7 ms·

YouTube deletes “lawsuit against vaccine passport” press conference video

127 points by noxer 5y ago

securitycodez 5y ago
youtube is filled with left-wing authoritarians
- securitycodez 5y ago
  Oh, was truth spoken? I know the Ministry of Truth has banned actual truth.
johncearls 5y ago
The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.... - Noam Chomsky, The Common Good
kbelder 5y ago
Are they actively deleting secondary references? I mean, if a vlogger posts a video talking about this deletion, will it get deleted?
- treeman79 5y ago
  The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.” - 1984
  - cucumb3rrelish 5y ago
    literally 1984
- jim-jim-jim 5y ago
  Stuff like that has happened before: probably via stupid algorithm. Douglas Lain got a strike on his channel for "medical misinformation" because he referenced footage of Alex Jones being foolish.
- segamegazord 5y ago
  Not the type of secondary reference you're talking about, but YouTube temporarily banned Rebel Wisdom's Ivermectin Film that was a carefully balanced presentation of ideas from the leaders of both sides of the debate. Here's their video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2MlXaRxlFo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2MlXaRxlFo "it is back up after appeal. It's great that it's been restored - though with no explanation of why it was taken down, or why they decided it was OK to go back up. Strictly speaking according to the YouTube guidelines they were within their rights to take it down, it says clearly "Categorical claims that Ivermectin is an effective treatment for COVID-19" are not allowed, and Tess Lawrie clearly made these."
underseacables 5y ago
YouTube is really the poster child for reforming Section 230. Has anyone considered suing Google for violating 230??
- thephyber 5y ago
  They didn’t violate Section 230. Senator Wyden (who was a Congress Rep who cosponsored Section 230) has stated as much, repeatedly. The law doesn’t require that “platforms” treat content neutrally. It only states that hosts are protected from litigation due to user content if the hosts follow the requirements. There is no explicit or implied punishment for hosts/platforms if they fail to treat content equally. That is simply the host exercising their 1A rights of Free Association (and disassociation). Be careful what you wish for if you want Section 230 eroded. AFAIK the only erosion so far was SESTA/FOSTA and that destroyed a handful of sites like Craigslist Personals/Casual Encounters. You are advocating trading private company contract enforcement for overbearing threats of government prosecution.
ineptech 5y ago
Going out on a limb here, but in the course of announcing your lawsuit, did you mention any of the myriad covid talking points that youtube has been banning for months now?
- sennight 5y ago
  And it isn't even mildly disconcerting that your only option is to guess at their rationale because the video was memoryholed?
  - ineptech 5y ago
    It wasn't "memoryholed". Youtube is an entertainment site, not a repository of legal filings. And it's not the only option, just the one most likely to be correct.
    - josephcsible 5y ago
      > It wasn't "memoryholed". It wasn't? Where can I watch a copy of it then?
      - ineptech 5y ago
        I believe lawsuits are public info; try the NY county clerk's office.
    - axutio 5y ago
      > Youtube is an entertainment site, not a repository of legal filings It might not be a repository of legal filings, but it's certainly not just an entertainment site. Opinion-oriented media, news programs, court footage, press releases, and educational videos have all been intentionally promoted in the past by Youtube. The issue at hand is that some press releases are being permitted (and even promoted by YT) whereas others are not, despite the fact that there's no particularly notable difference in the authority of those speaking. (Obviously I recognize that this press release in particular more likely than not contains dangerous misinformation, but I still object to the idea that Youtube can unilaterally decide what is and is not dangerous misinformation).
oxymoran 5y ago
Can we just stop using YouTube instead of complaining every time they do something totalitarian?JUST.STOP.USING.YOUTUBE
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  There’s a long list of alternatives (https://alternativeto.net/software/youtube/ https://alternativeto.net/software/youtube/) but none have the kind of mindshare, content, and momentum YouTube has. We need content creators of all kinds to publish on decentralized platforms, not just those who have been banned and driven away from YouTube. But it’s a chicken and egg thing - advertisers won’t bother with sites that have small audiences. I think I agree that the users who care (particularly political moderates and conservatives) should consider where they spend their attention if they hope to halt the censorship trend.
- robjan 5y ago
  It's easy to stop using YouTube, it's not easy to stop everyone else using it.
  - thephyber 5y ago
    What does “easy” have to do with anything? The fact is that what YT did was legal, so the “easy” thing to do is complain about it, which won’t change their behavior. All of the things that would change this behavior are hard things.
  - snet0 5y ago
    It's almost as if there are differences of opinions... You are free to not use YouTube, just as I am free to use it. As is everyone else in this thread. You are free to vote with your wallet, not with mine.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  The problem is the network effect. Unless a ton of people move to some other platform at the same time, you're worse off individually for leaving.
throwawaysea 5y ago
Let’s be honest - YouTube’s “moderation” is just a vector for the illiberal employees who have gained control over it to amplify their own ideology while suppressing all others. The justifications used for such actions are just a set of shallow euphemisms that try to falsely frame it all as a virtuous program to benefit a society they claim doesn’t know any better and must be treated like children. It’s inappropriate and their opaque influence and control over information is no less disturbing than foreign propaganda from state actors. We need to treat large digital platforms like public utilities. Social media is the new digital town square. And large tech conglomerates are too powerful, and need to be split up where possible, and regulated like a public agency where they can’t be (network effects).
- sbuttgereit 5y ago
  There's a bold assumption in your position that the regulators charged with wielding the power would do so with greater restraint or less paternalism than the platforms do now themselves. What I really would expect to result from regulating the big social media players is that you'd simply institutionalize their dominant position. Regulatory regimes tend to discourage upstarts and often do little to reign in incumbents. After 2008 when increased regulation came after those bad "too-big-to-fail" banks... did we end up with smaller, but more diverse banking institutions or even fewer bigger banks that all looked pretty much the same? I could very well be wrong, but my sense is that we didn't move solve that problem and I don't think regulated big social media would be much better than what we have today.
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    If the government were in charge of a social media site, the First Amendment would unquestionably apply to their moderation powers, so even though it'd probably be a mismanaged disaster in a lot of ways, it'd be way better than the status quo as far as freedom of speech and censorship goes.
guscost 5y ago
As the screws tighten, it’s fascinating to watch more and more moderates say “enough is enough”, while the ever-shrinking group of die-hard tankies are now just saying the quiet part out loud: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/we-need-big-brother-to-beat-this-virus-5b0njl68r https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/we-need-big-brother-to-be...
bufferoverflow 5y ago
That's what you get for making YT the arbiters of truth. Censorship is dumb and tyrannical. The founding fathers of the US understood this 240+ years ago.
- thephyber 5y ago
  YT is not “the arbiter of truth”. It has the ability to curate content on its own property just like you and I. The founding fathers mandated smallpox vaccines without discussion and a few Congress sessions later required sailors to buy health insurance and passed the Sedition Act, which is close enough to censorship. What is dumb is acting like this is a slam dunk issue. There are valuable and relevant supports on both sides of this issue. I would love to see someone unseat YT’s position as the biggest UGC video database (hopefully one that puts effort into DMCA counter-claims), but this is what the market have given us.
- TrumpRapedWomen 5y ago
  Humans are also really dumb and gullible and YouTube lets people monetize lies, which is a problem.
- weare138 5y ago
  The government isn't censoring anyone. These people can just post their video on a different site or their own site. YouTube is free. You get what you pay for. If you don't like it use a different site or just pony up some of your own money and host it yourself.
  - bufferoverflow 5y ago
    That's a straw man argument. I never claimed the government did this. But if you want to be precise, one side of the government is colluding with the big tech companies.
    - weare138 5y ago
      >The founding fathers of the US understood this 240+ years ago You're the one bringing up the 'founding fathers'. This isn't a constitutional issue. You're not being censored. YouTube is a private company. If you don't like don't use it. That's how free markets work. This Nicole Malliotakis person has her own website. Nothing is stopping her from posting it there. >I never claimed the government did this >one side of the government is colluding with the big tech companies. What? Those are contradictory statements. Pick one.
mc32 5y ago
Remember when they were wringing their hands as they hemmed and hawed ("oh, gosh, we do host a bunch of other garbage, how do we word this?") about removing content by a certain ex-politician they loathed. It took them a while to work up the nerve to censor the then president of the US. Then, it was the ex-president's allies and they established rules about what was and wasn't acceptable in public discourse. What would be truth and fiction. What was conspiracy and truth. What was Covid truth and not (disregarding the often contradicting policies from WHO and CDC) And everyone on one side f the aisle was like, yeah! Get 'im! Damned liar(s)! It's their platform, they can do what they want. It's not the government so it's not censorship. They only censor bigots. And how do they treat things in Thailand, Hong Kong or Myanmar, who is the official government and who is the insurrectionist, who is truth and who is usurper? Well, here we are, very much closer to the plateauing/basining(?) of the slippery slope as we find ourselves at the bottom --with the willful approval of a great proportion of the population because, you know, slippery slopes are fallacies.
- krapp 5y ago
  >Remember when they were wringing their hands as they hemmed and hawed about removing content by a certain ex-politician they loathed. It took them a while to work up the nerve to censor the then president of the US. No? Donald Trump's official Youtube channel is still up and running[0]. And you seriously think the only reason other social media platforms didn't ban Trump for four years is that they needed to "work up the nerve?" Not because he went a little unhinged and started ranting conspiracy theories and undermining the integrity of the election? [0]https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAql2DyGU2un1Ei2nMYsqOA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAql2DyGU2un1Ei2nMYsqOA
  - mc32 5y ago
    That was one example everyone knows about. Talk about Ivermectin, or previously, WIV lab release hypothesis... all censored at the time. (now they have allowed some discussion again, but the damage is done and agenda realized).
    - 5y ago
programmarchy 5y ago
Did YouTube delete it, though? The current administration has recently said [1] they are flagging social media posts to identify misinformation. So even if YouTube ultimately clicks the "delete" button, the state is merely laundering censorship through private means, which is grotesque, cowardly, and surely unconstitutional. [1] https://www.facebook.com/CBSNews/videos/225143126129948/ https://www.facebook.com/CBSNews/videos/225143126129948/
perryizgr8 5y ago
Ah well... Youtube is a private platform. They are free to remove any video for any reason or no reason at all. If you don't like it, you are free to create your own YouTube. They are not obligated to let you use their website to spread your ideas.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- VelkaMorava 5y ago
  Ah well... Bakeries are private companies. They are allowed to refuse service for any reason or no reason at all, including baking cakes for gay weddings. If you don't like it, you are free to start your own bakery. They are not obligated to let you use their cakes in weddings which are against their own beliefs. I hope you see the hypocrisy.
serf 5y ago
The arguments in this thread all boil down to , basically : "YouTube is private, and thus can do what they want." I agree, but this doesn't bring mention to the real point : Messaging and telecommunications groups that are privately held are de-facto responsible for national presidential public messaging in the United States, and this gives them legal leverage to commit whatever kind of censorship they care to. This doesn't call for action towards the censoring body, it calls for public action towards the creation of a publicly funded messaging option for government officials and other official channels that should be held to constitutional standards rather than corporate private standards.
- curation 5y ago
  Youtube is now an owned Public Commons. In order to communicate we must pay rent to corporations as our commons is privatized. When the internet began it was public commons because no one owned it.
- ineptech 5y ago
  > ...it calls for public action towards the creation of a publicly funded messaging option for government officials and other official channels that should be held to constitutional standards rather than corporate private standards It sounds like you're describing https://malliotakis.house.gov/ https://malliotakis.house.gov/.

127 points by noxer 5y ago

securitycodez 5y ago

youtube is filled with left-wing authoritarians

securitycodez 5y ago
Oh, was truth spoken? I know the Ministry of Truth has banned actual truth.

johncearls 5y ago

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.... - Noam Chomsky, The Common Good

kbelder 5y ago

Are they actively deleting secondary references? I mean, if a vlogger posts a video talking about this deletion, will it get deleted?

treeman79 5y ago
The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.” - 1984
- cucumb3rrelish 5y ago
  literally 1984
jim-jim-jim 5y ago
Stuff like that has happened before: probably via stupid algorithm. Douglas Lain got a strike on his channel for "medical misinformation" because he referenced footage of Alex Jones being foolish.
segamegazord 5y ago
Not the type of secondary reference you're talking about, but YouTube temporarily banned Rebel Wisdom's Ivermectin Film that was a carefully balanced presentation of ideas from the leaders of both sides of the debate. Here's their video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2MlXaRxlFo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2MlXaRxlFo "it is back up after appeal. It's great that it's been restored - though with no explanation of why it was taken down, or why they decided it was OK to go back up. Strictly speaking according to the YouTube guidelines they were within their rights to take it down, it says clearly "Categorical claims that Ivermectin is an effective treatment for COVID-19" are not allowed, and Tess Lawrie clearly made these."

underseacables 5y ago

YouTube is really the poster child for reforming Section 230. Has anyone considered suing Google for violating 230??

thephyber 5y ago
They didn’t violate Section 230. Senator Wyden (who was a Congress Rep who cosponsored Section 230) has stated as much, repeatedly. The law doesn’t require that “platforms” treat content neutrally. It only states that hosts are protected from litigation due to user content if the hosts follow the requirements. There is no explicit or implied punishment for hosts/platforms if they fail to treat content equally. That is simply the host exercising their 1A rights of Free Association (and disassociation). Be careful what you wish for if you want Section 230 eroded. AFAIK the only erosion so far was SESTA/FOSTA and that destroyed a handful of sites like Craigslist Personals/Casual Encounters. You are advocating trading private company contract enforcement for overbearing threats of government prosecution.

ineptech 5y ago

Going out on a limb here, but in the course of announcing your lawsuit, did you mention any of the myriad covid talking points that youtube has been banning for months now?

sennight 5y ago
And it isn't even mildly disconcerting that your only option is to guess at their rationale because the video was memoryholed?
- ineptech 5y ago
  It wasn't "memoryholed". Youtube is an entertainment site, not a repository of legal filings. And it's not the only option, just the one most likely to be correct.
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    > It wasn't "memoryholed". It wasn't? Where can I watch a copy of it then?
    - ineptech 5y ago
      I believe lawsuits are public info; try the NY county clerk's office.
  - axutio 5y ago
    > Youtube is an entertainment site, not a repository of legal filings It might not be a repository of legal filings, but it's certainly not just an entertainment site. Opinion-oriented media, news programs, court footage, press releases, and educational videos have all been intentionally promoted in the past by Youtube. The issue at hand is that some press releases are being permitted (and even promoted by YT) whereas others are not, despite the fact that there's no particularly notable difference in the authority of those speaking. (Obviously I recognize that this press release in particular more likely than not contains dangerous misinformation, but I still object to the idea that Youtube can unilaterally decide what is and is not dangerous misinformation).

oxymoran 5y ago

Can we just stop using YouTube instead of complaining every time they do something totalitarian?JUST.STOP.USING.YOUTUBE

throwawaysea 5y ago
There’s a long list of alternatives (https://alternativeto.net/software/youtube/ https://alternativeto.net/software/youtube/) but none have the kind of mindshare, content, and momentum YouTube has. We need content creators of all kinds to publish on decentralized platforms, not just those who have been banned and driven away from YouTube. But it’s a chicken and egg thing - advertisers won’t bother with sites that have small audiences. I think I agree that the users who care (particularly political moderates and conservatives) should consider where they spend their attention if they hope to halt the censorship trend.
robjan 5y ago
It's easy to stop using YouTube, it's not easy to stop everyone else using it.
- thephyber 5y ago
  What does “easy” have to do with anything? The fact is that what YT did was legal, so the “easy” thing to do is complain about it, which won’t change their behavior. All of the things that would change this behavior are hard things.
- snet0 5y ago
  It's almost as if there are differences of opinions... You are free to not use YouTube, just as I am free to use it. As is everyone else in this thread. You are free to vote with your wallet, not with mine.
josephcsible 5y ago
The problem is the network effect. Unless a ton of people move to some other platform at the same time, you're worse off individually for leaving.

throwawaysea 5y ago

Let’s be honest - YouTube’s “moderation” is just a vector for the illiberal employees who have gained control over it to amplify their own ideology while suppressing all others. The justifications used for such actions are just a set of shallow euphemisms that try to falsely frame it all as a virtuous program to benefit a society they claim doesn’t know any better and must be treated like children. It’s inappropriate and their opaque influence and control over information is no less disturbing than foreign propaganda from state actors. We need to treat large digital platforms like public utilities. Social media is the new digital town square. And large tech conglomerates are too powerful, and need to be split up where possible, and regulated like a public agency where they can’t be (network effects).

sbuttgereit 5y ago
There's a bold assumption in your position that the regulators charged with wielding the power would do so with greater restraint or less paternalism than the platforms do now themselves. What I really would expect to result from regulating the big social media players is that you'd simply institutionalize their dominant position. Regulatory regimes tend to discourage upstarts and often do little to reign in incumbents. After 2008 when increased regulation came after those bad "too-big-to-fail" banks... did we end up with smaller, but more diverse banking institutions or even fewer bigger banks that all looked pretty much the same? I could very well be wrong, but my sense is that we didn't move solve that problem and I don't think regulated big social media would be much better than what we have today.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  If the government were in charge of a social media site, the First Amendment would unquestionably apply to their moderation powers, so even though it'd probably be a mismanaged disaster in a lot of ways, it'd be way better than the status quo as far as freedom of speech and censorship goes.

guscost 5y ago

As the screws tighten, it’s fascinating to watch more and more moderates say “enough is enough”, while the ever-shrinking group of die-hard tankies are now just saying the quiet part out loud: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/we-need-big-brother-to-beat-this-virus-5b0njl68r https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/we-need-big-brother-to-be...

bufferoverflow 5y ago

That's what you get for making YT the arbiters of truth. Censorship is dumb and tyrannical. The founding fathers of the US understood this 240+ years ago.

thephyber 5y ago
YT is not “the arbiter of truth”. It has the ability to curate content on its own property just like you and I. The founding fathers mandated smallpox vaccines without discussion and a few Congress sessions later required sailors to buy health insurance and passed the Sedition Act, which is close enough to censorship. What is dumb is acting like this is a slam dunk issue. There are valuable and relevant supports on both sides of this issue. I would love to see someone unseat YT’s position as the biggest UGC video database (hopefully one that puts effort into DMCA counter-claims), but this is what the market have given us.
TrumpRapedWomen 5y ago
Humans are also really dumb and gullible and YouTube lets people monetize lies, which is a problem.
weare138 5y ago
The government isn't censoring anyone. These people can just post their video on a different site or their own site. YouTube is free. You get what you pay for. If you don't like it use a different site or just pony up some of your own money and host it yourself.
- bufferoverflow 5y ago
  That's a straw man argument. I never claimed the government did this. But if you want to be precise, one side of the government is colluding with the big tech companies.
  - weare138 5y ago
    >The founding fathers of the US understood this 240+ years ago You're the one bringing up the 'founding fathers'. This isn't a constitutional issue. You're not being censored. YouTube is a private company. If you don't like don't use it. That's how free markets work. This Nicole Malliotakis person has her own website. Nothing is stopping her from posting it there. >I never claimed the government did this >one side of the government is colluding with the big tech companies. What? Those are contradictory statements. Pick one.

mc32 5y ago

Remember when they were wringing their hands as they hemmed and hawed ("oh, gosh, we do host a bunch of other garbage, how do we word this?") about removing content by a certain ex-politician they loathed. It took them a while to work up the nerve to censor the then president of the US. Then, it was the ex-president's allies and they established rules about what was and wasn't acceptable in public discourse. What would be truth and fiction. What was conspiracy and truth. What was Covid truth and not (disregarding the often contradicting policies from WHO and CDC) And everyone on one side f the aisle was like, yeah! Get 'im! Damned liar(s)! It's their platform, they can do what they want. It's not the government so it's not censorship. They only censor bigots. And how do they treat things in Thailand, Hong Kong or Myanmar, who is the official government and who is the insurrectionist, who is truth and who is usurper? Well, here we are, very much closer to the plateauing/basining(?) of the slippery slope as we find ourselves at the bottom --with the willful approval of a great proportion of the population because, you know, slippery slopes are fallacies.

krapp 5y ago
>Remember when they were wringing their hands as they hemmed and hawed about removing content by a certain ex-politician they loathed. It took them a while to work up the nerve to censor the then president of the US. No? Donald Trump's official Youtube channel is still up and running[0]. And you seriously think the only reason other social media platforms didn't ban Trump for four years is that they needed to "work up the nerve?" Not because he went a little unhinged and started ranting conspiracy theories and undermining the integrity of the election? [0]https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAql2DyGU2un1Ei2nMYsqOA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAql2DyGU2un1Ei2nMYsqOA
- mc32 5y ago
  That was one example everyone knows about. Talk about Ivermectin, or previously, WIV lab release hypothesis... all censored at the time. (now they have allowed some discussion again, but the damage is done and agenda realized).
  - 5y ago

programmarchy 5y ago

Did YouTube delete it, though? The current administration has recently said [1] they are flagging social media posts to identify misinformation. So even if YouTube ultimately clicks the "delete" button, the state is merely laundering censorship through private means, which is grotesque, cowardly, and surely unconstitutional. [1] https://www.facebook.com/CBSNews/videos/225143126129948/ https://www.facebook.com/CBSNews/videos/225143126129948/

perryizgr8 5y ago

Ah well... Youtube is a private platform. They are free to remove any video for any reason or no reason at all. If you don't like it, you are free to create your own YouTube. They are not obligated to let you use their website to spread your ideas.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
VelkaMorava 5y ago
Ah well... Bakeries are private companies. They are allowed to refuse service for any reason or no reason at all, including baking cakes for gay weddings. If you don't like it, you are free to start your own bakery. They are not obligated to let you use their cakes in weddings which are against their own beliefs. I hope you see the hypocrisy.

serf 5y ago

The arguments in this thread all boil down to , basically : "YouTube is private, and thus can do what they want." I agree, but this doesn't bring mention to the real point : Messaging and telecommunications groups that are privately held are de-facto responsible for national presidential public messaging in the United States, and this gives them legal leverage to commit whatever kind of censorship they care to. This doesn't call for action towards the censoring body, it calls for public action towards the creation of a publicly funded messaging option for government officials and other official channels that should be held to constitutional standards rather than corporate private standards.

curation 5y ago
Youtube is now an owned Public Commons. In order to communicate we must pay rent to corporations as our commons is privatized. When the internet began it was public commons because no one owned it.
ineptech 5y ago
> ...it calls for public action towards the creation of a publicly funded messaging option for government officials and other official channels that should be held to constitutional standards rather than corporate private standards It sounds like you're describing https://malliotakis.house.gov/ https://malliotakis.house.gov/.