5 ms·

I just don't get this. Why does Google have to be the censorship police here? Just let people post what they want (minus graphic and illegal content) and make t

I just don't get this. Why does Google have to be the censorship police here? Just let people post what they want (minus graphic and illegal content) and make their own mistakes and their own learnings. Google is going down a rabbit hole full of worms. Posting conspiracy theories about election fraud is just people exercising their free speech. Google is a private platform, so they can censor whatever they want, but it's not like Google is going to get in trouble for allowing people to post about conspiracy theories. What's the goal here?

syndacks 6y ago
You're conflating free speech (government) with a business's decision to monitor their platform (private). These two things are very different. >What's the goal here? To make their platform not full of bullshit. YouTube isn't the government, there is no such thing as the 1st amendment to them, so they cull that which is bad for business.
- convery 6y ago
  The concept of 'free speech' is not limited to the first amendment. Whether or not the government is involved (which could be argued given that it was requested by politicians while anti-trust issues with Google is a hot topic); is less relevant.
- mrmckizzle 6y ago
  I would say yes... but these companies have Section 230 protection. At what point can the public have a say in their business? Specifically when these protections were originally given to protect companies from lawsuits due to what people were posting on their platforms?
  - polishTar 6y ago
    Corporations also have the first amendment right to include or exclude whatever they want on their own websites. Section 230 just stops people from suing services for the speech of their users, ie you can't sue twitter for anything donald trump tweets even if it's illegal/defamatory/etc. If section 230 didn't exist, then services would become liable for every action their users take on their platforms. I don't understand why people think this would reduce censorship, it'd be the exact opposite. If section 230 wasn't a thing, services would mitigate legal risk by censoring to an unprecedented degree.
    - mrmckizzle 6y ago
      If 230 didn't exist we would have had a different medium for a public commons. These companies have become the commons and are now acting as a publisher in order to influence public debate in a direction they deem fit. Perhaps a solution to S230 is to add a clause that specifically states that the 1st amendment has to be upheld if they wish to be protected?
- zucker42 6y ago
  > You're conflating free speech (government) with a business's decision to monitor their platform (private). No, he specifically did not conflate those two things. Read his comment again. He said that he understands that Google can censor whatever they like, but doesn't understand why they choose to do so. I'd have to agree, I'm inclined to not trust YouTube as much anymore, even if I believe the content they are censoring is completely crazy in this case. The argument that people conflate state censorship and private censorship has become overused to the point being disingenuous. There are some people who truly don't understand the difference between state and private censorship. But the more intellectually serious argument involves thinking about why we forbid the government from regulating speech. The first reason is that the government is ill-equipped to regulate speech; it's hard for the government to determine which speech is socially beneficial. The second is that it is often better in general to challenge incorrect ideas through rebuttal and education rather than censorship. This harkens back to Mill's argument for free speech. Importantly, the second idea doesn't just argue against government censorship, but private censorship as well. As soon as someone argues that YouTube is wrong to take this action, people start parroting the argument that free speech only applies to government action. But that completely ignores the idea that censorship is just fundamentally the wrong way to combat wrong ideas or ideas you disagree with. And to make matters worse, many commenters also ignore the idea that you are allowed to disagree with a company's actions even if you don't think the government should compel them to act differently. And another problem I see is we're trending toward there being two different groups of social media sites in the U.S., conservative social media and liberal social media sites, and I don't think that portends well to the future of American political discourse. Whether all these ideas are rightly classified as "free speech" issues is a matter of terminology. Perhaps "open discourse" is a more accurate term. I just read an interesting article[1] that discusses this debate and argues it does not involve a fundamental threat to free expression, but nonetheless that it is important. [1] https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/7/22/21325942/free-speech-harpers-letter-bari-weiss-andrew-sullivan https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/7/22/21325942/f...
  - mike00632 6y ago
    Google doesn't want to be 4Chan and they are well within their rights to maintain their reputation via censorship, especially given the bad actors they are dealing with.
JamisonM 6y ago
> it's not like Google is going to get in > trouble for allowing people to post about > conspiracy theories Actually it is exactly like that, they see lost revenue coming if they get tagged as the go-to place for misinformation on this topic. They may already be seeing advertisers complaining that no matter how much they try to screen they are still getting complaints of their ads showing up in prerolls for conspiracy videos. So they are making a public show of letting everyone know that they don't want to be in that business and they are doing all they can to stay out of it. If they will do all they can or not, who knows? It is not like they have done all that much about QAnon.
- anonytrary 6y ago
  It's not a bad point, but are you sure this actually hurts Google? I believe Google and Facebook business models are advertising-based, so they strive to maximize the root mean square engagement metrics. People aren't just going to leave YouTube and Facebook et al because there's a bunch of fake news and controversy because: 1. People love that shit. 2. There's no alternative since these companies are ~monopolies that already own all of the network mass.
  - JamisonM 6y ago
    YouTube in particular has been demonetizing channels that they think are harmful to their business for a long time, their behaviour in this instance is consistent with that.
sgustard 6y ago
When I Google "who won the election?" it clearly shows Biden won. Is this equally objectionable behavior by Google?

syndacks 6y ago

You're conflating free speech (government) with a business's decision to monitor their platform (private). These two things are very different. >What's the goal here? To make their platform not full of bullshit. YouTube isn't the government, there is no such thing as the 1st amendment to them, so they cull that which is bad for business.

convery 6y ago
The concept of 'free speech' is not limited to the first amendment. Whether or not the government is involved (which could be argued given that it was requested by politicians while anti-trust issues with Google is a hot topic); is less relevant.
mrmckizzle 6y ago
I would say yes... but these companies have Section 230 protection. At what point can the public have a say in their business? Specifically when these protections were originally given to protect companies from lawsuits due to what people were posting on their platforms?
- polishTar 6y ago
  Corporations also have the first amendment right to include or exclude whatever they want on their own websites. Section 230 just stops people from suing services for the speech of their users, ie you can't sue twitter for anything donald trump tweets even if it's illegal/defamatory/etc. If section 230 didn't exist, then services would become liable for every action their users take on their platforms. I don't understand why people think this would reduce censorship, it'd be the exact opposite. If section 230 wasn't a thing, services would mitigate legal risk by censoring to an unprecedented degree.
  - mrmckizzle 6y ago
    If 230 didn't exist we would have had a different medium for a public commons. These companies have become the commons and are now acting as a publisher in order to influence public debate in a direction they deem fit. Perhaps a solution to S230 is to add a clause that specifically states that the 1st amendment has to be upheld if they wish to be protected?
zucker42 6y ago
> You're conflating free speech (government) with a business's decision to monitor their platform (private). No, he specifically did not conflate those two things. Read his comment again. He said that he understands that Google can censor whatever they like, but doesn't understand why they choose to do so. I'd have to agree, I'm inclined to not trust YouTube as much anymore, even if I believe the content they are censoring is completely crazy in this case. The argument that people conflate state censorship and private censorship has become overused to the point being disingenuous. There are some people who truly don't understand the difference between state and private censorship. But the more intellectually serious argument involves thinking about why we forbid the government from regulating speech. The first reason is that the government is ill-equipped to regulate speech; it's hard for the government to determine which speech is socially beneficial. The second is that it is often better in general to challenge incorrect ideas through rebuttal and education rather than censorship. This harkens back to Mill's argument for free speech. Importantly, the second idea doesn't just argue against government censorship, but private censorship as well. As soon as someone argues that YouTube is wrong to take this action, people start parroting the argument that free speech only applies to government action. But that completely ignores the idea that censorship is just fundamentally the wrong way to combat wrong ideas or ideas you disagree with. And to make matters worse, many commenters also ignore the idea that you are allowed to disagree with a company's actions even if you don't think the government should compel them to act differently. And another problem I see is we're trending toward there being two different groups of social media sites in the U.S., conservative social media and liberal social media sites, and I don't think that portends well to the future of American political discourse. Whether all these ideas are rightly classified as "free speech" issues is a matter of terminology. Perhaps "open discourse" is a more accurate term. I just read an interesting article[1] that discusses this debate and argues it does not involve a fundamental threat to free expression, but nonetheless that it is important. [1] https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/7/22/21325942/free-speech-harpers-letter-bari-weiss-andrew-sullivan https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/7/22/21325942/f...
- mike00632 6y ago
  Google doesn't want to be 4Chan and they are well within their rights to maintain their reputation via censorship, especially given the bad actors they are dealing with.

JamisonM 6y ago

> it's not like Google is going to get in > trouble for allowing people to post about > conspiracy theories Actually it is exactly like that, they see lost revenue coming if they get tagged as the go-to place for misinformation on this topic. They may already be seeing advertisers complaining that no matter how much they try to screen they are still getting complaints of their ads showing up in prerolls for conspiracy videos. So they are making a public show of letting everyone know that they don't want to be in that business and they are doing all they can to stay out of it. If they will do all they can or not, who knows? It is not like they have done all that much about QAnon.

anonytrary 6y ago
It's not a bad point, but are you sure this actually hurts Google? I believe Google and Facebook business models are advertising-based, so they strive to maximize the root mean square engagement metrics. People aren't just going to leave YouTube and Facebook et al because there's a bunch of fake news and controversy because: 1. People love that shit. 2. There's no alternative since these companies are ~monopolies that already own all of the network mass.
- JamisonM 6y ago
  YouTube in particular has been demonetizing channels that they think are harmful to their business for a long time, their behaviour in this instance is consistent with that.

sgustard 6y ago

When I Google "who won the election?" it clearly shows Biden won. Is this equally objectionable behavior by Google?