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That's a straw man, because the grandparent probably does not feel inclined to shout that regardless, so no censorship is necessary. What's more, the troubling

That's a straw man, because the grandparent probably does not feel inclined to shout that regardless, so no censorship is necessary. What's more, the troubling aspect here is that a third party is doing the censorship. IMHO they shouldn't legitimize the outrage over this video which is nothing more than amateurish satire.

DanBC 14y ago
The gp probably does not feel inclined to shout that, but why? Is it because they've lived a life where they condition themselves to self-censor to some degree? Do we just blurt out everything we think when we meet people? "Hello Bob. My word you're fat! And really rather ugly!" No. We live our lives self censoring to some extent. We don't want to go out of our way to insult someone. There are some exception. We don't mind insulting people for humour. We really don't care about insulting people when politics is involved. There are real reasons why religions need to be challenged. Some bits of religion do very great harm to many people. Doesn't that mean we need to be careful with the offence we cause? Not to avoid any offence, but to make sure it serves some purpose? Causing offence to achieve a goal is probably acceptable. Otherwise you're just yelling "HELLO CUNTS!!!". And to suggest that Youtube is censoring something is -in my opinion- vaguely ridiculous. They're choosing not to distribute a video. They're an international business and they suppress many videos every day. There are very many other online video services which could carry this film. I can't display nipples on Youtube. I can't display HoboFights on Youtube. Why should this video be any different?
- andreasvc 14y ago
  I think self-censorship is somewhat of a misleading term. Self-control is central to human psychology, but it is different from the idea of censorship where one party prevents the voice of another to be heard because it is against the interests of the former. I certainly agree that this video is not prudent, and hence will not achieve anything. It is quite another question whether this means a company like Google should judge this and take action on it without a court order. The reason to call this censorship is because the decision not to distribute is probably politically motivated. Compared to the examples you cite, this video is very much relevant to public interests, i.e., people will want to know what all the fuss is about. This does not hold for your examples of 'hobo fights' and nipples.
- icebraining 14y ago
  Why should this video be any different? It's not: those are also examples of censorship.

DanBC 14y ago

The gp probably does not feel inclined to shout that, but why? Is it because they've lived a life where they condition themselves to self-censor to some degree? Do we just blurt out everything we think when we meet people? "Hello Bob. My word you're fat! And really rather ugly!" No. We live our lives self censoring to some extent. We don't want to go out of our way to insult someone. There are some exception. We don't mind insulting people for humour. We really don't care about insulting people when politics is involved. There are real reasons why religions need to be challenged. Some bits of religion do very great harm to many people. Doesn't that mean we need to be careful with the offence we cause? Not to avoid any offence, but to make sure it serves some purpose? Causing offence to achieve a goal is probably acceptable. Otherwise you're just yelling "HELLO CUNTS!!!". And to suggest that Youtube is censoring something is -in my opinion- vaguely ridiculous. They're choosing not to distribute a video. They're an international business and they suppress many videos every day. There are very many other online video services which could carry this film. I can't display nipples on Youtube. I can't display HoboFights on Youtube. Why should this video be any different?

andreasvc 14y ago
I think self-censorship is somewhat of a misleading term. Self-control is central to human psychology, but it is different from the idea of censorship where one party prevents the voice of another to be heard because it is against the interests of the former. I certainly agree that this video is not prudent, and hence will not achieve anything. It is quite another question whether this means a company like Google should judge this and take action on it without a court order. The reason to call this censorship is because the decision not to distribute is probably politically motivated. Compared to the examples you cite, this video is very much relevant to public interests, i.e., people will want to know what all the fuss is about. This does not hold for your examples of 'hobo fights' and nipples.
icebraining 14y ago
Why should this video be any different? It's not: those are also examples of censorship.