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It does seem problematic that on some level we treat YouTube (and Twitter, and to a lesser extent other platforms like Spotify) as a sort of public square or ge

by Lazare 5y ago

It does seem problematic that on some level we treat YouTube (and Twitter, and to a lesser extent other platforms like Spotify) as a sort of public square or generic "communications utilities"; the default virtual place we go to hear and be heard, open to all. Of course, as they exist now, they are technically and legally nothing of the sort, which is a big reason why this specific complaint is tedious, absurd, and self refuting. Obviously he wasn't "disappeared", obviously there's no right beyond the terms of whatever contracts you have signed for arbitrary corporations to host video files for you, obviously all those videos he claims are "gone" still exist on the internet (hosted by a different corporation, at least for now...), obviously almost all of his claims are factually wrong. Still... ...it feels like it'd be nice if we did have something a bit like the YouTube (and Twitter, and Apple App Store, and Spotify, etc.) that he seems to vaguely imagine exists? If I want to post my thoughts on my own space on the internet I can still throw up a website. That's good! And yet almost every other area I look, I see walled gardens and closed platforms that can (and do) censor their users at a drop of the hat. I don't know if the Fediverse, as it exists today, is a step towards a solution for this, but man, I think we need one.

WaxedChewbacca 5y ago
noduerme 5y ago
Storing and serving other people's videos still costs money. Suppose we're all just doing this on a federated basis one day, decentralized and anonymous. Shouldn't we each have a right to know what we're paying to host? Just because I'm willing to leave a server on seeding esoteric documentaries from the 50s doesn't mean I'm willing to let people use it to spread hate speech or child porn or whatever someone thinks they have a "right" to be heard saying. It is a shame that control of major channels tends to become centralized and ultimately that weakens free speech on those platforms, but this is a cyclical process. When one falls, there's a period of anarchy before another arises. The underlying reason is that most people don't have the time or patience to run their own servers, so they delegate that, but they also expect whoever they delegate it to to follow certain basic principles, and those become harder to enforce as it scales without causing the initial freedom of the platform to deteriorate. Like, Elon's idea of making a more free Twitter, or someone else who launches a no-holds-barred Youtube, just won't gain traction right now. That's not because they're going to be suppressed by a hidden cabal bent on silencing unpopular speech. It's because the majority of people who currently delegate the task of weeding out bad things to Youtube are more or less okay with people like this guy being removed. If or when that changes, something else will rise up in its place, but it's doubtful that such a platform won't run into the exact same problems a few years later.
danbmil99 5y ago
> If I want to post my thoughts on my own space on the internet I can still throw up a website. Sure, but good luck getting anyone to see it without promoting it on established platforms (either by paying and/or getting "influencers" to push you) And then, if you do get an audience but cross an invisible trip wire, expect your ISP/host provider to drop you. And if you really manage to persist, the DNS police can finally de-platform you for reals (See for ex. sci-hub). I'm no fan of Russia Today as a source of information, but I do believe people should have the right to speak and be heard. The problem today is there is so much utter shit on the webs that we each have a moral obligation to try to think objectively about our media consumption and stop lazily and addictively searching for data that confirms our biases and gives us a shot of outrage (like coffee) to start the day.
- noduerme 5y ago
  >> good luck getting anyone to see it without promoting it on established platforms The Russian government already has the ultimate way of promoting their channel: Banning all other channels and imprisoning anyone who shares something not approved by RT/Sputnik. Again, RT.com is still fully available in America and anyone can go there to hear the Russian government's side of this war. Anyone who wants to think objectively can and should go watch it and make their own decisions. However, there is nothing whatsoever that obligates an American company to host their propaganda. And no, you don't have a right to be heard. At least here you have a right to speak, which you don't have in Russia.
OkGoDoIt 5y ago
> If I want to post my thoughts on my own space on the internet I can still throw up a website. That's good! But can you really? Didn’t websites catering to ultra right wing content get removed from the internet, because no web host would host then? I specifically remember AWS and others refused to continue hosting a fairly major right wing forum a year or two ago, although I don’t remember the details. Payment processors pressure platforms (see OnlyFans), and the government pressures platforms (look at the Facebook hearings). Even if you host your own website on your own physical machine, your IP might get blocked in Chrome and various other website blocklists (1). The internet involves so many commercial parties, at what point do you draw the line and say that actually, everything is a platform, so maybe we need to figure out a way to enshrine free speech on platforms rather than the easy argument of “it’s not censorship if it’s a third-party company”? How do you protect free speech online when there is literally no way to speak on the internet without involving some sort of 3rd party that might decide to block you? (1. Just like email spam block lists, hosting your own website on a IP block that doesn’t normally host websites means you deal with all sorts of safety warning issues. I used to host the website for a community theater but I would get customer support issues where people couldn’t buy tickets because somehow we wound up on a block list as a suspicious website. I coded the website myself in basic static HTML, there was no newfangled React server or JavaScript or anything that could have been infected. No matter how many support tickets I lodged with the company that maintained the blocklist, I couldn’t get removed from the blocklist or get any explanation. Now it’s hosted on Digital Ocean. But if it had been something controversial that I couldn’t just throw up on a third-party hosting platform, I would’ve been out of luck.)

by Lazare 5y ago

WaxedChewbacca 5y ago

noduerme 5y ago

Storing and serving other people's videos still costs money. Suppose we're all just doing this on a federated basis one day, decentralized and anonymous. Shouldn't we each have a right to know what we're paying to host? Just because I'm willing to leave a server on seeding esoteric documentaries from the 50s doesn't mean I'm willing to let people use it to spread hate speech or child porn or whatever someone thinks they have a "right" to be heard saying. It is a shame that control of major channels tends to become centralized and ultimately that weakens free speech on those platforms, but this is a cyclical process. When one falls, there's a period of anarchy before another arises. The underlying reason is that most people don't have the time or patience to run their own servers, so they delegate that, but they also expect whoever they delegate it to to follow certain basic principles, and those become harder to enforce as it scales without causing the initial freedom of the platform to deteriorate. Like, Elon's idea of making a more free Twitter, or someone else who launches a no-holds-barred Youtube, just won't gain traction right now. That's not because they're going to be suppressed by a hidden cabal bent on silencing unpopular speech. It's because the majority of people who currently delegate the task of weeding out bad things to Youtube are more or less okay with people like this guy being removed. If or when that changes, something else will rise up in its place, but it's doubtful that such a platform won't run into the exact same problems a few years later.

danbmil99 5y ago

> If I want to post my thoughts on my own space on the internet I can still throw up a website. Sure, but good luck getting anyone to see it without promoting it on established platforms (either by paying and/or getting "influencers" to push you) And then, if you do get an audience but cross an invisible trip wire, expect your ISP/host provider to drop you. And if you really manage to persist, the DNS police can finally de-platform you for reals (See for ex. sci-hub). I'm no fan of Russia Today as a source of information, but I do believe people should have the right to speak and be heard. The problem today is there is so much utter shit on the webs that we each have a moral obligation to try to think objectively about our media consumption and stop lazily and addictively searching for data that confirms our biases and gives us a shot of outrage (like coffee) to start the day.

noduerme 5y ago
>> good luck getting anyone to see it without promoting it on established platforms The Russian government already has the ultimate way of promoting their channel: Banning all other channels and imprisoning anyone who shares something not approved by RT/Sputnik. Again, RT.com is still fully available in America and anyone can go there to hear the Russian government's side of this war. Anyone who wants to think objectively can and should go watch it and make their own decisions. However, there is nothing whatsoever that obligates an American company to host their propaganda. And no, you don't have a right to be heard. At least here you have a right to speak, which you don't have in Russia.

OkGoDoIt 5y ago

> If I want to post my thoughts on my own space on the internet I can still throw up a website. That's good! But can you really? Didn’t websites catering to ultra right wing content get removed from the internet, because no web host would host then? I specifically remember AWS and others refused to continue hosting a fairly major right wing forum a year or two ago, although I don’t remember the details. Payment processors pressure platforms (see OnlyFans), and the government pressures platforms (look at the Facebook hearings). Even if you host your own website on your own physical machine, your IP might get blocked in Chrome and various other website blocklists (1). The internet involves so many commercial parties, at what point do you draw the line and say that actually, everything is a platform, so maybe we need to figure out a way to enshrine free speech on platforms rather than the easy argument of “it’s not censorship if it’s a third-party company”? How do you protect free speech online when there is literally no way to speak on the internet without involving some sort of 3rd party that might decide to block you? (1. Just like email spam block lists, hosting your own website on a IP block that doesn’t normally host websites means you deal with all sorts of safety warning issues. I used to host the website for a community theater but I would get customer support issues where people couldn’t buy tickets because somehow we wound up on a block list as a suspicious website. I coded the website myself in basic static HTML, there was no newfangled React server or JavaScript or anything that could have been infected. No matter how many support tickets I lodged with the company that maintained the blocklist, I couldn’t get removed from the blocklist or get any explanation. Now it’s hosted on Digital Ocean. But if it had been something controversial that I couldn’t just throw up on a third-party hosting platform, I would’ve been out of luck.)