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> But... There is no "buts" regarding freedom. I dont know if you have any experience with authoritarian measures but none of them starts like "This is a bad a

• risaacs99 6y ago
  > There is no "buts" regarding freedom. This is clearly not true. You are an intelligent person and can probably think of half a dozen counters to this without trying too hard. You may wish this were the case, but it just isn't. Not under any conceivable society that we could structure.
  • __blockcipher__ 6y ago
    Most people take your view, but I would be very careful to claim that it's actually impossible to not have limits on freedoms. There are some who believe that the state should not exist at all; those types would not concede the ground that there exist any reasonable restrictions on fundamental natural rights. Whereas a statist (i.e. someone who is not an anarchist) would basically always concede that there are limits on rights. To use US jurisprudence as an example, even the very pro-2A supreme court justices have ruled that the state has a compelling interest in reducing gun violence and thus is allowed to take guns away from violent felons, etc. Personally, I take the former position; I think it's better to have a society where property rights (which includes the right of self-ownership i.e. owning your own body) and other natural rights (speech, self defense [technically these are just derived from property rights but I digress]) cannot be infringed upon for any reason. I am very heavily in the minority with that position, and I'm aware of that fact. --- Anyway, switching back to the original topic of censorship of supposed "disinfo", if you don't buy a natural rights argument at all, then from a utilitarian perspective I think it's still a bad idea. In places like Saudi Arabia or Iran, the idea that women should be able to choose what clothing to wear or not wear would be considered harmful to society and worthy of censorship. In Turkey the idea that the Armenian genocide occurred could be considered worthy of censorship. In America the notion that we should not have warrantless wiretapping of all communications between private citizens could be considered dangerous to society, etc etc. It always starts with a "good" reason. It never ends with one.
    • timmytokyo 6y ago
      >I think it's better to have a society where property rights and other natural rights cannot be infringed upon for any reason. So hypothetically, it should be your right to own nuclear weapons? (I realize this is not a practical concern today, but I'm trying to find out if anyone truly believes there are no lines to be drawn on property rights.)
      • chordalkeyboard 6y ago
        Nuclear weapons present a threat to other people and a threat of violating their property rights, and threats are illegal.
        • aaron-santos 6y ago
          By what measure do you put nuclear weapons on one side and other weapons on the other?
          • chordalkeyboard 6y ago
            The scope of the effects. Firearms can be pointed, explosives have a damage/kill radius. It is not permissible to arrange so that a person is brought within the range of effects of a weapon without their consent. In the case of explosives, that means you need enough property to contain the effects. In the case of nuclear weapons, it basically requires an entire planet.
      • waterhouse 6y ago
        That is a difficult issue. One potential resolution I see is to say that if you see someone making his own nuclear weapons without telling anyone about it, this is strong enough evidence that he's going to try to do something terrible (i.e. it looks like a crime in progress) that you would be justified in using force to stop him. How does this generalize and fit into the framework of property rights in general? What makes, say, manufacturing guns not strong enough evidence of trying to do something terrible? Is it mere history, or is it the defensive uses of guns, or does the magnitude of the terribleness matter, or something else? (In practice, I think purifying U-235 takes huge facilities and no one can do it in their backyard—it's probably a few orders of magnitude more expensive and complex.) Also, if it's 100% established that this one guy making the nukes is a trustworthy pacifist who won't use them, but the problem is he won't keep them in a particularly secure location, can one defensibly call his actions illegal? ("Planning to be neglectful"? How about someone who will guard them as heavily as he can, but that's just not heavily enough?) There would be a lot to explore there, but I think it may be possible to resolve the issue of nuclear weapons while keeping a pure system of property rights.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • cambalache 6y ago
    No, I am dumb, since clearly you are not like me I would love to know what are the 6 solid reasons to permanently deprive the whole population of basic freedoms.Because this is not the case of "I killed a burglar who pulled out a gun on me so he forfeited his right to freedom". Even if you strongly disagree with a position, if that position is censored, you are impoverished because of that, society is impoverished. Grievance must be vented openly, otherwise you push the fringe(and not so fringe) groups underground.
    • drchopchop 6y ago
      Should child pornography be legal? Falsely yelling "fire" in a crowded theater? Doxing of private information? Those are all "positions", in your view.
      • cambalache 6y ago
        I cannot believe you consider sexually abusing children a freedom you need to give up. Same for creating panic in a crowded room. Jesus, at least come up with better examples, like playing your instrument full volume at midnight, running naked in the street or taking a bath in a public fountain (well that is permitted in some places)
        • chickenpotpie 6y ago
          If you don’t understand the point someone is making please ask follow up questions instead of choosing to interpret it in a way that you can accuse them of being a pedophile
          • cambalache 6y ago
            Apply that advise to yourself then, I didnt accuse him of being a pedophile. I specifically wrote that he was saying (as he was) that the prohibition of child pornography curtails freedom. It does not. So I would suggest you to read better before playing a virtual cyber cop.
      • deleted 6y ago
  • donkeyd 6y ago
    Thanks for this. We could post stuff about previous commenter, based on literally nothing, doing bad stuff to little kiddies and they would be deleted by HN. That commenter would probably be alright with that because those types of comments are not ok. For some reason, however, these people are never ok with censorship by anyone if it impacts their beliefs. I find this highly hypocritical. The Reddit hunt for the Boston bomber is a perfect example of how this type of unbridled free for all posting can lead to very bad stuff happening.
    • crpatino 6y ago
      That's what we do nowadays, is it? Somebody walks and say something against our preferred political ideology and we throw vague threats of ruining that person's life with false accusations?
      • donkeyd 6y ago
        Like that guy who ran for president with vague threats of not accepting the outcome if he would lose. And then when they lost not accepting the outcome and making up a bunch of stories about wide-spread fraud? If you were implying that I'd actually accuse anyone of doing stuff to kids, you throughly misunderstood the content of my comment.
    • lopmotr 6y ago
      I used to live in China in the pre-Trump days when most westerners believed in free speech. Sometimes I would hear about "draconian" Chinese censorship. It seemed obviously bad by western standards. For example, they would prohibit industrial action in case it threatens some vital industry or prohibit protests in case it threatens the power of the government which could lead to unrest and violence. Or they prosecuted someone for spreading a rumor after Fukushima happened that iodized salt protects against cancer which led to supermarkets getting sold out of it. Or they would suppress anti-government talk like what Falun Gong and the Uyghurs were doing. In the case of the Uyghur, they did actually commit some terrorists acts because of the anti-government things they were telling each other. All that seemed like bad totalitarian censorship. But now American leftist believe similar censorship is OK for essentially the same reasons. "social harmony" was never seen as a valid reason for censorship by westerners before, but since Trump, they changed their mind. You example of accusations of child abuse as a way to insult somebody is actually fine as long as the society can recognize unfounded accusations from actual reality. This is still acceptable for many other insults, like "you're stupid", but somehow, people seem to have elevated sexual abuse accusations to the status of truth. I'd say the antidote to that is to allow more open unfounded accusations so we're all immunized against their effects. We do have the justice system to address real allegations.
  • dontblink 6y ago
    E.g. you cannot yell "Fire!" in a theater and expect "Freedom of Speech" to protect you from any repurcussions.
    • coldtea 6y ago
      You should be able to. And people should not be idiots to be panicking from someone yelling "fire" when they can't see one in the theater...
      • manuelabeledo 6y ago
        This is a terrible argument. There are definitely places in a theater, out of the view of spectators, but likely fire hazards, e.g. the projection room. Most building fires cannot be seen until it is too late. Smoke is an early indicator of a fire, but it cannot be seen in a pitch dark room. And even in perfect conditions to determine if there is a fire or not, the audience may not be capable to judge if there is one or not, e.g. children.
      • oblio 6y ago
        "Should" is not a principle of law or of reality, for that matter. I should be immortal, all knowing and beautiful but I'll have to make do with what nature gave me.
        • coldtea 6y ago
          >"Should" is not a principle of law or of reality, for that matter. It can very well be a principle of law. In certain legal codes, it actually is. As for reality, that's a pretty low bar. We have many "shoulds" (e.g. you should not cross a red light lest you get a ticket / prison) that are not some inherent property of reality or physical law, but things we've decided upon. In fact, those are the only things that makes sense to consider as "shoulds". The constraints of reality are not negotiable, so should there is superfluous.
    • vladTheInhaler 6y ago
      Please don't cite that example. Ken White, an attorney who focuses on first amendment issues, wrote a compelling argument for why: https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-hackneyed-apologia-for-censorship-are-enough/ https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-ha...
  • crpatino 6y ago
    In theory, you are right. No freedom can be absolute because sooner or later it will undermine somebody else's freedom. In practice, the particular "but" the GP was referring to was concerning. We are not talking about freedom in the abstract, but the freedom of a Youtube user to express political beliefs opposed to those of Youtube's executives and stockholders. I do not presume to be able to disentangle the ethical and legal implications of that case, but it is a debate worth having in this time and age.
• deleted 6y ago
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• Daishiman 6y ago
  This about as far removed from reality as there is. There are always "buts" in all of human rights. No right is absolute because we don't live in a world of absolutes. Free speech, without any limits at all, becomes libel, harassment, hate speech, incitement to violence, sedition, etc. Absolutism in rights is a thought-terminating cliché, evidenced by the fact that there are literal lifetimes of scholarship in regards to when rights begin and when they end, and which right to prioritize when multiple people's rights are conflicting with each other. > The democrats were claiming fraud 4 years go due to a supposed Russian influence.The evidence was tenuous and circumstantial at best. I dont remember seeing a similar cry for censorship. There was a claim that ended up in a Special Counsel investigation in which _multiple_ people associated with the Trump 2016 campaign ended up going in prison for, including Michael Flynn. Comparing claims of potential fraud, followed up by investigation and mostly finished when such investigation discovered some things and disproved others, is an eminently healthy level of questioning over the complete insanity of fraud claims. The current claims of fraud are not of anyone with a sound mind. Do not conflate one thing with the other; they're not anywhere near the same league.
  • themaninthedark 6y ago
    And yet not for collusion[0] >The report was the culmination of two years of investigation by Mr Mueller which saw some of the president's closest former aides prosecuted and, in some cases, imprisoned, although not on charges related to the alleged Russian collusion. I am glad that we investigated and charged people with crimes that they would have otherwise gotten away with but if the same standard was applied the investigation would have been shutdown as a conspiracy. [0]https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47688187 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47688187
    • aggie 6y ago
      Why are you linking to a news report on the preliminary summary released by Barr? It was clearly crafted to drive an initial narrative of exoneration. The actual Mueller report is much more damning for Trump, including findings that were redacted for many months, after public attention had died down.
• chickenpotpie 6y ago
  What does this have to do with freedom? Private companies can’t take away freedom, only the government can.
  • fsflover 6y ago
    They can if they are monopolies providing essential services.
    • minikites 6y ago
      If it's truly essential then that company should be nationalized and run by the government.
      • manigandham 6y ago
        That would be terrible and only monopolize everything further. Essential services should be provided by multiple providers. That's called competition and ends up serving everyone better.
        • minikites 6y ago
          How do you propose having multiple electricity providers or multiple water/sewer providers? What about multiple emergency medial providers or multiple fire brigades? Sometimes the right move is in fact to put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket. Also, "competition" necessarily implies a company can refuse service to a customer, which is not what I (or most people) want with essential services like electricity, water, police, fire protection, etc.
          • manigandham 6y ago
            Things like fire and police should be provided by the state due to the authority and access they require over civilians. However we have multiple utilities already. They follow regulations to ensure a level of service and reliability, but are often entrenched by these very same regulations which is why others are prevented from serving the same area. If anything we should have even more competition so that we can actually see some progress instead of the regulatory gridlock and decaying infrastructure that exists. This is similar to ISPs. You can consider network services as essential need in the modern era, but nobody wants a slow nationalized ISP service (look at how Australia screwed that up). Instead multiple local competitive organizations have always delivered the best outcome whenever that's been allowed and encouraged.
• csa 6y ago
  > The democrats were claiming fraud 4 years go due to a supposed Russian influence I’m not a fan of either party in the US — they both have glaring fatal flaws — but this comment is an irresponsible level of whataboutism. The folks commenting on Russian influence in 2016 were doing it with some basis in reality, and it turned out that the facts were confirmed by the current administration’s DoJ. I will add that Russian interference was not their top beef — Comey’s statements seemed to be more disconcerting for these people. The crazy shit that Trump is saying is a figment of his own imagination and nothing more. There is no basis in reality. No one will come in later and confirm that any of his ramblings were actually correct. Free speech has always had limits when it has had the potential to harm others. While the line is not always clear, undermining the mechanics of US democracy with verifiably false accusations can easily be seen as something that is harmful to others.
  • JKCalhoun 6y ago
    Not sure why you are being downvoted. You take a hard stance but it seems factual.
    • brighton36 6y ago
      Facts are disgusting. That's what makes them facts.
  • mistermann 6y ago
    > and it turned out that the facts were confirmed by the current administration’s DoJ "The" facts? Is there a master list of facts that I'm not aware of out there somewhere? Is it composed of an aggregation of all(!) the "facts" asserted by all respectable, trustworthy journalists and politicians in the last few years? > The crazy shit that Trump is saying is a figment of his own imagination and nothing more. Trump says a lot of crazy things - are you suggesting that you've somehow fact-checked all of them, and found every single one to be literally nothing more than a figment of his own imagination? This seems fairly unlikely - might it be possible that the origin of your belief has some similarity to your theory about the origin of Trump's beliefs?
• jayd16 6y ago
  Freedom from and freedom to are often in opposition. Saying there are no buts to freedom is paradoxical.
  • carlob 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Concepts_of_Liberty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Concepts_of_Liberty
• j2bax 6y ago
  Wait, is Google our government? Google is exercising their freedom to moderate their content. If this were USAtube.gov maybe you'd have a point. Fortunately such a thing doesn't exist!
  • Clubber 6y ago
    Tech company executives are being summoned into congressional hearings about it and pressured by the government to censor speech. The fact that the government, congress no less, is pressuring a private entity to do this constitutes the government itself censoring speech. This is just the pressure we know about. "But the hearing instead left Facebook, Google and Twitter facing conflicting pressures -- from Democrats who say they should patrol their sites and services more aggressively and Republicans who felt the companies should have a more hands-off role with most political speech." https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/28/twitter-facebook-google-senate-hearing-live-updates/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/28/twitter...
    • j2bax 6y ago
      Anyone that wants to hear about how the election was a fraud can still watch any number of right leaning media outlets to get their fill. I'll be concerned when the government actually tries to shut down right or left leaning media outlets.
      • perched_robin 6y ago
        Mastercard/Visa and the patriot act.
      • Clubber 6y ago
        >I'll be concerned when the government actually tries to shut down right or left leaning media outlets. Social media sites are shutting down left and right wing media outlets in the form of YouTube, Twitter, etc. These sites are getting pressure form the government to do so. The "press" was never supposed to be a large corporate entity with a cozy relationship with the government. The "press" is supposed to be a citizen press. “Whatever a patron desires to get published is advertising; whatever he wants to keep out of the paper is news”
• picardythird 6y ago
  > The democrats were claiming fraud 4 years go This is incorrect. The Democrats alleged a Russian disinformation campaign to interfere in the 2016 election. The truth of this claim is beyond debate, and is different from alleging widespread voter fraud. Whether Trump was directly involved is the only part up for dispute, because he and so many witnesses refused to answer questions or lied to protect themselves and/or the president. On the other hand, Trump has been complaining of election fraud since before he even became a politician. He claimed election fraud in the republican primary [1]. He complained of election fraud when he won the 2016 election. And finally, he complained of election fraud when he lost in 2020. He even alleged election fraud in 2012 [2]. A key difference here is he has absolutely no evidence to back up his claims. The claims and their respective credibility are not equatable in good faith. [1] https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/694879900256354304 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/69487990025635430... [2] https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/266035509162303492 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/26603550916230349...
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• purephase 6y ago
  Other have rebutted the claim that the evidence of Russian influence was "tenuous" and "circumstantial", but one piece of information that they haven't mentioned is that the Republican led Senates' own intel report the coroborated the claims made by the Democrats. Also, it was the Republican DoJ w/Jeff Sessions and Rod Rosenstein that commissionned the Mueller report (Robert Mueller, a Republican as well). To continue to believe otherwise and post these false claims online only makes you part of the problem, not actually looking for a solution. I say this as someone who is generally not a fan of the approach that Twitter, Youtube etc. make in terms of censorship like this. I just think we all need to call a spade a spade when we see it though, and the evidence here is overwhelming.
  • sixQuarks 6y ago
    What claims did the senate corroborate?
    • mrlala 6y ago
      >https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/press/senate-intel-releases-new-report-intel-community-assessment-russian-interference https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/press/senate-intel-relea... >The ICA correctly found the Russians interfered in our 2016 election to hurt Secretary Clinton and help the candidacy of Donald Trump >The Committee finds the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) presents a coherent and well-constructed intelligence basis for the case that Russia engaged in an attempt to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election. I'm not sure why people go around saying that Russian interference was not a real thing? The REPUBLICAN senate confirmed this.
      • deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    • xadhominemx 6y ago
      Have you tried googling for this information?
• klyrs 6y ago
  > There is no "buts" regarding freedom Explain the existence of a heavily militarized police force, then. And the war on drugs. And blue laws. And the existence of borders, and the notion of citizenship. No, freedom has many limitations. Some of those limitations are justified by reducing or punishing harm to others. Some are justified by reducing or punishing harm to self. Some are naked authoritarianism. We have a president who's a proud authoritarian who literally celebrates violence against the press and summary executions by the police. He's spreading virulent disinformation with the express intent to overrule the will of the people, and he's consistently signalling that insurrection is the remedy to his failure to do so. Does your "no 'buts' regarding freedom" go so far as to tear down democracy in favor of a would-be dictator's "freedom" to commit treason?
  • cambalache 6y ago
    You can check my comnent history if you dont believe me, I am redder (as in commie) than 99.9% of the people here. > who literally celebrates violence against the press and summary executions by the police. He has never done that. Saying those thing undermines any good argument you may have. If you think I am being dense please provide a direct quotation of Trump cheering for summary execution by the police and I will shut my mouth. No, if you provide an actual quote of Trump celebrating a summary execution I will erase my account here and wont never return I promise you that.
    • dimator 6y ago
      https://www.opb.org/article/2020/10/15/trump-rally-portland-police-killing-michael-reinoehl/ https://www.opb.org/article/2020/10/15/trump-rally-portland-... Spoken at a rally.
      • cambalache 6y ago
        That was a suspect for murder, 5 days on the run, who according to the reports shot first at the police, if that's your definition of a summary execution let's include every killing by the police or army ever.
• slothtrop 6y ago
  That's interesting, because Youtube was never "free", in more ways than one. The content that reaches users is curated. It's no coincidence that conspiracy videos spread and show up on everyone's feed: Youtube propagates it.
  • at-fates-hands 6y ago
    This is the algorithm's job. It's built to make sure you're watching more videos and making sure you stay on the site as long as possible. YT isn't propagating it. Its a result of people searching for, and watching conspiracy videos. If you watch a lot of Alex Jones videos, then the algorithm by design will recommend other conspiracy videos as well.
    • slothtrop 6y ago
      > It's built to make sure you're watching more videos and making sure you stay on the site as long as possible. > YT isn't propagating it. You contradict yourself. I have never once searched for conspiracy content, ever, and was fed conspiracy videos in feeds for over a decade. That is by design. I imagine many other users would report the same. The algorithm favors conspiracy videos and youtube is responsible. They have known this forever and chose to do nothing. Hysteria and insane tin-foil hat content pays out.
      • at-fates-hands 6y ago
        for clarification: TY isn't propagating content - meaning there are no people who sit in front of a computer and choose what people are seeing in their "Feeds" or what they see when they land on the front page. That is completely different than an algorithm specifically designed to recommend content to you based on what video's you have watched in the past to maximize your time on the site. IF you have one, you don't need to the other. Also, the content you see when you are logged in to google vs. logged out is also completely different for reasons that shouldn't require any elaboration.
        • 6y ago
• root_axis 6y ago
  YouTube has the freedom not to host your videos for free.
  • x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
    Oddly enough, the anarcho-libertarians that fill out the HN userbase don't want to talk about that at all.
    • chordalkeyboard 6y ago
      Probably because there's too much of an inferential gap between anarchy-libertarians (who have discussed this extensively) and the rest of the hn userbase (who seem to have forgotten that section 230 of the CDA has been criticized for allowing companies to legally select which viewpoints to promote while shielding them from liability for promoting harmful messages). There's also the notion that in a free society, companies shouldn't have the freedom to discriminate on the basis of someone's politics. People who oppose discrimination on the basis of certain protected categories have the opportunity to explain why political views are not one of those categories. So yes there's a discussion to be had but its not easy to get off the ground floor on politically charged issues unless people have a well grounded and mutual understanding of the basics and demonstrate that understanding.
      • x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
        When we talk about a "free" society, we are talking about government intervention. We don't mean that every radio station has to play my song, every tv station has to play my show, and every billboard has to show my message. You would think that with such a right-wing userbase, the aspect of Youtube's private property would emerge in the conversation. But that's not the issue, instead, the "CeNsOrShIp" crowd is more concerned about having white supremacist ideas widely marginalized in polite society.
        • chordalkeyboard 6y ago
          > When we talk about a "free" society, we are talking about government intervention. I'm not sure how to respond to this without venturing into semantics. When we talk about a free society, we are talking about the freedom of the people who make up that society to pursue their own interests and livelihood without oppression or undue interference. It doesn't make it ok to aggress upon or oppress people if you somehow define the perpetrator of that aggression or oppression to be "not government." > We don't mean that every radio station has to play my song, every tv station has to play my show, and every billboard has to show my message. However we do mean that everyone have access to the airwaves and that everyone have access to telecom infrastructure and other utilities. The reason section 230 of the CDA is at issue here is that companies like youtube are legally protected from liability for content that they display, but there are no legal consequences for their refusal to show any content. This creates the conditions for them to unaccountably promote one side of an issue to the exclusion of another. It doesn't take much imagination to see how this could be a bad thing. > You would think that with such a right-wing userbase, The userbase here is not right-wing. > the aspect of Youtube's private property would emerge in the conversation. Its been brought up numerous times. Almost every time section 230 reform is mentioned, in fact. Which is good because these issues need to be hashed out. > But that's not the issue, instead, the "CeNsOrShIp" crowd is more concerned about having white supremacist ideas widely marginalized in polite society. Poisoning the well doesn't advance the conversation, rather the opposite.
• tshaddox 6y ago
  > There is no "buts" regarding freedom. I'm curious what you think about the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance.
  • cambalache 6y ago
    So by letting some people live or say shit in youtube or marching or creating political parties, none of which affect or diminishes any of your right you are risking the new come of Hitler but this , by a mega corporation with an autochratic governance(who elects Google leadership) is great and deserve to be lauded: > We also disallow content alleging widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome of a historical U.S. Why? > . For example, we will remove videos claiming that a Presidential candidate won the election due to widespread software glitches or counting errors Why? Are they going to remove videos like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrJzf6eUSWA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrJzf6eUSWA or this one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBYnJh45WS8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBYnJh45WS8 > Limiting the reach of borderline content and prominently surfacing authoritative information are important ways we protect people from problematic content that doesn’t violate our Community Guidelines. Blessed the day you need "protection" from a corporation.What's next? Will I need protection about how Google Europe is based on Ireland? Or how are they egregiously violating the privacy of the user? Or how they most probable work with NSA? I am curious what you think about that
• dkobran 6y ago
  This dogmatic/fundamentalist interpretation of freedom doesn’t make you objective, it makes you an ideologue. There are well-known and widely accepted exceptions to freedom such as curbs on freedom of speech e.g. not yelling “fire” in a crowded space and inciting violence. There are trade-offs between freedom and curbs on freedoms (policies) that benefit the greater good of society. This is the so-called “social contract” between individuals and those that govern them. I highly recommend reading about this (e.g. even Wikipedia has a great explanation) and I don’t mean that as a condescending remark, I think it’s a fascinating topic. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract Edit: link
  • da_big_ghey 6y ago
    The "fire in a crowded moviehouse" argument is really bad. Ken White (the Popehat guy) does a much better job of explaining this than I could: https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-hackneyed-apologia-for-censorship-are-enough/ https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-ha...
    • seanwilson 6y ago
      Could you sum up the relevance here briefly? I didn't find it clear and it's not a simple to sum up article. The link says: > People tend to cite the "fire in a crowded theater" quote for two reasons, both bolstered by Holmes' fame. First, they trot out the Holmes quote for the proposition that not all speech is protected by the First Amendment. But this is not in dispute. Which seems to be the reason the quote was used and backs it up? So what's the problem?
      • betwixthewires 6y ago
        Well it is a bait and switch. This is when one example for speech that is perceived as acceptable to censor is used to justify personal beliefs about other speech. "Fire in a crowded theater, and therefore you cannot claim that the election is disputed". The claim that some speech is not protected is not the same as the claim that because of that some other particular speech is not protected. There has to be a fundamental similarity between two sets of circumstances such that they can both be prevented for the same reason. "Not all speech is protected, that is not in dispute, but the speech you're claiming isn't protected actually is" would be the problem.
• jackjeff 6y ago
  > There is no "buts" regarding freedom. YouTube has the freedom to choose what content they stream on their website (to show ads/make money) > The evidence was tenuous and circumstantial at best. True. But that’s a step up compared to the made up lies that go on nowadays.
• mrlala 6y ago
  >https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/press/senate-intel-relea https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/press/senate-intel-relea... >The ICA correctly found the Russians interfered in our 2016 election to hurt Secretary Clinton and help the candidacy of Donald Trump >The Committee finds the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) presents a coherent and well-constructed intelligence basis for the case that Russia engaged in an attempt to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Why do you say "supposed Russian influence" when a Republican led senate confirmed this?
  • YarickR2 6y ago
    There was no influence. Attempt to interfere != influence. And the evidence for that is non-existing. And Steele dossier was created by russian drunk.
    • mrlala 6y ago
      First, I'm not taking a hard position on anything here- I'm linking the Senate Intelligence Committee's findings. If you don't believe it? Well, that's your problem I'm just stating what's in there >There was no influence Go here again https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/press/senate-intel-releases-new-report-intel-community-assessment-russian-interference https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/press/senate-intel-relea... and open up the 4 PDF's Volume 1/2/3/4 Open Volume 2. Search for the word "influence". You might notice you have about a billion matches. Here is one significant quote >Arriving at a similar conclusion, an Oxford Internet Institute study-of 17 million tweets posted during the 2016 election found that bots "reached positions of measurable influence," and "did infiltrate the upper cores of influence and were thus jn a position to significantly influence digital communications during the 2016 U.S. election." So, you are going to continue to state "there was no influence" even though hundreds of pages of reports from the Senate Intel say otherwise?
  • amanaplanacanal 6y ago
    In some circles Republicans are only trustworthy if they support President Trump. I think the Republican party is in for a hard time the next few years.
• deleted 6y ago
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• WhompingWindows 6y ago
  Are you in favor of allowing anti-vax and election fraud lies to be spread unchecked on FB, Google, YT, Twitter? Talk all you want of freedom, but freedom is already reigning on these platforms, and SV's techno-libertarianism has clearly failed our democracy.
• xadhominemx 6y ago
  > The democrats were claiming fraud 4 years go due to a supposed Russian influence.The evidence was tenuous and circumstantial at best. Every element of this sentence is incorrect. Democrats were not claiming fraud - they were claiming that Russians interfered in the election and Trump / members of his campaign participated in that effort. Russian interference is undeniable - Dutch intelligence literally has it on tape [1]. And the report issued by the Republican controlled senate concluded that members of Trumps campaign and other people in his orbit were exchanging information with Russian intelligence and coordinating with cutouts like Guccifer 2.0. [1] https://apnews.com/article/ef3b036949174a9b98d785129a93428b https://apnews.com/article/ef3b036949174a9b98d785129a93428b
  • mikem170 6y ago
    I acknowledge that the Russians were, are, and will continue to interfere in elections. Our federal government is the most powerful country in the world, everyone domestically and internationally want a piece of that - corporations, countries, and special interests. Our government does it to everyone else, also. I don't agree with any of it, but that's what happens. The big irony to me is that supposedly the biggest Russian bit of mischief, involving the Guccifer person you mentioned above, was to expose the DNC emails showing the corruption going on there, how back-room deals screwed over Bernie and a lot of Democrat voters. I have a hard time understanding why this is not talked about more.
    • etchalon 6y ago
      Likely because the released emails didn't really show that.
      • mikem170 6y ago
        I don't understand, I thought that was the biggest surprise out of that trove of emails? It was a surprise to me, anyways. "The leaks resulted in allegations of bias against Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign, in apparent contradiction with the DNC leadership's publicly stated neutrality,[6] as several DNC operatives seemed to deride Sanders' campaign and discussed ways to advance Hillary Clinton's nomination. Later reveals included controversial DNC–Clinton agreements dated before the primary, regarding financial arrangements and control over policy and hiring decisions" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_National_Committee_email_leak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_National_Commi... "A new leak of internal emails from the Democratic National Committee appears to support the long-held suspicions of some Bernie Sanders supporters that the DNC was working against him." - https://www.huffpost.com/entry/wikileaks-dnc-bernie-sanders_n_579381fbe4b02d5d5ed1d157 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/wikileaks-dnc-bernie-sanders_... "DNC Apologizes to Bernie Sanders and Supporters Over Leaked Emails" - https://www.huffpost.com/entry/wikileaks-dnc-bernie-sanders_n_579381fbe4b02d5d5ed1d157 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/wikileaks-dnc-bernie-sanders_... I'm not meaning to be partisan about this. My point was that everyone is trying to manipulate the American public - both political parties, big companies, other countries, etc.
• codegeek 6y ago
  The dems cried fraud in 2016 but the difference is that Clinton conceded the night of the election. There is a big difference between claiming something but still doing the right thing vs. claiming something and then just double/triple downing on it which is what the Republicans and Trump are doing. It is dangerous, extremely dangerous. Trump margin of loss is bigger than Hillary's margin of loss from 2016 btw.
• felipellrocha 6y ago
  Brb... Gonna yell fire in a crowded theater.
  • YarickR2 6y ago
    You can find a crowded theater these times where ? And do you think you will be heard under your mask ?
• Engineering-MD 6y ago
  Well there are and should be. The classic example is shouting “fire!” in a crowded room. This is freedom, but causes chaos without the benefits that freedom of expression allows. Pure freedom can be as bad as authoritarianism. Pure freedom is lawlessness and law of the most powerful. This is what fake news is moving towards, the law of those who can manipulate the truth the best. Like all things balance between both extremes is the answer, and the disagreement is where that balance point lies.
• fumar 6y ago
  Is there a solution to diminish the value of misinformation from political actors? It doesn't matter what party they align to. The American people deserve clear unbiased information to make their decisions. If then, they choose to align with a tribe, then that is exercising their freedom.
• babypuncher 6y ago
  Claims of Russian interference in the 2016 election made by our own intelligence community and parroted by Democrats don't even remotely compare to the outright lies Trump and his lackeys are peddling about the 2020 election. You didn't see Hilary Clinton refusing to concede. Her only post-election legal action was asking for recounts in the rust belt. California's AG didn't sue Pennsylvania and Wisconsin asking SCOTUS to throw out ballots they disagreed with. This is just bad whataboutism.
  • betwixthewires 6y ago
    This is by the textbook definition not "whataboutism." Your argument distils to "saying something that is true and saying something that is false are clearly not the same thing"; you are basing your argument on your own belief that one is true and one is false. What we are getting at here is, regardless of whether either is true or false, they are fundamentally the same types of claims and yet one is amplified and another is banned.
    • babypuncher 6y ago
      I fail to see how "true information should be promoted, false information should be suppressed" is a controversial statement. I'm not talking about opinions here, just cold hard facts. If someone wandered into one of my communities and actively encouraged people to mix bleach and ammonia, and my users were falling for it, you bet your ass that person would get banned for violating my rules, and I would be making sticky posts warning about the dangers of what that user was promoting. The idea that I can't regulate what goes on in my community because "free speech" is absurd. The same goes for Twitter and YouTube.
• mjklin 6y ago
  No “buts” except (legally): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_advertising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_advertising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_Holocaust_denial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_Holocaust_denial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Communications_Decency_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Communications_Decenc... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear_and_present_danger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear_and_present_danger And probably more...
• jasonlotito 6y ago
  > The evidence was tenuous and circumstantial at best. The evidence and conclusions were provided by more than a dozen US agencies, as well as from a bi-partisan investigation conducted in the Senate. > The democrats were claiming fraud "Fraud" is a strong word, especially when the Democratic candidate literally came out the same night as conceded. Sure, Russia influenced the election, I don't remember countless law suits after the election trying to change the will of the people. > There is no "buts" regarding freedom You say that, but Republicans are very much in favor of denying people their right to bear arms because of "buts".
• enkid 6y ago
  You can't say "the democrats" were claimed ng fraud. As far as I am aware, no major democrat questioned the legitimacy of the election or claimed widespread fraud. Iirc, the only notable person who claimed widespread fraud in 2016 was Trump himself, so stop claiming equivalency here.
  • betwixthewires 6y ago
    I would say "Trump won only because Russia interfered in the election" is a direct, explicit claim that the election was illegitimate. I'm not saying I disbelieve it or that I believe the current claims of fraud, but there is a clear equivalency here.
    • enkid 6y ago
      Saying that Russian hacking influenced the election is demonstrably true. Whether it caused Trump to win is not. I don't remember anyone actually saying that Trump would not have won without Russia, though I could be wrong about that. This is still a big difference between that and calling millions of votes, lawfully cast, as illegitimate. Do you seriously not see the distinction between the two?
      • betwixthewires 6y ago
        I don't see the distinction you're making. There are plenty of differences between the two scenarios, but "only one of those is a claim that the election is illegitimate" is not one of the differences IMO.
• miguelmota 6y ago
  It's a slippery slope for sure. I think a big concern is that if far-reaching conspiracy theories are allowed to flourish then it could lead to the development of more extremist groups using scapegoating tactics to influence violence on particular groups. I see both sides of the argument.
• MrBuddyCasino 6y ago
  "30% of what consists the US Federation make a plea in terms of electoral fraud, in the Supreme Court. And there is no coverage by the media. Current front pages from CNN, Washington Post, New York Times, BBC (for future reference)." [0] [0] https://twitter.com/_benoux_/status/1336788393884323849?s=20 https://twitter.com/_benoux_/status/1336788393884323849?s=20
  • anigbrowl 6y ago
    Complaining about the media failing to cover something moments after it happened, while simultaneously describing it inaccurately, is bullshit. States filing amicus briefs do not constitute a plea. And the suit in question is not about electoral fraud. News stories about this development have appeared by the time of writing this comment. This twitter poster, and you, seem to have forgotten that it takes time to write a story.
• X6S1x6Okd1st 6y ago
  There are plenty of counter examples, e.g. when rationing was in effect during WW2.
• sanp 6y ago
  YouTube is not the US government. It is free to restrict speech as it pleases. If you think otherwise then you are limiting YouTube freedom as a private enterprise.
• uRStillfree 6y ago
  You’re still free to speak on other people’s property (computer servers). Just not YouTube’s. America is built on private property rights. Americans LOVE to go on about freedom while selling themselves, their time, body, ideas. Say what you want. There is no physical law or social that obliges others to carry your message or submit to your expectations. Change the ownership model.
• cycomanic 6y ago
  The issue with comments like this is that nobody was shouting when ISIS accounts were being banned from twitter or some of their execution videos were removed from platforms. Now I'm not advocating that ISIS videos should be allowed, but if you are in fact thinking "there are no buts" than you should have been shouting loudest at those times, because if you only shout when someone you agree with is being "censored" it suddenly seems much more that you only care about your freedom to say what you want, not the freedom for everyone to say anything.