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The cops didn't take down the videos based on copyright. A company did, but, that is apparently acceptable because companies can sensor whoever they please (or
by testesttest 6y ago
The cops didn't take down the videos based on copyright. A company did, but, that is apparently acceptable because companies can sensor whoever they please (or at least that is the common view on hacker news).
- ceejayoz 6y agoThe cops are abusing copyright law in order to violate a citizen’s First Amendment rights. They’ve outsourced the censoring. Censoring is indeed legal if companies do it, but this is functionally State censorship.
- testesttest 6y agoYea, censorship is great if it aligns with your message. Politics have forced big tech to censor a lot as of late.
- ceejayoz 6y agoIt’s not the message that matters. It’s the fact that one is a First Amendment violation, and the other is not. I don’t think a “websites can’t moderate their content” is a good road to go down.
- testesttest 6y agoFacebook, YouTube, Twitter are not just "websites" they are where much of our public discussion happens. If they weren't you would not care that these videos were censored. This story, fake news, the shenanigans around the election, etc has shown they are bad stewards of this responsibility.
- slowmovintarget 6y agoThe police are not abusing law. The bots that do the automatic take-downs are abusing the law. This is not State censorship, because the police are not censoring the videos. People still get to record them, and still get to share them. If they can't be bothered to post somewhere other than Instagram (which is abusing their rights), then the failure to share is on the people doing the posting. There's nothing stopping the people who recorded the videos from sending them to the news media. The recordings are still getting made. They're just being removed by some bot from the Instagram feeds. Shame on Instagram.