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Isn't this punishing Youtube for their own success at achieving a dominant market position? They didn't position themselves as the de-facto public square so muc

Isn't this punishing Youtube for their own success at achieving a dominant market position? They didn't position themselves as the de-facto public square so much as became one due to lack of competition.

xdennis 5y ago
> Isn't this punishing Youtube for their own success at achieving a dominant market position? Yes, and that's a good thing because it encourages competition. No market should have a player with such a dominant position.
wizzwizz4 5y ago
YouTube's very “success” is “rewarding”. But to me, it's not a punishment. It's a natural consequence of YouTube's dominant position: they have to start acting like it.
dnate 5y ago
Sure, but it's also the job of the government to oversee the power corporations have and how they wield it. No single corporation should be allowed to actively shape and censor information just because they are successful / a monopoly.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
tjs8rj 5y ago
Yes. Not so much a punishment as a responsibility that comes with the position. The state isn’t special: if you have deep and fundamental influence over the lives of others, you are burdened with certain responsibilities. Who cares if youtube is a private company, and it’s not liking forcing them to respect rights is hurting their pocket book: if you have that much power over people, you are held accountable. This idea that private companies earn special privileges in this regard because they were started by individuals needs to die.
- bobthechef 5y ago
  Absolutely. It isn't collectivism to regulate industries and companies that have enormous power to do good or harm. This idea that private property is unconditionally off limits is radically individualist and libertarian and just as bad as collectivism. We aren't atomized individuals. We all live in a society with a proper order and a common good. When a company begins to do harm to the common good, it must be regulated (or at least certain activities should be criminalized which is probably a better default in general than regulation). The notion that "I can do what I want" as long as it takes place in the private sphere is absurd. The private is distinct from the public, but it also affects the public and vice versa. Thus the presumption is in favor of not regulating private activity, but not an absolute and universally binding one.
  - CamperBob2 5y ago
    The notion that "I can do what I want" as long as it takes place in the private sphere is absurd. So what's your take on Lawrence v. Texas?
    - unethical_ban 5y ago
      Not the OP, but I think "companies" and "individuals" are very different, and discussions around corporate responsibility and society are different from regulating social behavior between two individuals.
      - CamperBob2 5y ago
        So what about regulating it between three individuals? Or four? Or four hundred? At what point does collective social behavior become (y)our concern?
        krastanov 5y ago
        Since when is a mathematical definition necessary for this? Finding the "exact line of separation" between a couple of individuals and a powerful megacorp sounds like a fun mental puzzle, but it is not something that comes up in practice. What is the thought experiment in which finding the exact delineation is of importance? On the other hand, it is pretty easy to distinguish the limiting cases. This is like worrying about how large an asteroid has to be in order to be called a planet.
LegitShady 5y ago
its not punishing youtube its making sure private market forces don't distort speech rights across the entire country, as they are doing in the US. Companies exist to benefit the state and the people. If a company is so successful it distorts rights for everyone and puts fundamental rights at risk, it's not 'punishing' the company even though it might feel like it. It's making sure the conditions that created success for youtube remain in place for future generations - free speech to some degree, competition, etc. I think corporate personhood and corporate rights are a cancer on society and the corporatism/corporate state/fascism-lite that the west is already deep into is destroying the fundamental freedoms in the country. Disney will always have more money than you to argue for their corporate rights against your personal rights. This ruling is wisdom.
bakuninsbart 5y ago
"Punishing" isn't really the right word, although it certainly feels that way from their position. As democratic societies, we've long felt it necessary to restrict and regulate monopolies and oligoplolies. I've recently had to talk to my internet provider, and that certainly increased my citizen's fervor in regulating companies in dominant positions, because every company will immediately turn around to milk/punish consumers, and try to influence politics for their benefit.
mapt 5y ago
Yes. This is antitrust targeted at practical impacts to everyday life rather than at narrowly defined, hard to prove classes of "anticompetitive behavior", which is the route that the US has taken. An attempt at practical antitrust regulation might mean, for example, that if a Walmart replaces every other business in your town through the sheer merit of its business model, that Walmart doesn't get to refuse to do business with you on the grounds that the manager hasn't liked you since high school. It might even mean that you reserve Constitutional rights like assembly/protest within the area that is functionally the public square, which is the private sidewalk in front of the Walmart. I know which approach I would prefer.
dane-pgp 5y ago
> became one due to lack of competition. By phrasing what happened in the passive voice, you are downplaying the fact that Google actively strove to make it hard for new competitors to become established. Of course there still are competitors to YouTube, depending on how we define the market for online video sharing, and Google didn't invent Metcalfe's Law, but nor should they be surprised that it was hard for alternative sites to compete. That is, after all, why they bought YouTube in the first place and discontinued Google Videos.
lhorie 5y ago
The way I interpret it is that wording an agreement in terms of "we can delete whatever for whatever reason" doesn't specify in advance exactly what is fair game and what isn't. This is similar to Rossmann's complaints that NYC shouldn't get to fine a business for an alleged violation if they themselves cannot explain what the rules are in the first place. So ideally if a video is to be taken down, it ought be under a rationale along the lines of "you agreed to not doing [very specific thing] and this video does it, therefore we took it down", not "technically by clicking on a link in our site, you agreed to fine print that says you'll sell us your soul, so suck it"
bostonsre 5y ago
They made an app that has the power to sway public opinion and they reap billions of dollars of profit from it. They can afford the burden that they took. If they want to participate in the economy and society, it seems only logical and right that they are required to not have a detrimental impact on society. We don't allow companies to do whatever they can do when chasing profits. We don't allow companies to pollute however much they want so they can make more money, we don't allow car companies to make death trap cars, etc.
christkv 5y ago
I'm not sure its punishment as long as they keep making their pound of gold. In fact it probably makes it easier for them since they can just say sorry it was x country who made us do it allowing them to deflect any responsibility.
trhway 5y ago
>Isn't this punishing Youtube for their own success at achieving a dominant market position? No, it is just attaching some minimal responsibility to the enormous benefits that YT exploits their dominant market position for.
Sophistifunk 5y ago
> They didn't position themselves as the de-facto public square No, they bought that status by regularly sending dump-trucks full of gold to record labels.

xdennis 5y ago

> Isn't this punishing Youtube for their own success at achieving a dominant market position? Yes, and that's a good thing because it encourages competition. No market should have a player with such a dominant position.

wizzwizz4 5y ago

YouTube's very “success” is “rewarding”. But to me, it's not a punishment. It's a natural consequence of YouTube's dominant position: they have to start acting like it.

dnate 5y ago

Sure, but it's also the job of the government to oversee the power corporations have and how they wield it. No single corporation should be allowed to actively shape and censor information just because they are successful / a monopoly.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

tjs8rj 5y ago

Yes. Not so much a punishment as a responsibility that comes with the position. The state isn’t special: if you have deep and fundamental influence over the lives of others, you are burdened with certain responsibilities. Who cares if youtube is a private company, and it’s not liking forcing them to respect rights is hurting their pocket book: if you have that much power over people, you are held accountable. This idea that private companies earn special privileges in this regard because they were started by individuals needs to die.

bobthechef 5y ago
Absolutely. It isn't collectivism to regulate industries and companies that have enormous power to do good or harm. This idea that private property is unconditionally off limits is radically individualist and libertarian and just as bad as collectivism. We aren't atomized individuals. We all live in a society with a proper order and a common good. When a company begins to do harm to the common good, it must be regulated (or at least certain activities should be criminalized which is probably a better default in general than regulation). The notion that "I can do what I want" as long as it takes place in the private sphere is absurd. The private is distinct from the public, but it also affects the public and vice versa. Thus the presumption is in favor of not regulating private activity, but not an absolute and universally binding one.
- CamperBob2 5y ago
  The notion that "I can do what I want" as long as it takes place in the private sphere is absurd. So what's your take on Lawrence v. Texas?
  - unethical_ban 5y ago
    Not the OP, but I think "companies" and "individuals" are very different, and discussions around corporate responsibility and society are different from regulating social behavior between two individuals.
    - CamperBob2 5y ago
      So what about regulating it between three individuals? Or four? Or four hundred? At what point does collective social behavior become (y)our concern?
      - krastanov 5y ago
        Since when is a mathematical definition necessary for this? Finding the "exact line of separation" between a couple of individuals and a powerful megacorp sounds like a fun mental puzzle, but it is not something that comes up in practice. What is the thought experiment in which finding the exact delineation is of importance? On the other hand, it is pretty easy to distinguish the limiting cases. This is like worrying about how large an asteroid has to be in order to be called a planet.

LegitShady 5y ago

its not punishing youtube its making sure private market forces don't distort speech rights across the entire country, as they are doing in the US. Companies exist to benefit the state and the people. If a company is so successful it distorts rights for everyone and puts fundamental rights at risk, it's not 'punishing' the company even though it might feel like it. It's making sure the conditions that created success for youtube remain in place for future generations - free speech to some degree, competition, etc. I think corporate personhood and corporate rights are a cancer on society and the corporatism/corporate state/fascism-lite that the west is already deep into is destroying the fundamental freedoms in the country. Disney will always have more money than you to argue for their corporate rights against your personal rights. This ruling is wisdom.

bakuninsbart 5y ago

"Punishing" isn't really the right word, although it certainly feels that way from their position. As democratic societies, we've long felt it necessary to restrict and regulate monopolies and oligoplolies. I've recently had to talk to my internet provider, and that certainly increased my citizen's fervor in regulating companies in dominant positions, because every company will immediately turn around to milk/punish consumers, and try to influence politics for their benefit.

mapt 5y ago

Yes. This is antitrust targeted at practical impacts to everyday life rather than at narrowly defined, hard to prove classes of "anticompetitive behavior", which is the route that the US has taken. An attempt at practical antitrust regulation might mean, for example, that if a Walmart replaces every other business in your town through the sheer merit of its business model, that Walmart doesn't get to refuse to do business with you on the grounds that the manager hasn't liked you since high school. It might even mean that you reserve Constitutional rights like assembly/protest within the area that is functionally the public square, which is the private sidewalk in front of the Walmart. I know which approach I would prefer.

dane-pgp 5y ago

> became one due to lack of competition. By phrasing what happened in the passive voice, you are downplaying the fact that Google actively strove to make it hard for new competitors to become established. Of course there still are competitors to YouTube, depending on how we define the market for online video sharing, and Google didn't invent Metcalfe's Law, but nor should they be surprised that it was hard for alternative sites to compete. That is, after all, why they bought YouTube in the first place and discontinued Google Videos.

lhorie 5y ago

The way I interpret it is that wording an agreement in terms of "we can delete whatever for whatever reason" doesn't specify in advance exactly what is fair game and what isn't. This is similar to Rossmann's complaints that NYC shouldn't get to fine a business for an alleged violation if they themselves cannot explain what the rules are in the first place. So ideally if a video is to be taken down, it ought be under a rationale along the lines of "you agreed to not doing [very specific thing] and this video does it, therefore we took it down", not "technically by clicking on a link in our site, you agreed to fine print that says you'll sell us your soul, so suck it"

bostonsre 5y ago

They made an app that has the power to sway public opinion and they reap billions of dollars of profit from it. They can afford the burden that they took. If they want to participate in the economy and society, it seems only logical and right that they are required to not have a detrimental impact on society. We don't allow companies to do whatever they can do when chasing profits. We don't allow companies to pollute however much they want so they can make more money, we don't allow car companies to make death trap cars, etc.

christkv 5y ago

I'm not sure its punishment as long as they keep making their pound of gold. In fact it probably makes it easier for them since they can just say sorry it was x country who made us do it allowing them to deflect any responsibility.

trhway 5y ago

>Isn't this punishing Youtube for their own success at achieving a dominant market position? No, it is just attaching some minimal responsibility to the enormous benefits that YT exploits their dominant market position for.

Sophistifunk 5y ago

> They didn't position themselves as the de-facto public square No, they bought that status by regularly sending dump-trucks full of gold to record labels.