5 ms·

The video has the lines "pandemic ain't real, they planned it". That's called disinformation, and it was removed as such.

retrac 5y ago
I am reminded of a quote I just ran into from the Canadian Supreme Court on free speech in R v. Zundel. Setting aside any legal questions, I found it interesting for its emphasis on the potential expressive value to disinformation. > The first difficulty results from the premise that deliberate lies can never have value. Exaggeration -- even clear falsification -- may arguably serve useful social purposes linked to the values underlying freedom of expression. A person fighting cruelty against animals may knowingly cite false statistics in pursuit of his or her beliefs and with the purpose of communicating a more fundamental message, e.g., `cruelty to animals is increasing and must be stopped'. A doctor, in order to persuade people to be inoculated against a burgeoning epidemic, may exaggerate the number or geographical location of persons potentially infected with the virus. An artist, for artistic purposes, may make a statement that a particular society considers both an assertion of fact and a manifestly deliberate lie; consider the case of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses, viewed by many Muslim societies as perpetrating deliberate lies against the Prophet.
- tragictrash 5y ago
  And I'd like to point out that a majority of comments to this post are about how 'they' are censoring 'us'. It is censorship but not for the reasons most commenters want. Its medical disinfo about covid being removed. They are not being opressed, as much as the commenters want it to be that. You want exaggerated expression? I got one for you: Freedumb.
  - jeegsy 5y ago
    The speed at which we have embraced censorship with the attendant rationalizations has been amazing.
    - tragictrash 5y ago
      Who is doing the censoring here? It's YouTube. They have a right to remove content from their platform as they see fit, in accordance with their TOS. There is no right to post YouTube videos in the constitution. Your not being oppressed. Get over it.
      - retrac 5y ago
        I refer you back to my original comment. I quoted the Canadian Supreme Court in part to separate the legal question from the deeper one. As a non-American, the legal question is honestly pretty boring. The deeper issue of what constitutes a healthy society with free debate and expression, however, is interesting to me. Because free speech is a societal and cultural value, as much as a legal one. A commune of religious weirdos with no laws at all could be highly tolerant or intolerant of dissent. It could embrace or reject free speech, just socially based on whether they ostracize the dissenters. Similarly, a nation of publishers where every publisher refuses to publish anything controversial, dissident or offensive may have no First Amendment issues, but it's not one that takes the principles and values of free speech very seriously.
        tragictrash 5y ago
        There is no question here other than the legal one. End of story. These people have their free speech. If that artist wanted to, they could host their own website and serve that video all day long. It seems like you are confusing real life with some fantasy world you live in. Welcome to late stage capitalism. It's not fair.
      - jeegsy 5y ago
        As I said, rationalizations. What is also amazing is that people think that repeating the obvious in vaguely sassy fashion is somehow an argument. In any case, Youtube's "rights" as you call them would be more palatable if they did not enjoy section 230 immunity. Furthermore, I'm sure there is a legal case to be made regarding the Government employing private actors in a manner that violates the first amendment.
newbie2020 5y ago
Half the songs out there contain disinformation. Is YouTube going to get rid of them all?
- sellyme 5y ago
  Medical disinformation? Because the typical music industry schtick of lying about how much money you have or how often you get laid probably isn't quite as bad as that one.
  - tragictrash 5y ago
    Yeah not even close. This has real repercussions, especially to the people that need herd immunity to reenter society, like the immune comprised.
    - tekknik 5y ago
      So now everybody has to change speech for a very very small minority?
      - Phileosopher 5y ago
        Yes, if you lean politically hard left in the USA. This has already become a political talking point for transgender people, and all censorship is good censorship under those claims. No, if you're simply liberal or conservative in the USA. They generally think that speech should be uncensored until it's directly causing legitimate violence (e.g., yelling "fire" in a crowded theater or threatening death).
      - tragictrash 5y ago
        Speech? No, that's free. We're talking about hurting people by not getting vaccinated. YouTube is a private company. Them censoring someone is not an infringement on free speech.
        tekknik 5y ago

retrac 5y ago

I am reminded of a quote I just ran into from the Canadian Supreme Court on free speech in R v. Zundel. Setting aside any legal questions, I found it interesting for its emphasis on the potential expressive value to disinformation. > The first difficulty results from the premise that deliberate lies can never have value. Exaggeration -- even clear falsification -- may arguably serve useful social purposes linked to the values underlying freedom of expression. A person fighting cruelty against animals may knowingly cite false statistics in pursuit of his or her beliefs and with the purpose of communicating a more fundamental message, e.g., `cruelty to animals is increasing and must be stopped'. A doctor, in order to persuade people to be inoculated against a burgeoning epidemic, may exaggerate the number or geographical location of persons potentially infected with the virus. An artist, for artistic purposes, may make a statement that a particular society considers both an assertion of fact and a manifestly deliberate lie; consider the case of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses, viewed by many Muslim societies as perpetrating deliberate lies against the Prophet.

tragictrash 5y ago
And I'd like to point out that a majority of comments to this post are about how 'they' are censoring 'us'. It is censorship but not for the reasons most commenters want. Its medical disinfo about covid being removed. They are not being opressed, as much as the commenters want it to be that. You want exaggerated expression? I got one for you: Freedumb.
- jeegsy 5y ago
  The speed at which we have embraced censorship with the attendant rationalizations has been amazing.
  - tragictrash 5y ago
    Who is doing the censoring here? It's YouTube. They have a right to remove content from their platform as they see fit, in accordance with their TOS. There is no right to post YouTube videos in the constitution. Your not being oppressed. Get over it.
    - retrac 5y ago
      I refer you back to my original comment. I quoted the Canadian Supreme Court in part to separate the legal question from the deeper one. As a non-American, the legal question is honestly pretty boring. The deeper issue of what constitutes a healthy society with free debate and expression, however, is interesting to me. Because free speech is a societal and cultural value, as much as a legal one. A commune of religious weirdos with no laws at all could be highly tolerant or intolerant of dissent. It could embrace or reject free speech, just socially based on whether they ostracize the dissenters. Similarly, a nation of publishers where every publisher refuses to publish anything controversial, dissident or offensive may have no First Amendment issues, but it's not one that takes the principles and values of free speech very seriously.
      - tragictrash 5y ago
        There is no question here other than the legal one. End of story. These people have their free speech. If that artist wanted to, they could host their own website and serve that video all day long. It seems like you are confusing real life with some fantasy world you live in. Welcome to late stage capitalism. It's not fair.
    - jeegsy 5y ago
      As I said, rationalizations. What is also amazing is that people think that repeating the obvious in vaguely sassy fashion is somehow an argument. In any case, Youtube's "rights" as you call them would be more palatable if they did not enjoy section 230 immunity. Furthermore, I'm sure there is a legal case to be made regarding the Government employing private actors in a manner that violates the first amendment.

newbie2020 5y ago

Half the songs out there contain disinformation. Is YouTube going to get rid of them all?

sellyme 5y ago
Medical disinformation? Because the typical music industry schtick of lying about how much money you have or how often you get laid probably isn't quite as bad as that one.
- tragictrash 5y ago
  Yeah not even close. This has real repercussions, especially to the people that need herd immunity to reenter society, like the immune comprised.
  - tekknik 5y ago
    So now everybody has to change speech for a very very small minority?
    - Phileosopher 5y ago
      Yes, if you lean politically hard left in the USA. This has already become a political talking point for transgender people, and all censorship is good censorship under those claims. No, if you're simply liberal or conservative in the USA. They generally think that speech should be uncensored until it's directly causing legitimate violence (e.g., yelling "fire" in a crowded theater or threatening death).
    - tragictrash 5y ago
      Speech? No, that's free. We're talking about hurting people by not getting vaccinated. YouTube is a private company. Them censoring someone is not an infringement on free speech.
      - tekknik 5y ago