9 ms·

The extent of the "censorship" is getting ridiculous. It is an overreach of the platforms.

michaelmrose 5y ago
Why would you imagine that anyone has a right to have their content on youtube. How is it in any way overreach. Surely its users can vote with their fingertips for a different site if they have a problem with it.
- Talanes 5y ago
  Users have just as much right to complain about policies they find ridiculous as they do to leave.
  - michaelmrose 5y ago
    Yes but they have no right moral or legal to force tech companies to be complicit in the spreading of their malicious lies.
    - Talanes 5y ago
      Believing that someone shouldn't do something and that someone shouldn't have the right to do something are not the same thing. GP comment only stated the first and I see no reason to pile on with retorts assuming they really meant the second. Also, I don't see how systematically scrubbing video recordings of a man who loves to say "I never said that" about things he has said on camera is a net gain to truth-telling.
  - mulmen 5y ago
    And the rest of us are entitled to not find those complaints interesting.
downandout 5y ago
Agreed…the hypocrisy of these decisions grows increasingly outrageous each day. For example, the reasoning behind the banning of Donald Trump from Twitter was that his rhetoric was “dangerous,” in that it may have encouraged/not discouraged the January 6 riot. On Tuesday (March 1), a Russian official threatened actual war over the economic sanctions the world is taking against his country [1]. His account is still active and the tweet is still up. [1] https://twitter.com/medvedevrussiae/status/1498619750334750725?s=21 https://twitter.com/medvedevrussiae/status/14986197503347507...
- pfisch 5y ago
  It is reasonable to say that Donald Trump caused the January 6 insurrection. The bigger issue for platform owners is that the insurrection represents catastrophic risk to them, and it is within their power to prevent it. The social media platforms can't prevent if Russia goes to war with NATO. Censoring the russian official won't do anything.
  - headsoup 5y ago
    How did the 'insurrection' cause catastrophic risk to Twitter?
    - heavyset_go 5y ago
      Much of it was organized on social media, and many those who participated it used the platforms to live stream and tell more people to come and participate, too.
      - sacrosancty 5y ago
        Isn't that the opposite of catastrophic risk, and instead an opportunity for more active users?
        headsoup 5y ago
        And is it those platforms' responsibility to enforce thought-crime intervention anyway? It's easy after the fact to lay blame, but interfering in discussion, even heated and wild, is an easy slope into censorship and tyranny.
Program_Install 5y ago
I disagree, if you don’t like it you can move to another platform. No one is forcing you to use it. For that matter “The Hill” can create their own. Always silly, the entitlement to someone else platform based on some misunderstanding of censorship and the 1st amendment.
- selfhifive 5y ago
  Or, if you don't like it, don't watch the channel or leave a dislike or comment why the claim is wrong. This isn't even a call to violence or targeted harassment. It's the opinion of a man about election results.
  - headsoup 5y ago
    I think you missed the bit where the platform removed content for the mere mention of Trump. So you agree YouTube is perfectly ok to remove content because it mentions 'the opinion of a man about election results.'? And if Trump was to hypothetically win in 2024, would it be perfectly fine for YouTube to remove any content which is dissenting of Trump? I'm sure a dislike or negative comment would stop that...
    - scarface74 5y ago
      Yes. There is nothing stopping Trump from creating his own video platform. He is supposedly a billionaire isn’t he?
      - headsoup 5y ago
        And of course nothing from stopping Biden creating his own platform should the tables turn, right? It's true the large social platforms are privately owned and so they can censor to their hearts content, but given the obliquity and integration these largest platforms have in the social fabric, is that reasonable? Should they at least have clear moderation policies? It's an issue that needs some hefty discussion and evaluation especially, as we're seeing in this thread, the outsized influence on and control of public discourse they have.
scarface74 5y ago
The government censors. How is it not an unnecessary encroachment on liberty when the government tells a private entity what they must publish?
- odessacubbage 5y ago
  the fcc does that every single day.
  - scarface74 5y ago
    The FCC has a say on what goes on over the public airways - not cable or the internet.
forgingahead 5y ago
The incredibly dangerous outcome of all this is precisely what foolish commentators are suggesting: alternatives will be built, that themselves will become echo chambers. If you disagree with certain ideas, you have to fight it in the open. That's how we get a big tent with general consensus across key issues, and avoid parallel universes of polar opposite information. The end result of all this is just going to be a truly Balkanised / multipolar world, but instead of geographical boundaries, it's all going to be in the mind. Your neighbour and you could have totally different ideas about certain issues - because you are consuming and contributing to totally different sets of information. And that will lead to immense physical conflict in the future. Very worrying times right now.
- mistermann 5y ago
  > The incredibly dangerous outcome of all this is precisely what foolish commentators are suggesting: alternatives will be built, that themselves will become echo chambers. What if the dangerous outcome is what's happening right here in this thread, and the thousands of others like it here on HN and elsewhere? Right in front of our eyes every day but we cannot see it, because it is normal.
yibg 5y ago
Why is this type of "censorship" problematic? Is it also problematic that youtube doesn't host porn?
ayngg 5y ago
Based on what I have seen and what I have heard people say, the principle of freedom of speech is probably dead in the west. People will give their sanctimonious justifications like "it only means the government can't censor not us," "it's freedom of speech, not freedom from consequences," or misuse quotes like Popper's intolerance towards intolerance, or Schenck v. United States's yelling fire in a theater, but in reality the principle of free speech is a foundational social element from which the law is built upon, not the other way around. If society doesn't believe in freedom of speech then it doesn't matter if the government upholds that standard for itself anymore. If we as a society aren't capable of having empathy towards people who have differing opinions instead of dismissing them, then censoring them after ignoring them has caused their beliefs to radicalize to a point, that is the recipe for making politics more entrenched, polarized and escalated than they already are. Yeah just go build your own platform they will say as if it had not been attempted numerous times only to be censored off every hosting/ payment/ app platforms they could use or hacked to have all the personal information of their users doxxed because they had "bad opinions." Even the ones that actually exist just become hiveminds of their own because they become populated by people who have been censored everywhere else, as if having every community devolve into hive minded safe spaces is actually desirable.
- nebula8804 5y ago
  > as if it had not been attempted numerous times only to be censored off every hosting/ payment/ app platforms Was this really something that stopped any of the services? >or hacked to have all the personal information of their users doxxed because they had "bad opinions." Come on this is not fair. This was caused by these services choosing to hire low skilled developers. The guy building Parler didn't even understand the proper way to set up his authentication strategy nor did he really understand his database and its advantages/limitations. If anything, this should teach the other side to respect the effort that goes into developing these platforms(this disrespect for the skillset is something I see A LOT among the right wing youtubers I follow). They are so freaking proud to be not one of the "elites" by eschewing the desire for knowledge and a love of learning so much so that it bites them in the ass when they are booted off an existing platform and then realize this tech stuff is so hard. >Even the ones that actually exist just become hiveminds of their own because they become populated by people who have been censored everywhere else, as if having every community devolve into hive minded safe spaces is actually desirable. These platforms need to welcome the other side then, the ones doing the censoring.

Why would you imagine that anyone has a right to have their content on youtube. How is it in any way overreach. Surely its users can vote with their fingertips for a different site if they have a problem with it.

Talanes 5y ago
Users have just as much right to complain about policies they find ridiculous as they do to leave.
- michaelmrose 5y ago
  Yes but they have no right moral or legal to force tech companies to be complicit in the spreading of their malicious lies.
  - Talanes 5y ago
    Believing that someone shouldn't do something and that someone shouldn't have the right to do something are not the same thing. GP comment only stated the first and I see no reason to pile on with retorts assuming they really meant the second. Also, I don't see how systematically scrubbing video recordings of a man who loves to say "I never said that" about things he has said on camera is a net gain to truth-telling.
- mulmen 5y ago
  And the rest of us are entitled to not find those complaints interesting.

downandout 5y ago

Agreed…the hypocrisy of these decisions grows increasingly outrageous each day. For example, the reasoning behind the banning of Donald Trump from Twitter was that his rhetoric was “dangerous,” in that it may have encouraged/not discouraged the January 6 riot. On Tuesday (March 1), a Russian official threatened actual war over the economic sanctions the world is taking against his country [1]. His account is still active and the tweet is still up. [1] https://twitter.com/medvedevrussiae/status/1498619750334750725?s=21 https://twitter.com/medvedevrussiae/status/14986197503347507...

pfisch 5y ago
It is reasonable to say that Donald Trump caused the January 6 insurrection. The bigger issue for platform owners is that the insurrection represents catastrophic risk to them, and it is within their power to prevent it. The social media platforms can't prevent if Russia goes to war with NATO. Censoring the russian official won't do anything.
- headsoup 5y ago
  How did the 'insurrection' cause catastrophic risk to Twitter?
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    Much of it was organized on social media, and many those who participated it used the platforms to live stream and tell more people to come and participate, too.
    - sacrosancty 5y ago
      Isn't that the opposite of catastrophic risk, and instead an opportunity for more active users?
      - headsoup 5y ago
        And is it those platforms' responsibility to enforce thought-crime intervention anyway? It's easy after the fact to lay blame, but interfering in discussion, even heated and wild, is an easy slope into censorship and tyranny.

Program_Install 5y ago

I disagree, if you don’t like it you can move to another platform. No one is forcing you to use it. For that matter “The Hill” can create their own. Always silly, the entitlement to someone else platform based on some misunderstanding of censorship and the 1st amendment.

selfhifive 5y ago
Or, if you don't like it, don't watch the channel or leave a dislike or comment why the claim is wrong. This isn't even a call to violence or targeted harassment. It's the opinion of a man about election results.
- headsoup 5y ago
  I think you missed the bit where the platform removed content for the mere mention of Trump. So you agree YouTube is perfectly ok to remove content because it mentions 'the opinion of a man about election results.'? And if Trump was to hypothetically win in 2024, would it be perfectly fine for YouTube to remove any content which is dissenting of Trump? I'm sure a dislike or negative comment would stop that...
  - scarface74 5y ago
    Yes. There is nothing stopping Trump from creating his own video platform. He is supposedly a billionaire isn’t he?
    - headsoup 5y ago
      And of course nothing from stopping Biden creating his own platform should the tables turn, right? It's true the large social platforms are privately owned and so they can censor to their hearts content, but given the obliquity and integration these largest platforms have in the social fabric, is that reasonable? Should they at least have clear moderation policies? It's an issue that needs some hefty discussion and evaluation especially, as we're seeing in this thread, the outsized influence on and control of public discourse they have.

scarface74 5y ago

The government censors. How is it not an unnecessary encroachment on liberty when the government tells a private entity what they must publish?

odessacubbage 5y ago
the fcc does that every single day.
- scarface74 5y ago
  The FCC has a say on what goes on over the public airways - not cable or the internet.

forgingahead 5y ago

The incredibly dangerous outcome of all this is precisely what foolish commentators are suggesting: alternatives will be built, that themselves will become echo chambers. If you disagree with certain ideas, you have to fight it in the open. That's how we get a big tent with general consensus across key issues, and avoid parallel universes of polar opposite information. The end result of all this is just going to be a truly Balkanised / multipolar world, but instead of geographical boundaries, it's all going to be in the mind. Your neighbour and you could have totally different ideas about certain issues - because you are consuming and contributing to totally different sets of information. And that will lead to immense physical conflict in the future. Very worrying times right now.

mistermann 5y ago
> The incredibly dangerous outcome of all this is precisely what foolish commentators are suggesting: alternatives will be built, that themselves will become echo chambers. What if the dangerous outcome is what's happening right here in this thread, and the thousands of others like it here on HN and elsewhere? Right in front of our eyes every day but we cannot see it, because it is normal.

yibg 5y ago

Why is this type of "censorship" problematic? Is it also problematic that youtube doesn't host porn?

ayngg 5y ago

Based on what I have seen and what I have heard people say, the principle of freedom of speech is probably dead in the west. People will give their sanctimonious justifications like "it only means the government can't censor not us," "it's freedom of speech, not freedom from consequences," or misuse quotes like Popper's intolerance towards intolerance, or Schenck v. United States's yelling fire in a theater, but in reality the principle of free speech is a foundational social element from which the law is built upon, not the other way around. If society doesn't believe in freedom of speech then it doesn't matter if the government upholds that standard for itself anymore. If we as a society aren't capable of having empathy towards people who have differing opinions instead of dismissing them, then censoring them after ignoring them has caused their beliefs to radicalize to a point, that is the recipe for making politics more entrenched, polarized and escalated than they already are. Yeah just go build your own platform they will say as if it had not been attempted numerous times only to be censored off every hosting/ payment/ app platforms they could use or hacked to have all the personal information of their users doxxed because they had "bad opinions." Even the ones that actually exist just become hiveminds of their own because they become populated by people who have been censored everywhere else, as if having every community devolve into hive minded safe spaces is actually desirable.

nebula8804 5y ago
> as if it had not been attempted numerous times only to be censored off every hosting/ payment/ app platforms Was this really something that stopped any of the services? >or hacked to have all the personal information of their users doxxed because they had "bad opinions." Come on this is not fair. This was caused by these services choosing to hire low skilled developers. The guy building Parler didn't even understand the proper way to set up his authentication strategy nor did he really understand his database and its advantages/limitations. If anything, this should teach the other side to respect the effort that goes into developing these platforms(this disrespect for the skillset is something I see A LOT among the right wing youtubers I follow). They are so freaking proud to be not one of the "elites" by eschewing the desire for knowledge and a love of learning so much so that it bites them in the ass when they are booted off an existing platform and then realize this tech stuff is so hard. >Even the ones that actually exist just become hiveminds of their own because they become populated by people who have been censored everywhere else, as if having every community devolve into hive minded safe spaces is actually desirable. These platforms need to welcome the other side then, the ones doing the censoring.