29 ms·

This might seem extreme, but I think we should allow people to make up their own minds about what is truth and what is not. They are very clear cases for censor

This might seem extreme, but I think we should allow people to make up their own minds about what is truth and what is not. They are very clear cases for censorship (direct threats of violence for example) but Questioning the outcome of an election should not be one of them. Somehow we’ve allowed corporations to be the arbiters of truth in this nation, enter control the reins of communication.

stonogo 6y ago
Questioning the outcome of an election is universally agreed to be perfectly acceptable. This is why we have a wide variety of opportunities for public participation and observation. Filing dozens outlandish lawsuits is certainly a way to demonstrate fealty to the administration, but as we're seeing, it's not particularly productive. Funding propaganda efforts to exploit people's ignorance in pursuit of undermining public confidence in the electoral process is shitty behavior at best and sedition at worst. Conflating all of these and describing them all as 'questioning the outcome' is unlikely to change anyone's mind about any of it, but it does serve to highlight a profound lack of understanding about how elections work. In my youth we had the FCC fairness doctrine to prevent corporate media from descending into polemics, but that rule was removed in the 80's, and then the FCC abdicated oversight of internet content in general, so I'm not sure how any of this is supposed to be fixed at this point.
charonn0 6y ago
Allowing people to make up their own minds doesn't mean you have to provide a platform for views you don't share.
- thorough 6y ago
  How would you suggest a company like YT can "allow people to make up their own minds" about an issue if they do not "provide a platform for views" of that issue that they "don't share"? Unless you are just making the point that YT censorship is more acceptable than government censorship (which I think everyone agrees with), then I'm not sure how you can have your cake and eat it to here.
  - charonn0 6y ago
    I'm saying it's not censorship at all. Being denied by your preferred publisher is not the same as being prevented from publishing.
    - thorough 6y ago
      Right. The actor matters a huge amount. We all agree on that. But if you run a forum and say you will not allow any view to be expressed therein that you don't agree with, you aren't in fact "allowing people to make up their own minds"---unless by "allowing people" you just mean not actively harming them for expressing views in other places, or something equally wild. Another way of saying it is that no one would say you are "tolerant" if you only "tolerate" behavior you agree with.
      - togs 6y ago
        > But if you run a forum and say you will not allow any view to be expressed therein that you don't agree with, you aren't in fact "allowing people to make up their own minds" I think you're missing their argument. YouTube censoring doesn't prevent information from being published elsewhere.
        thorough 6y ago
        Yeah, I've definitely grasped their argument, which became clear once they clarified that "allowing people to make up their minds" doesn't mean "allowing content the owners disagree with" but rather "we won't try to criminalize this speech on other platforms." After all, if I were a publisher who refused to publish books with a certain viewpoint, in what other way could I say I (as opposed to the government, say, or the publishing industry as a whole) am "allowing people to make up their minds"? (Sidenote: I do think YouTube and other corporate-run forums like that would welcome some regulation in the area, for two reasons: (1) they'd no longer be blamed for how they decide difficult content questions, and (2) it might make it more difficult for small startups to disrupt this space by increasing the legal barriers to entry.)
- deleted 6y ago
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stonogo 6y ago

Questioning the outcome of an election is universally agreed to be perfectly acceptable. This is why we have a wide variety of opportunities for public participation and observation. Filing dozens outlandish lawsuits is certainly a way to demonstrate fealty to the administration, but as we're seeing, it's not particularly productive. Funding propaganda efforts to exploit people's ignorance in pursuit of undermining public confidence in the electoral process is shitty behavior at best and sedition at worst. Conflating all of these and describing them all as 'questioning the outcome' is unlikely to change anyone's mind about any of it, but it does serve to highlight a profound lack of understanding about how elections work. In my youth we had the FCC fairness doctrine to prevent corporate media from descending into polemics, but that rule was removed in the 80's, and then the FCC abdicated oversight of internet content in general, so I'm not sure how any of this is supposed to be fixed at this point.

charonn0 6y ago

Allowing people to make up their own minds doesn't mean you have to provide a platform for views you don't share.

thorough 6y ago
How would you suggest a company like YT can "allow people to make up their own minds" about an issue if they do not "provide a platform for views" of that issue that they "don't share"? Unless you are just making the point that YT censorship is more acceptable than government censorship (which I think everyone agrees with), then I'm not sure how you can have your cake and eat it to here.
- charonn0 6y ago
  I'm saying it's not censorship at all. Being denied by your preferred publisher is not the same as being prevented from publishing.
  - thorough 6y ago
    Right. The actor matters a huge amount. We all agree on that. But if you run a forum and say you will not allow any view to be expressed therein that you don't agree with, you aren't in fact "allowing people to make up their own minds"---unless by "allowing people" you just mean not actively harming them for expressing views in other places, or something equally wild. Another way of saying it is that no one would say you are "tolerant" if you only "tolerate" behavior you agree with.
    - togs 6y ago
      > But if you run a forum and say you will not allow any view to be expressed therein that you don't agree with, you aren't in fact "allowing people to make up their own minds" I think you're missing their argument. YouTube censoring doesn't prevent information from being published elsewhere.
      - thorough 6y ago
        Yeah, I've definitely grasped their argument, which became clear once they clarified that "allowing people to make up their minds" doesn't mean "allowing content the owners disagree with" but rather "we won't try to criminalize this speech on other platforms." After all, if I were a publisher who refused to publish books with a certain viewpoint, in what other way could I say I (as opposed to the government, say, or the publishing industry as a whole) am "allowing people to make up their minds"? (Sidenote: I do think YouTube and other corporate-run forums like that would welcome some regulation in the area, for two reasons: (1) they'd no longer be blamed for how they decide difficult content questions, and (2) it might make it more difficult for small startups to disrupt this space by increasing the legal barriers to entry.)
deleted 6y ago
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