> if youtube doesn't behave more neutrally, expect one side of the political divide to elect people who will make it There have been plenty of threats by vario

> if youtube doesn't behave more neutrally, expect one side of the political divide to elect people who will make it There have been plenty of threats by various politicians already, to enforce “neutrality” on entities like YouTube. But a couple of persistent issues keep rearing their ugly heads. 1. How do you determine “political neutrality”? The only way to be truly neutral is to do zero moderation of any content, and nobody is seriously suggesting that’s a good idea. 2. On what basis could YouTube be ruled a utility? If even ISPs aren’t considered utilities, then how on earth can YouTube be a utility? Utilities are services that generally considered as a basic requirement for participating in civil society. It not clear how anyone could consider YouTube such an essential service. > Thus the "well, actually!" objection to a narrow reading of the principle of free speech is really the one which misunderstand the principles at play and the evolving legal and social understanding of mass-participation online platforms. In the U.S. such a reading of the first amendment, and the principle of free speech, has been consistently and repeatedly upheld by U.S. courts. Law makers can’t legislate their way around that, they would need to literally change the U.S. constitution. Something that requires a 2/3 majority in both congress and the senate, plus 3/4 of all state legislatures need to ratify it as well. For better or worse, the U.S. constitution provides no flexibility for the “evolving legal and social understanding of mass-participation online platforms.” An environment where the U.S. government (and specifically the U.S. government) starts engaging in such aggressive regulation of entities like YouTube, is so distant from current state of free speech in the US, that’s it’s a practically useless argument to consider. So much of the political, legal and social framework of the U.S. will have changed, that it would effectively be an entirely different country and culture to what exists today.