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This is all the result of confusing 1st amendment rights with the right to access the audience that gathers at a particular URL. What Taibbi is asking for is t

by olefoo 6y ago

This is all the result of confusing 1st amendment rights with the right to access the audience that gathers at a particular URL. What Taibbi is asking for is that the guy who tells you that drinking rat poison is good for you should be allowed an audience and that even putting a warning alongside the video would be an infringement on his rights. Looking at the comments here I have to conclude that HN is no longer on board critical thinking much less common sense.

CharlesW 6y ago
Yes. I'm heartened to see that someone in this thread understands what rights the First Amendment actually guarantees.
- falcrist 6y ago
  People constantly conflate "freedom of speech" with the protection granted by the first amendment. That's right up to and including Randal Munroe, who said "The right to free speech means the government can't arrest you for what you say" That's not freedom of speech, that's the first amendment protections of freedom of speech... and it doesn't even adequately describe the protections. There are other things the government isn't allowed to do besides arrest you. They can't force you to say something, either. They can't prohibit certain opinions from being expressed in government owned or regulated channels. And freedom of speech can be infringed on or limited by other entities than the government. A better description would be "principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or sanction." This means that if you're forced into silence by threat of retaliation from, say, a religious sect or political group in your area, it's still infringing on your freedom of speech even if they aren't part of the government.
  - amanaplanacanal 6y ago
    Where is the line though? If I disagree with what you say am I allowed to call you an idiot? Am I allowed to no longer associate with you? Those could both be considered retaliation or sanction. And am I required to publish your words even though I disagree with them? That would seem to infringe my freedom of speech.
    - falcrist 6y ago
      You HAVE to make those determinations on a case-by-case basis. Like all freedoms, the freedom of speech is slippery, difficult to define, and has fuzzy boundaries. It can never be absolute, because that would immediately raise contradictions. Where does your freedom end and mine begin? In this particular case, how big does a company need to be before we start forcing it to host content that it doesn't want to host? When is it ok to force someone to provide a universal platform... to tie their hands so they can't moderate as they see fit? Do I have a right to stand on your stage and shout whatever I want at your audience? Do you have a right to buy every stage and then exclude and censor people like me?
- chordalkeyboard 6y ago
  first amendment != freedom of speech
daveidol 6y ago
I must say though that there is a difference between putting a disclaimer next to a video to provide facts/context vs outright banning it from being posted. Yes, it's not directly an issue of the first amendment, but it's still a topic with discussing since sites like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook constitute a lot of where discourse takes place these days.
Analemma_ 6y ago
I remember the days on forums when people screaming "YOU'RE VIOLATING THE FIRST AMENDMENT!!!11" after the admin banned them were treated as the laughable jokes they were. Now there are supposedly serious political thinkers subscribing to this same idea: that the Constitution forces private parties to do business with you against their will. It's a serious lack of civic knowledge.
- d1zzy 6y ago
  I would argue that the right of business to not do business with anyone they don't want to is very much American (regardless if it's right or wrong).
  - 8note 6y ago
    Pretty American,though now it's illegal to keep black people our of your store
  - bird_monster 6y ago
    I posted below, but yes, agreed, a private business managing itself however it deems appropriate is one of the most american things it can do.
- lukifer 6y ago
  It's worth reading Barry Goldwater's opposition [0] to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, despite him claiming to be "unalterably opposed to discrimination or segregation on the basis of race, color, or creed, or on any other basis". His stance was exactly what you describe: that government did not have a right to force private parties to conduct business against their will. There's a good-faith debate to be had about positive rights vs. negative rights; or the potential backlash from forcing individuals to do the right thing; or the usual right-libertarian arguments about the sanctity of property rights. But I'll bet dollars to donuts, that the vast majority of those cheering for tech media giants booting out those with verboten views, based on private property rights, would also be horrified at the idea of even questioning the CRA under the same logic. [0] https://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2014/06/barry-goldwater-declares-that-the-1964-civil-rights-act-is-a-dire-threat-to-the-liberties-of-african-americans-and-will-creat.html https://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2014/06/barry-goldwater-decla...
fennecfoxen 6y ago
> This is all the result of confusing 1st amendment rights with the right to access the audience that gathers at a particular URL. No one is confused. The article mentions neither the First Amendment nor the Constitution. It only calls the matter "un-American." This phrase is clearly a value statement, not some neutral and dispassionate assessment. The line you draw to separate the government from the private sector is quite useful in other contexts, but does not affect the matter before us today. After all, in a democracy (which the Constitution aspires to be) the ideal of free speech itself must proceed from shared cultural values; if those values change enough, we might also expect the First Amendment to be repealed anyway. Of course YouTube of course is not required to represent these purportedly-American values; just as surely, it may be criticized as "un-American" by those promulgating such values. A much more interesting argument would assess the extent to which the values in question are, in fact, American, whether YouTube's choices are more representative (surely there's a case for this) or simply more desirable (I note many here agree with them) -- and whether American (or "American") values can coexist with these YouTube values.
ThoreauBred 6y ago
Justice Scalia, an originalist conservative wrote that none of our Constitutional rights are unlimited. He should be allowed to speak. No one is obliged to listen. Free agency supersedes speech. How is expecting anyone else to sit still any less fascist? Common sense changes in time. It was perfectly common sense 13 colonies belonged to England. It was perfectly common sense God created reality. John Stuart Mill covered this in his writing about town drunks; cannot stop biology. Emit whatever syntax sure. Being owed others to bend their agency to listen or act in accordance with the speech is nonsense.
chordalkeyboard 6y ago
People are making normative arguments, not legal arguments. We are aware that this is legal, just like it used to be legal to discriminate in hiring practices against black people. Taibbi is suggesting that if you can't trust the people not to post error and lies, how can you trust the oligarchs and officials? Especially if your access to alternative perspectives is limited. Read for yourself: >> Cutting down the public’s ability to flip out removes one of the only real checks on the most dangerous kind of fake news, the official lie. Imagine if these mechanisms had been in place in the past. Would we disallow published claims that the Missile Gap was a fake? That the Gulf of Tonkin incident was staged? How about Watergate, a wild theory about cheating in a presidential election that was universally disbelieved by “reputable” news agencies, until it wasn’t? It’s not hard to imagine a future where authorities would ask tech platforms to quell “conspiracy theories” about everything from poisoned water systems to war crimes.
- majormajor 6y ago
  Those with platforms have always had the opportunity to lie to large groups, but extending that ability to every single person seems like an EXTREMELY BAD "solution." Historically there's been a burden of proof for wild claims because it's been hard to get a huge mass audience. And people with those audiences were reluctant to repeat whatever wild bullshit was proposed to them if they couldn't vet it themselves. If you didn't have your own credibility, you had to convince those who did to run your stuff. The cost of this is that it's slower to break things, and some stuff gets missed. Unmoderated internet platforms with algorithmic jumps between otherwise-unconnected publishers let you borrow and hijack other people's credibility and platforms. Why those platforms shouldn't be allowed to have editorial control - given that maintaining a certain reputation will still be critical for their long-term success - is beyond me and seems to have obvious un-American problems (infringement on their own private rights). The trade-off being desired also seems fundamentally bad. More people being misled more quickly seems like a worse situation than slower breaking of news and the ability to suppress some stories, given that we were still able to break those stories you mention in the past. (Of course, I don't know what else might have been more widely reported in the past... I'm having to rely on a "we didn't feel like we were living in a totalitarian dystopia in the 60s-through-80s" assumption.)
galgalesh 6y ago
The first amendment right only bans the government from infringing on free speech. It doesn't say anything about private corporations. There are many practices by US companies concerning free speech that would be illegal in European countries. Many European countries recognize freedom of speech as a basic right that everyone needs to respect; Neither the government, companies nor individuals can infringe on this. However, these freedom of speech laws often exclude certain kinds of speech and governments have some power in defining these exclusions. This distinction is what makes censorship such a big issue in the US. When censorship is dictated by an elected government, the people have some power over it. When censorship is dictated by a private company the size of Google, people have very little power over it. The US constitution seems to be mainly about limiting the power of government, not about protecting people and society. As a result, companies have a lot more power and you get unaccountable decisions about what should be censored and what not. Don't get me wrong, I think censorship is necessary, but you have to admit that there is a real danger when companies are in charge of it.
belorn 6y ago
Is it legal in the US to encourage people to jump in front of a train? If the answer is no then telling people to drink rat poison is illegal. The legal system has the power to punish the uploader, and youtube can remove it just as it do with copyright infringements. If the answer is yes then I would suggest to change the law. Pushing people to drink rat poison sound awful close to harassment, which is just the kind of speech which the 1st amendment do not protect.
- 1cvmask 6y ago
  What if politicians do stunts and tell you to drink water poisoned with lead like in Flint, Michigan? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2ZynkD3N_k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2ZynkD3N_k Should we censor them? Or perhaps just put up a warning sign that not everything on the Internet - like the physical world - is worth believing? Where do the guardrails end and censorship begin?
  - belorn 6y ago
    If you have a law and a politician seems to be breaking it, then the usual answer is to have a prosecutor to look into it. Politician also have what is called a position of trust, so in addition to legal enforcement there could also be a vote at that political level to remove said politician. In addition, I would imagine that encouraging people to drink water poisoned with lead can put that politician in legal liability if anyone got sick. I will add that the US has a odd legal system which potentially give the president permission to ignore laws. The best way to fix that is to remove that exclusive protection, and if its a constitutional problem, fix the constitution.
- tick_tock_tick 6y ago
  > Is it legal in the US to encourage people to jump in front of a train? Yes
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    Some judicial venues say no: “A Massachusetts woman [Michelle Carter] who sent her suicidal boyfriend a barrage of text messages urging him to kill himself was jailed Monday on an involuntary manslaughter conviction nearly five years after he died in a truck filled with toxic gas.” She appealed to the Massachusetts Supreme Court, and the conviction was upheld (unanimously). https://apnews.com/article/320866bd419a49c8a82b55e39390f2c8 https://apnews.com/article/320866bd419a49c8a82b55e39390f2c8
JPKab 6y ago
Looking at your comment, I have to conclude that you think you are smarter than 95% of the population and that they need to be treated like children. You aren't dumb enough to drink rat poison if you see a video telling you to do so, and therefore don't need this protection, but not others. No sir, the little people are too dumb, and need to be protected, guided, and fed a diet of information curated by people like you. The paternalism is as disgusting as it is arrogant. Your kind of thinking is what created the War on Drugs. And you aren't even self-aware enough to realize it.
old-gregg 6y ago
> What Taibbi is asking for is that the guy who tells you that drinking rat poison is good for you No. That is not what Taibbi is saying. He articulated his point extremely well, he doesn't need your help with convoluted interpretations. You twisted his words sideways and upside down, then built irrelevant conclusions on top of your own nonsense, and diverted the discussion from the PROBLEM the original article was written about to your own misguided statement which bears no resemblance to Matt's argument. > HN is no longer on board critical thinking Indeed, otherwise your comment wouldn't be on top.
grbgecllctr 6y ago
I'm struggling to understand the 1st amendment doesn't apply to private companies argument. Are you saying that Google, under its own volition, independently of the democratic party decided it was their ethical or patriotic duty to take this action? This is the company that built the platform that amplifies crazy ideas (many crazier than this) to hundreds a millions of people for profit. It's also well know that there's a revolving door between google and democrat administrations and campaigns. Or are you acknowledging that google and the DNC have a symbiotic relationship and that this is a valid loophole that the government can use to censor people?
- Talanes 6y ago
  You can't just say "It's well known" and then throw out some new conspiracy theory that I've never seen before. You're not even to the "most people are familiar with your theory" part yet, much less the "I can act like everyone else thinks this is true, but won't admit it" part. Build up your brand a little first.
- blueblob 6y ago
  You bring up the Democratic Party as if everyone who disagrees with you must always be a part of the exact opposition and you come across as a conspiracy theorist because of it. It really doesn't seem to be the world's most unsurprising thing that among two possible conclusions people could be on opposite sides without being brainwashed. It's almost like the binomial distribution exists for something like this.
dathinab 6y ago
> What Taibbi is asking for is that the guy who tells you that drinking rat poison is good for you should be allowed an audience He should, it's the basis of democracy. Sure rat poison is a bad example, but thinks are much less clear cut if we speak about other things, including covid19. So putting up warnings about this problems (potential more then just a subtle note at the side) is reasonable removing it is much less so (as long as they don't e.g. tell people to go on the street and kill all politicans or similar bs.). I mean you start with removing 100% clear bs. misinformation. Then you remove misinformation which contains some truth (it's still misinformation). And before you notice unpleasant opinions are removed to (like e.g. the CIA having had similarities to a terrorist organization in the past, factual right but misguiding). EDIT: Oh and if you tell people to dink rat poison and they do you should be held responsible for tricking people into killing them-self, still that's not the same as censoring the content. ------------ An example from Germany is that there is a very mixed movement called Querdenker. It clearly contains right radicals, nazies, covid denies, q-anon believers etc. BUT a non small part of the core movement are neither of this but people which believe in covid, believe it's bad. But also believe that the decisions done by the German government do more harm then good. But they get frequently denounced and grouped with all the problematic groups from before. Which has all kinds of problematic consequences (including making this people being more susceptible to manipulation from the problematic groups). Now removing (some of) the information sources of this people instead of adding information enlighten them about what is wrong with the information is only making it only worse. Furthermore you can't censor them as this will just push them to other information platforms and if you continue to censor again and again you will end up with a censorship system no less powerfull then chinas... which I believe no one would want in a democracy. So I believe we will have to learn how to handle such information _without_ censoring information we believe is wrong/misguiding.
- dragontamer 6y ago
  > He should, it's the basis of democracy. Do you support the election that happened on November 3rd 2020? Then you must support the results of the election, whether you like the election results, or not. THAT is the basis of Democracy: the peaceful transfer of power based on the votes. If you do not respect the votes, then Democracy falls apart. You literally cannot have a Democracy without votes (while we had a Democracy through WW2 despite the "Office of Censorship"). We have a very, very large group of people who are now using free speech to destroy our trust in the election. We are now left with a decision: Free Speech vs Election. My gut says that elections are more important than free speech. Historically, we have had times without any free speech what-so-ever (WWII / Office of Censorship). Its a luxury we can do without in times of crisis. We cannot afford to lose faith in the election process. Period.
justwalt 6y ago
I think this opinion is short sighted, because it assumes that we can trust Youtube (or other governing body) to rightfully and honestly decide which content is worth deplatforming. Isn't this idea central to the concept of freedom of speech?
zucker42 6y ago
The words "free speech" and "1st amendment" are never used in the article. "Free press" is used only in passing. As far as I can tell, your mention of the 1st amendment is a complete non sequitur, and you are the only one doing the confusing. The question is whether what YouTube is doing is good for society, and Matt Taibbi says no. He's criticizing YouTube for doing something he thinks is bad, since public criticism is sometimes effective at altering corporate actions. It's pretty annoying that so many people try to sidestep this topic by saying that the first amendment does not prevent private censorship. Pretty much everyone agrees with that. And denigrating people you disagree with is unnecessarily inflammatory.
deleted 6y ago
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octokatt 6y ago
I'm guessing there's a lot more deliberate troll farming hitting HN, and threads like this (and how far up this incoherent rant of a post went up the list) lend credit to that.
- dboreham 6y ago
  Certainly feels like that's the case. However, there are also a large number of nutty people in the US and some of them may be posting here.
- lawnchair_larry 6y ago
  There isn’t.
justinzollars 6y ago
> Looking at the comments here I have to conclude that HN is no longer on board critical thinking much less common sense. The book burners are running the show. And the complaints you see on hackernews are just people with no power or influence complaining about the censorship you support. Seems like a decision was already made by people much more powerful than us, and this is the path we are on. Free speech and freedom of the press are over. America is done. Nothing special about this place anymore.
- amanaplanacanal 6y ago
  > Free speech and freedom of the press are over. America is done. Nothing special about this place anymore. Given that you can still say and print pretty much anything you want, I'd say this is a little over the top.
thorough 6y ago
I think the conversation is just a little more sophisticated than you imagine it to be. And you can be generally in favor of free speech (!= the First Amendment) without accepting its more extreme interpretations. I mean, I'm guessing that you personally are too if you are like most people. For example, most of us would think that YT shouldn't censor either of two people saying (respectively) "Trump was elected in 2016 as a result of Russian disinformation" and "Trump was not elected in 2016 as a result of Russian disinformation." The interesting question here is, "What speech should a privately-owned forum allow that its owners disagree with?"
cratermoon 6y ago
"They recast what reason does — winnowing wheat from chaff — as an act of censorship." https://logicmag.io/play/u-mad/ https://logicmag.io/play/u-mad/
wkjenjkwenf 6y ago
Not a single word in the article hints towards the 1st amendment. I suggest reading the article before acting all high-and-mighty about your "common sense."
deleted 6y ago
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seppin 6y ago
> Taibbi Also this guy is not the same author some might have known a few years ago, he himself has been relegated to the regressive left Glenn Greenwald corner of the internet. Take his narrative with the proper grain of salt.
- zucker42 6y ago
  Why do you consider them part of the "regressive left"? Is it because you think they've behaved unethically, or are they hopelessly biased, or do you just disagree with them, or some other reason?
  - seppin 6y ago
    They consider Trump less a threat than mainstream democratic politicians, who they consider to be "traitors". That's why they are all appearing on right wing media, a shared enemy.
    - zucker42 6y ago
      First, I looked up the term "regressive left" and you might want to know your use of the term doesn't match its general usage, which might make it confusing. Secondly, I think you're doing yourself a disservice if you dismiss these voices and are critical of them but not the mainstream pro-Democrat press. Ryan Taibbi, for example, clearly dislikes Trump, but also thinks the Democrats aren't responding to him well[1], which is an interesting perspective to understand if you are anti-Trump. If you are a liberal who fails to incorporate or understand even the criticisms of people who are close to being your allies, you may be less equipped to properly combat Trumpism. Basically, it sounds to me like you are advocating ignoring these people because you disagree with them, which doesn't strike me as the best way to rigorously improve one's political perspective. [1] https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-trump-era-sucks-and-needs-to https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-trump-era-sucks-and-needs-...
- brandonmenc 6y ago
  > he himself has been relegated to the regressive left Glenn Greenwald corner of the internet. "Excommunicated" is the word you're looking for.
lliamander 6y ago
In case you didn't know, Warfarin, a heart medication, is also used as a rat poison. A guy telling people they should drink genuinely harmful poison is of course bad, but by analogy I would say many of us are concerned that YouTube's current trajectory would result in banning important information about the health benefits of Warfarin in their crude attempt to stop the people from taking the bad sorts of rat poison.

by olefoo 6y ago

CharlesW 6y ago

Yes. I'm heartened to see that someone in this thread understands what rights the First Amendment actually guarantees.

falcrist 6y ago
People constantly conflate "freedom of speech" with the protection granted by the first amendment. That's right up to and including Randal Munroe, who said "The right to free speech means the government can't arrest you for what you say" That's not freedom of speech, that's the first amendment protections of freedom of speech... and it doesn't even adequately describe the protections. There are other things the government isn't allowed to do besides arrest you. They can't force you to say something, either. They can't prohibit certain opinions from being expressed in government owned or regulated channels. And freedom of speech can be infringed on or limited by other entities than the government. A better description would be "principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or sanction." This means that if you're forced into silence by threat of retaliation from, say, a religious sect or political group in your area, it's still infringing on your freedom of speech even if they aren't part of the government.
- amanaplanacanal 6y ago
  Where is the line though? If I disagree with what you say am I allowed to call you an idiot? Am I allowed to no longer associate with you? Those could both be considered retaliation or sanction. And am I required to publish your words even though I disagree with them? That would seem to infringe my freedom of speech.
  - falcrist 6y ago
    You HAVE to make those determinations on a case-by-case basis. Like all freedoms, the freedom of speech is slippery, difficult to define, and has fuzzy boundaries. It can never be absolute, because that would immediately raise contradictions. Where does your freedom end and mine begin? In this particular case, how big does a company need to be before we start forcing it to host content that it doesn't want to host? When is it ok to force someone to provide a universal platform... to tie their hands so they can't moderate as they see fit? Do I have a right to stand on your stage and shout whatever I want at your audience? Do you have a right to buy every stage and then exclude and censor people like me?
chordalkeyboard 6y ago
first amendment != freedom of speech

daveidol 6y ago

I must say though that there is a difference between putting a disclaimer next to a video to provide facts/context vs outright banning it from being posted. Yes, it's not directly an issue of the first amendment, but it's still a topic with discussing since sites like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook constitute a lot of where discourse takes place these days.

Analemma_ 6y ago

I remember the days on forums when people screaming "YOU'RE VIOLATING THE FIRST AMENDMENT!!!11" after the admin banned them were treated as the laughable jokes they were. Now there are supposedly serious political thinkers subscribing to this same idea: that the Constitution forces private parties to do business with you against their will. It's a serious lack of civic knowledge.

d1zzy 6y ago
I would argue that the right of business to not do business with anyone they don't want to is very much American (regardless if it's right or wrong).
- 8note 6y ago
  Pretty American,though now it's illegal to keep black people our of your store
- bird_monster 6y ago
  I posted below, but yes, agreed, a private business managing itself however it deems appropriate is one of the most american things it can do.
lukifer 6y ago
It's worth reading Barry Goldwater's opposition [0] to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, despite him claiming to be "unalterably opposed to discrimination or segregation on the basis of race, color, or creed, or on any other basis". His stance was exactly what you describe: that government did not have a right to force private parties to conduct business against their will. There's a good-faith debate to be had about positive rights vs. negative rights; or the potential backlash from forcing individuals to do the right thing; or the usual right-libertarian arguments about the sanctity of property rights. But I'll bet dollars to donuts, that the vast majority of those cheering for tech media giants booting out those with verboten views, based on private property rights, would also be horrified at the idea of even questioning the CRA under the same logic. [0] https://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2014/06/barry-goldwater-declares-that-the-1964-civil-rights-act-is-a-dire-threat-to-the-liberties-of-african-americans-and-will-creat.html https://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2014/06/barry-goldwater-decla...

fennecfoxen 6y ago

> This is all the result of confusing 1st amendment rights with the right to access the audience that gathers at a particular URL. No one is confused. The article mentions neither the First Amendment nor the Constitution. It only calls the matter "un-American." This phrase is clearly a value statement, not some neutral and dispassionate assessment. The line you draw to separate the government from the private sector is quite useful in other contexts, but does not affect the matter before us today. After all, in a democracy (which the Constitution aspires to be) the ideal of free speech itself must proceed from shared cultural values; if those values change enough, we might also expect the First Amendment to be repealed anyway. Of course YouTube of course is not required to represent these purportedly-American values; just as surely, it may be criticized as "un-American" by those promulgating such values. A much more interesting argument would assess the extent to which the values in question are, in fact, American, whether YouTube's choices are more representative (surely there's a case for this) or simply more desirable (I note many here agree with them) -- and whether American (or "American") values can coexist with these YouTube values.

ThoreauBred 6y ago

Justice Scalia, an originalist conservative wrote that none of our Constitutional rights are unlimited. He should be allowed to speak. No one is obliged to listen. Free agency supersedes speech. How is expecting anyone else to sit still any less fascist? Common sense changes in time. It was perfectly common sense 13 colonies belonged to England. It was perfectly common sense God created reality. John Stuart Mill covered this in his writing about town drunks; cannot stop biology. Emit whatever syntax sure. Being owed others to bend their agency to listen or act in accordance with the speech is nonsense.

chordalkeyboard 6y ago

People are making normative arguments, not legal arguments. We are aware that this is legal, just like it used to be legal to discriminate in hiring practices against black people. Taibbi is suggesting that if you can't trust the people not to post error and lies, how can you trust the oligarchs and officials? Especially if your access to alternative perspectives is limited. Read for yourself: >> Cutting down the public’s ability to flip out removes one of the only real checks on the most dangerous kind of fake news, the official lie. Imagine if these mechanisms had been in place in the past. Would we disallow published claims that the Missile Gap was a fake? That the Gulf of Tonkin incident was staged? How about Watergate, a wild theory about cheating in a presidential election that was universally disbelieved by “reputable” news agencies, until it wasn’t? It’s not hard to imagine a future where authorities would ask tech platforms to quell “conspiracy theories” about everything from poisoned water systems to war crimes.

majormajor 6y ago
Those with platforms have always had the opportunity to lie to large groups, but extending that ability to every single person seems like an EXTREMELY BAD "solution." Historically there's been a burden of proof for wild claims because it's been hard to get a huge mass audience. And people with those audiences were reluctant to repeat whatever wild bullshit was proposed to them if they couldn't vet it themselves. If you didn't have your own credibility, you had to convince those who did to run your stuff. The cost of this is that it's slower to break things, and some stuff gets missed. Unmoderated internet platforms with algorithmic jumps between otherwise-unconnected publishers let you borrow and hijack other people's credibility and platforms. Why those platforms shouldn't be allowed to have editorial control - given that maintaining a certain reputation will still be critical for their long-term success - is beyond me and seems to have obvious un-American problems (infringement on their own private rights). The trade-off being desired also seems fundamentally bad. More people being misled more quickly seems like a worse situation than slower breaking of news and the ability to suppress some stories, given that we were still able to break those stories you mention in the past. (Of course, I don't know what else might have been more widely reported in the past... I'm having to rely on a "we didn't feel like we were living in a totalitarian dystopia in the 60s-through-80s" assumption.)

galgalesh 6y ago

The first amendment right only bans the government from infringing on free speech. It doesn't say anything about private corporations. There are many practices by US companies concerning free speech that would be illegal in European countries. Many European countries recognize freedom of speech as a basic right that everyone needs to respect; Neither the government, companies nor individuals can infringe on this. However, these freedom of speech laws often exclude certain kinds of speech and governments have some power in defining these exclusions. This distinction is what makes censorship such a big issue in the US. When censorship is dictated by an elected government, the people have some power over it. When censorship is dictated by a private company the size of Google, people have very little power over it. The US constitution seems to be mainly about limiting the power of government, not about protecting people and society. As a result, companies have a lot more power and you get unaccountable decisions about what should be censored and what not. Don't get me wrong, I think censorship is necessary, but you have to admit that there is a real danger when companies are in charge of it.

belorn 6y ago

Is it legal in the US to encourage people to jump in front of a train? If the answer is no then telling people to drink rat poison is illegal. The legal system has the power to punish the uploader, and youtube can remove it just as it do with copyright infringements. If the answer is yes then I would suggest to change the law. Pushing people to drink rat poison sound awful close to harassment, which is just the kind of speech which the 1st amendment do not protect.

1cvmask 6y ago
What if politicians do stunts and tell you to drink water poisoned with lead like in Flint, Michigan? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2ZynkD3N_k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2ZynkD3N_k Should we censor them? Or perhaps just put up a warning sign that not everything on the Internet - like the physical world - is worth believing? Where do the guardrails end and censorship begin?
- belorn 6y ago
  If you have a law and a politician seems to be breaking it, then the usual answer is to have a prosecutor to look into it. Politician also have what is called a position of trust, so in addition to legal enforcement there could also be a vote at that political level to remove said politician. In addition, I would imagine that encouraging people to drink water poisoned with lead can put that politician in legal liability if anyone got sick. I will add that the US has a odd legal system which potentially give the president permission to ignore laws. The best way to fix that is to remove that exclusive protection, and if its a constitutional problem, fix the constitution.
tick_tock_tick 6y ago
> Is it legal in the US to encourage people to jump in front of a train? Yes
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Some judicial venues say no: “A Massachusetts woman [Michelle Carter] who sent her suicidal boyfriend a barrage of text messages urging him to kill himself was jailed Monday on an involuntary manslaughter conviction nearly five years after he died in a truck filled with toxic gas.” She appealed to the Massachusetts Supreme Court, and the conviction was upheld (unanimously). https://apnews.com/article/320866bd419a49c8a82b55e39390f2c8 https://apnews.com/article/320866bd419a49c8a82b55e39390f2c8

JPKab 6y ago

Looking at your comment, I have to conclude that you think you are smarter than 95% of the population and that they need to be treated like children. You aren't dumb enough to drink rat poison if you see a video telling you to do so, and therefore don't need this protection, but not others. No sir, the little people are too dumb, and need to be protected, guided, and fed a diet of information curated by people like you. The paternalism is as disgusting as it is arrogant. Your kind of thinking is what created the War on Drugs. And you aren't even self-aware enough to realize it.

old-gregg 6y ago

> What Taibbi is asking for is that the guy who tells you that drinking rat poison is good for you No. That is not what Taibbi is saying. He articulated his point extremely well, he doesn't need your help with convoluted interpretations. You twisted his words sideways and upside down, then built irrelevant conclusions on top of your own nonsense, and diverted the discussion from the PROBLEM the original article was written about to your own misguided statement which bears no resemblance to Matt's argument. > HN is no longer on board critical thinking Indeed, otherwise your comment wouldn't be on top.

grbgecllctr 6y ago

I'm struggling to understand the 1st amendment doesn't apply to private companies argument. Are you saying that Google, under its own volition, independently of the democratic party decided it was their ethical or patriotic duty to take this action? This is the company that built the platform that amplifies crazy ideas (many crazier than this) to hundreds a millions of people for profit. It's also well know that there's a revolving door between google and democrat administrations and campaigns. Or are you acknowledging that google and the DNC have a symbiotic relationship and that this is a valid loophole that the government can use to censor people?

Talanes 6y ago
You can't just say "It's well known" and then throw out some new conspiracy theory that I've never seen before. You're not even to the "most people are familiar with your theory" part yet, much less the "I can act like everyone else thinks this is true, but won't admit it" part. Build up your brand a little first.
blueblob 6y ago
You bring up the Democratic Party as if everyone who disagrees with you must always be a part of the exact opposition and you come across as a conspiracy theorist because of it. It really doesn't seem to be the world's most unsurprising thing that among two possible conclusions people could be on opposite sides without being brainwashed. It's almost like the binomial distribution exists for something like this.

dathinab 6y ago

> What Taibbi is asking for is that the guy who tells you that drinking rat poison is good for you should be allowed an audience He should, it's the basis of democracy. Sure rat poison is a bad example, but thinks are much less clear cut if we speak about other things, including covid19. So putting up warnings about this problems (potential more then just a subtle note at the side) is reasonable removing it is much less so (as long as they don't e.g. tell people to go on the street and kill all politicans or similar bs.). I mean you start with removing 100% clear bs. misinformation. Then you remove misinformation which contains some truth (it's still misinformation). And before you notice unpleasant opinions are removed to (like e.g. the CIA having had similarities to a terrorist organization in the past, factual right but misguiding). EDIT: Oh and if you tell people to dink rat poison and they do you should be held responsible for tricking people into killing them-self, still that's not the same as censoring the content. ------------ An example from Germany is that there is a very mixed movement called Querdenker. It clearly contains right radicals, nazies, covid denies, q-anon believers etc. BUT a non small part of the core movement are neither of this but people which believe in covid, believe it's bad. But also believe that the decisions done by the German government do more harm then good. But they get frequently denounced and grouped with all the problematic groups from before. Which has all kinds of problematic consequences (including making this people being more susceptible to manipulation from the problematic groups). Now removing (some of) the information sources of this people instead of adding information enlighten them about what is wrong with the information is only making it only worse. Furthermore you can't censor them as this will just push them to other information platforms and if you continue to censor again and again you will end up with a censorship system no less powerfull then chinas... which I believe no one would want in a democracy. So I believe we will have to learn how to handle such information _without_ censoring information we believe is wrong/misguiding.

dragontamer 6y ago
> He should, it's the basis of democracy. Do you support the election that happened on November 3rd 2020? Then you must support the results of the election, whether you like the election results, or not. THAT is the basis of Democracy: the peaceful transfer of power based on the votes. If you do not respect the votes, then Democracy falls apart. You literally cannot have a Democracy without votes (while we had a Democracy through WW2 despite the "Office of Censorship"). We have a very, very large group of people who are now using free speech to destroy our trust in the election. We are now left with a decision: Free Speech vs Election. My gut says that elections are more important than free speech. Historically, we have had times without any free speech what-so-ever (WWII / Office of Censorship). Its a luxury we can do without in times of crisis. We cannot afford to lose faith in the election process. Period.

justwalt 6y ago

I think this opinion is short sighted, because it assumes that we can trust Youtube (or other governing body) to rightfully and honestly decide which content is worth deplatforming. Isn't this idea central to the concept of freedom of speech?

zucker42 6y ago

The words "free speech" and "1st amendment" are never used in the article. "Free press" is used only in passing. As far as I can tell, your mention of the 1st amendment is a complete non sequitur, and you are the only one doing the confusing. The question is whether what YouTube is doing is good for society, and Matt Taibbi says no. He's criticizing YouTube for doing something he thinks is bad, since public criticism is sometimes effective at altering corporate actions. It's pretty annoying that so many people try to sidestep this topic by saying that the first amendment does not prevent private censorship. Pretty much everyone agrees with that. And denigrating people you disagree with is unnecessarily inflammatory.

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octokatt 6y ago

I'm guessing there's a lot more deliberate troll farming hitting HN, and threads like this (and how far up this incoherent rant of a post went up the list) lend credit to that.

dboreham 6y ago
Certainly feels like that's the case. However, there are also a large number of nutty people in the US and some of them may be posting here.
lawnchair_larry 6y ago
There isn’t.

justinzollars 6y ago

> Looking at the comments here I have to conclude that HN is no longer on board critical thinking much less common sense. The book burners are running the show. And the complaints you see on hackernews are just people with no power or influence complaining about the censorship you support. Seems like a decision was already made by people much more powerful than us, and this is the path we are on. Free speech and freedom of the press are over. America is done. Nothing special about this place anymore.

amanaplanacanal 6y ago
> Free speech and freedom of the press are over. America is done. Nothing special about this place anymore. Given that you can still say and print pretty much anything you want, I'd say this is a little over the top.

thorough 6y ago

I think the conversation is just a little more sophisticated than you imagine it to be. And you can be generally in favor of free speech (!= the First Amendment) without accepting its more extreme interpretations. I mean, I'm guessing that you personally are too if you are like most people. For example, most of us would think that YT shouldn't censor either of two people saying (respectively) "Trump was elected in 2016 as a result of Russian disinformation" and "Trump was not elected in 2016 as a result of Russian disinformation." The interesting question here is, "What speech should a privately-owned forum allow that its owners disagree with?"

cratermoon 6y ago

"They recast what reason does — winnowing wheat from chaff — as an act of censorship." https://logicmag.io/play/u-mad/ https://logicmag.io/play/u-mad/

wkjenjkwenf 6y ago

Not a single word in the article hints towards the 1st amendment. I suggest reading the article before acting all high-and-mighty about your "common sense."

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seppin 6y ago

> Taibbi Also this guy is not the same author some might have known a few years ago, he himself has been relegated to the regressive left Glenn Greenwald corner of the internet. Take his narrative with the proper grain of salt.

zucker42 6y ago
Why do you consider them part of the "regressive left"? Is it because you think they've behaved unethically, or are they hopelessly biased, or do you just disagree with them, or some other reason?
- seppin 6y ago
  They consider Trump less a threat than mainstream democratic politicians, who they consider to be "traitors". That's why they are all appearing on right wing media, a shared enemy.
  - zucker42 6y ago
    First, I looked up the term "regressive left" and you might want to know your use of the term doesn't match its general usage, which might make it confusing. Secondly, I think you're doing yourself a disservice if you dismiss these voices and are critical of them but not the mainstream pro-Democrat press. Ryan Taibbi, for example, clearly dislikes Trump, but also thinks the Democrats aren't responding to him well[1], which is an interesting perspective to understand if you are anti-Trump. If you are a liberal who fails to incorporate or understand even the criticisms of people who are close to being your allies, you may be less equipped to properly combat Trumpism. Basically, it sounds to me like you are advocating ignoring these people because you disagree with them, which doesn't strike me as the best way to rigorously improve one's political perspective. [1] https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-trump-era-sucks-and-needs-to https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-trump-era-sucks-and-needs-...
brandonmenc 6y ago
> he himself has been relegated to the regressive left Glenn Greenwald corner of the internet. "Excommunicated" is the word you're looking for.

lliamander 6y ago

In case you didn't know, Warfarin, a heart medication, is also used as a rat poison. A guy telling people they should drink genuinely harmful poison is of course bad, but by analogy I would say many of us are concerned that YouTube's current trajectory would result in banning important information about the health benefits of Warfarin in their crude attempt to stop the people from taking the bad sorts of rat poison.