but Youtube can't _be_ a neutral carrier if they are funded by advertising. That's because the businesses' choice to pay for advertising is not a neutral choice. It should be as well. Disallow advertising companies from paying for ads on specific content only. They should have a blanket agreement to show N ads, to user demographics, interests, etc. But not the ability to not have their ads shown on particular channels/videos. That just gives the ad companies censorship power. >How are you going to fund it? Advertising?!? That's just recreating the Youtube "ad friendly" dilemma Ban by law "a la cart content/ad choice" across all platforms. Customers/Ad companies either sign to show their ads the platform or they don't. No selection of channels/videos they'll be shown on (except if they have a deal with a specific channel as sponsors). If that's the case for all platforms by law, they can't go to another platform to have it cater to their demands... That way a platform doesn't have to cater for specific "ad friendly" content. Just to have popular content, that draws ads in general.

scarface74 6y ago

So should YouTube not be allowed to have any standards about what they want on their platform? Should they be forced to allow porn? YouTube does not have a monopoly on video streaming. There is nothing stopping anyone from paying for the bandwidth and streaming anything they want by renting computer hardware and bandwidth from a colo.

t0ughcritic 6y ago
The monopoly is based on current market share not just the technology
- scarface74 6y ago
  The entire idea behind monopoly for legal reasons is that it harms consumers and it takes away choice. How does Youtube dominating stop anyone else from distributing video? Heck, I can set up a bandwidth adaptive video stream and put it behind a CDN.

Majromax 6y ago

> However, once they consider themselves as "curators" of information with near-monopoly status They're already that. Youtwitgrambook's front-page and suggestion algorithms are forms of curation, specifically designed to maximize some form of engagement metric. Their respective content policies are really just an attempt to correct the failings of algorithmic curation.

wrsh07 6y ago

I disagree I tend to think Ben Thompson has a good way of delineating who should be moderating the internet... that's discussed here (I think the day before he had an excellent interview with the cloud flare CEO) https://stratechery.com/2019/a-framework-for-moderation/ https://stratechery.com/2019/a-framework-for-moderation/ These platforms (fb, YouTube, Twitter) are not fundamental service providers As you move down the stack to fundamental infrastructure, you want them to be more constrained in how they censor. Ultimately, we also need to figure out how to make policy decisions wrt censorship (at all levels of the stack) so that there isn't a single person at a tech company pushing a button. That's a lot of work and needs to be done carefully, but we do need to genuinely consider at what point something is damaging enough that we forbid it.

istjohn 6y ago
We had this debate 250 years ago and decided that society is better off with free expression than with someone deciding what speach is and is not OK. It seems to have worked out pretty damn well so far. If we are going to change course, the impetus is on the pro-censorship side to make the case for the change. And no, it's not germane that these websites are operated by private corporations. If anything, the fact that hugely important forums where modern speach takes place are censored by parties without any form of democratic accountability adds weight to the argument against censorship in these spaces. If we had a vibrant tech economy with new platforms arising and competing amongst eachother, it would be a different story, but when we have a stale internet landscape dominated by sprawling behemoths like Alphabet and Facebook, what happens on their platforms are issues of national importance and cannot be left to undemocratic governance and censorship.
- wrsh07 6y ago
  What myth are you reading? There are lots of things we forbid We can decide that it's too dangerous to encourage people to commit violence, for example We can still change laws (and have recently!) about what types of posts are acceptable. I want a world where we democratically decide that revenge porn is illegal. But it doesn't even seem like you read my post, much less the link.
- 6y ago

snowwrestler 6y ago

When I end a phone call, Verizon does not call me back with suggested other calls I should listen to next. The opportunity to be a neutral carrier is sacrificed by any platform that deploys a recommendation engine. Recommending content is a form of curation, which makes them a publisher, conceptually. It does not matter if the content curation is done by hand or by an algorithm that was built by hand.