5 ms·

> So, this is literally, "an allegation is enough" scenario. If you're a private entity without the investigative powers of law enforcement, then public knowle

by gdulli 3y ago

> So, this is literally, "an allegation is enough" scenario. If you're a private entity without the investigative powers of law enforcement, then public knowledge and your best judgement better be enough, because they're all you have. > Whatever happened to "innocent until proven guilty" ? That's a standard of the legal system. Private parties have lesser powers of punishment and investigation, so correspondingly a less strict standard of proof. It would be an abridgement of a private party's freedom to decide, this person is sketchy I don't want to work with them. That's appropriate where protected statuses are involved, but by default there should be freedom.

cameldrv 3y ago
Of course the issue is that Google is not just a “private party” like you or I. It is a 190,000 person organization worth almost 2 trillion dollars. They have a huge market share for monetized video hosting. If there were 100 nearly equally sized video platforms your argument would me much more persuasive, but at YouTube’s size, to me, they have an obligation to treat video creators with a greater degree of fairness and formal process. If Google does not want to do this, perhaps they are simply too big and should be broken up.
- coldpie 3y ago
  > they have an obligation to treat video creators with a greater degree of fairness and formal process There isn't really a way to enforce this that doesn't violate a private company's rights. Protected classes are the closest thing, but I think you'll have a tough time getting "person accused of being a jerk" to be declared a protected class. > perhaps they are simply too big and should be broken up This, however, there's tons of precedent for. It's the right solution, and we should absolutely be breaking all of the big tech companies up. The current FTC & DOJ are heading in that direction[1,2]. If you like that direction, it's something to consider when you're filling out the ballot each November. [1] The first stab from the FTC is at Amazon: "if the FTC succeeds in court, it could result in a forced breakup or restructuring of Amazon" https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/08/amazons-final-talks-with-ftc-unlikely-to-thwart-antitrust-lawsuit/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/08/amazons-final-ta... [2] And DOJ is taking a stab at Google: "[The DOJ] might even become emboldened to break up some of the biggest tech companies" https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/09/heres-exactly-what-google-will-argue-to-fight-the-dojs-antitrust-claims/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/09/heres-exactly-wh...
  - riversflow 3y ago
    > There isn't really a way to enforce this that doesn't violate a private company's rights. Should a private company have those rights? We meed corporate reform in America.
    - coldpie 3y ago
      Should the people who work at & run companies have freedom of association? Yes, I think they should. There are narrow exceptions for things like utilities, where a monopoly is the only sane way to run the service (we can't have 12 separate gas/power/water/sewer/phone/internet lines run to every house), but that situation doesn't apply to an Internet video hosting company. We already have a well-established mechanism for reigning in companies that are too powerful: anti-trust law. All we need to do is enforce it.
  - Izkata 3y ago
    > There isn't really a way to enforce this that doesn't violate a private company's rights. Google is a public company
    - beej71 3y ago
      It's a publicly-traded private company, not a government-owned public company.
  - SmartJerry 3y ago
    The way to enforce it is with with monopoly or collusion rules. Google has 39% of all digital advertising worldwide according to a quick Google search. However, I think digital advertising is too broad to even be considered a single category - you should have digital advertising of images, text, video, sound, and so on. Television and radio are different categories, why would you not do the same online? They have the capability to be a monopoly or collude with enough companies to exert monopoly power that they can abuse in some of those categories. Combine this with the fact that they receive special legal protections from liability for user posted content. Their protections against user content should be less if they are editorializing or treating content differently the content. I don't think they should be liable for user posted content, but they should have a responsibility to treat content equally, subject to fines. If they are going to demonetize or ban Russell Brand for a unverified news story, then if their CEO or even the president of the US receive an unverified news story against them (as the president has), they should get the exact same treatment. This is because rules enforced unequally harm content creators and users. The harm comes by way of lying to people. If every person who likes the color blue is getting demonetized, without notifying users of the rule, but every person who likes the color red gets promoted up, a user would be tricked into thinking the whole world likes red. That harm is tangible enough when it comes to important or political topics to deserve fines. The harm coming from not explicitly saying your rules. We protect a consumer from tobacco by forcing them to tell the truth about the product. THe same goes for tech. I'm sure some will say well these kind of lies aren't that bad, but they are, these are peoples lives and for many their source of income and to get treated differently on a whim tricks the content creators (essentially employees) as well as the users.
- waffleiron 3y ago
  > If Google does not want to do this, perhaps they are simply too big and should be broken up. If the people or the state want google to do this the should make a law to require it to do so. If they don’t comply then, please break them up, sue them, fine them.
  - noslenwerdna 3y ago
    That seems to be what the person you're responding to is proposing. I think they realize this is not currently the law...
kumarvvr 3y ago
> then public knowledge and your best judgement better be enough, because they're all you have In that case, this should be made clear in their terms of service, that in case they come to a conclusion based on "public knowledge" and their own "judgement", the user can be de-platformed without recourse to any appeal.

by gdulli 3y ago

cameldrv 3y ago

Of course the issue is that Google is not just a “private party” like you or I. It is a 190,000 person organization worth almost 2 trillion dollars. They have a huge market share for monetized video hosting. If there were 100 nearly equally sized video platforms your argument would me much more persuasive, but at YouTube’s size, to me, they have an obligation to treat video creators with a greater degree of fairness and formal process. If Google does not want to do this, perhaps they are simply too big and should be broken up.

coldpie 3y ago
> they have an obligation to treat video creators with a greater degree of fairness and formal process There isn't really a way to enforce this that doesn't violate a private company's rights. Protected classes are the closest thing, but I think you'll have a tough time getting "person accused of being a jerk" to be declared a protected class. > perhaps they are simply too big and should be broken up This, however, there's tons of precedent for. It's the right solution, and we should absolutely be breaking all of the big tech companies up. The current FTC & DOJ are heading in that direction[1,2]. If you like that direction, it's something to consider when you're filling out the ballot each November. [1] The first stab from the FTC is at Amazon: "if the FTC succeeds in court, it could result in a forced breakup or restructuring of Amazon" https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/08/amazons-final-talks-with-ftc-unlikely-to-thwart-antitrust-lawsuit/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/08/amazons-final-ta... [2] And DOJ is taking a stab at Google: "[The DOJ] might even become emboldened to break up some of the biggest tech companies" https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/09/heres-exactly-what-google-will-argue-to-fight-the-dojs-antitrust-claims/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/09/heres-exactly-wh...
- riversflow 3y ago
  > There isn't really a way to enforce this that doesn't violate a private company's rights. Should a private company have those rights? We meed corporate reform in America.
  - coldpie 3y ago
    Should the people who work at & run companies have freedom of association? Yes, I think they should. There are narrow exceptions for things like utilities, where a monopoly is the only sane way to run the service (we can't have 12 separate gas/power/water/sewer/phone/internet lines run to every house), but that situation doesn't apply to an Internet video hosting company. We already have a well-established mechanism for reigning in companies that are too powerful: anti-trust law. All we need to do is enforce it.
- Izkata 3y ago
  > There isn't really a way to enforce this that doesn't violate a private company's rights. Google is a public company
  - beej71 3y ago
    It's a publicly-traded private company, not a government-owned public company.
- SmartJerry 3y ago
  The way to enforce it is with with monopoly or collusion rules. Google has 39% of all digital advertising worldwide according to a quick Google search. However, I think digital advertising is too broad to even be considered a single category - you should have digital advertising of images, text, video, sound, and so on. Television and radio are different categories, why would you not do the same online? They have the capability to be a monopoly or collude with enough companies to exert monopoly power that they can abuse in some of those categories. Combine this with the fact that they receive special legal protections from liability for user posted content. Their protections against user content should be less if they are editorializing or treating content differently the content. I don't think they should be liable for user posted content, but they should have a responsibility to treat content equally, subject to fines. If they are going to demonetize or ban Russell Brand for a unverified news story, then if their CEO or even the president of the US receive an unverified news story against them (as the president has), they should get the exact same treatment. This is because rules enforced unequally harm content creators and users. The harm comes by way of lying to people. If every person who likes the color blue is getting demonetized, without notifying users of the rule, but every person who likes the color red gets promoted up, a user would be tricked into thinking the whole world likes red. That harm is tangible enough when it comes to important or political topics to deserve fines. The harm coming from not explicitly saying your rules. We protect a consumer from tobacco by forcing them to tell the truth about the product. THe same goes for tech. I'm sure some will say well these kind of lies aren't that bad, but they are, these are peoples lives and for many their source of income and to get treated differently on a whim tricks the content creators (essentially employees) as well as the users.
waffleiron 3y ago
> If Google does not want to do this, perhaps they are simply too big and should be broken up. If the people or the state want google to do this the should make a law to require it to do so. If they don’t comply then, please break them up, sue them, fine them.
- noslenwerdna 3y ago
  That seems to be what the person you're responding to is proposing. I think they realize this is not currently the law...

kumarvvr 3y ago

> then public knowledge and your best judgement better be enough, because they're all you have In that case, this should be made clear in their terms of service, that in case they come to a conclusion based on "public knowledge" and their own "judgement", the user can be de-platformed without recourse to any appeal.