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I don't think there's any regulation that can really help here. You can't force a plumber to do business with Rita, American Airlines to accept Steve who's been

I don't think there's any regulation that can really help here. You can't force a plumber to do business with Rita, American Airlines to accept Steve who's been super rude to the stewards on board, you can't force anybody really to do business with you. The only exception I know of, for which there is some regulation where they can't just say "no", legally, are banks. And trust me, if banks don't want you as a customer they will do everything in their power to maliciously comply to the point your account is useless and perma frozen. What is this lunacy about Google regulation about? If Google doesn't want Enderman, you can't force them to have him. I get what you really mean is regulating so companies are forced to process and communicate via non-automated, non-AI systems for whatever a, b, c issue or reason, but this doesn't change anything because of how simple and cheap is malicious compliance. All Google needs to do is "yeah, okay, we'll also review it with human", and put some intern to press a green button manually. Unless you can prove discrimination, it's their house, it's their business, they can and should do what they want. The issue is that Youtube is one of the strongest and hardest to break monopolies on the internet. It's the hardest part of the degoogling process.

danaris 1y ago
> If Google or any other platform doesn't want you on their platform, nobody can force them to have you. That's just not true. Up till now, no government has (to my knowledge) tried to dictate to a major American platform owner that they may not ban certain users or classes of users, but that doesn't mean that they can't. It's really not the same thing as the issue of forcing an employer to rehire an illegally-fired employee—where the employee then remains there under a cloud, because they have to continually interact with the people who wanted them gone. In 99.999% of cases, when a platform removes a user, there's zero relationship between that user and the people involved in making that decision. If Congress made a law tomorrow (laughable in the current environment, I know) that said that any public video platform provider with over X users couldn't ban anyone except for specific reasons, then YouTube would, indeed, have to keep such people on their platform.
- epolanski 1y ago
  > That's just not true. Prove me the contrary: find me a single law that forces any business to have business with any other, regardless of them wanting to or not. I'm 100% sure nobody can force me to do business with people I don't want and if you're a professional I can't force you either to do business with me. Why would you think this would be a good law to have? Only discrimination would be a valid reason. If Google (business) doesn't want to platform a creator (another business), that's their right. Of course we can question the morale or ethics, but that's about it. > If Congress made a law tomorrow (laughable in the current environment, I know) that said that any public video platform provider with over X users couldn't ban anyone except for specific reasons, then YouTube would, indeed, have to keep such people on their platform. But such laws do not exist in pretty much any part of the world: you can't force a business (Youtube) to do business with another one (a creator). The reason why this is obviously different is because Youtube is a de facto monopoly on large parts of internet content.
  - danaris 1y ago
    > Prove me the contrary: find me a single law that forces any business to have business with any other, regardless of them wanting to or not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anti-discrimination_laws_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anti-discrimination_la... Sorry, but either you've phrased yourself poorly for what you actually want to say, or you're genuinely unaware of the many anti-discrimination laws in the US, a substantial number of which explicitly prohibit businesses from refusing service to people in protected categories.
    - epolanski 1y ago
      Addressed already in my original post: > unless you can prove discrimination, it's their house, it's their business, they can and should do what they want None of the links you posted, I skimmed quickly, says anything about my point: that you cannot refuse business if you don't want to (unless you can prove the reason you don't want to is illegal).
cwillu 1y ago
Then they shouldn't be permitted to operate at a scale where their unwillingness to do business with you causes you to be unable to transact with entire business sectors. If digikey decides they don't want to do business with me, I am not suddenly unable to buy from 30% of the world's manufacturers, unable to sell to 70% of my customers and locked out of my manufacturing line's plc. If Safeway decides to decline my business, I am not locked out of eating bread from anyone who buys their flour from them. If Cocacola doesn't want to renew our contract because I mentioned to my customers that we also stock Pepsi, I can still buy Cocacola from the wholesaler and resell it, and regardless I don't lose access to my accountant and mailbox when they terminate that relationship.
- epolanski 1y ago
  > Then they shouldn't be permitted to operate at a scale where their unwillingness to do business with you causes you to be unable to transact with entire business sectors. That I agree 100%. But Youtube really did nothing to become or preserve its monopoly really. It's really a reinforcing most creators -> most users -> most money -> most creators -> most users.
miki123211 1y ago
> If Google or any other platform doesn't want you on their platform, nobody can force them to have you. This is demonstrably false. Where I live, stores aren't allowed to refuse a sale under most circumstances (barring some specifically-listed exceptions like selling alcohol to minors). Same for schools, we don't have a concept of "expulsion" unless it's court-mandated. There's no reason a similar regulation couldn't be applied to digital platforms. Whether such a regulation should exist is a different matter entirely. Fighting fraud and scams is difficult enough already, making them harder to fight means we get more of them. Either that, or Google starts demanding rigorous ID verification from everybody who wants a Youtube channel.
- strictnein 1y ago
  Any government which will assert it has the right to force you to platform people will absolutely also assert that it has the right to force you to deplatform people.
- epolanski 1y ago
  No it's not, in most of the world if a business doesn't want you as a customer they can refuse you, end of story. That's not only true for B2C, as most codexes have at best laws about public utilities (you can't be denied electricity for no reason), sometimes banks, and sometimes regulated professionals (lawyers, insurers, etc). This is particularly true for B2B, as Youtube and creators transactions are.

danaris 1y ago

> If Google or any other platform doesn't want you on their platform, nobody can force them to have you. That's just not true. Up till now, no government has (to my knowledge) tried to dictate to a major American platform owner that they may not ban certain users or classes of users, but that doesn't mean that they can't. It's really not the same thing as the issue of forcing an employer to rehire an illegally-fired employee—where the employee then remains there under a cloud, because they have to continually interact with the people who wanted them gone. In 99.999% of cases, when a platform removes a user, there's zero relationship between that user and the people involved in making that decision. If Congress made a law tomorrow (laughable in the current environment, I know) that said that any public video platform provider with over X users couldn't ban anyone except for specific reasons, then YouTube would, indeed, have to keep such people on their platform.

epolanski 1y ago
> That's just not true. Prove me the contrary: find me a single law that forces any business to have business with any other, regardless of them wanting to or not. I'm 100% sure nobody can force me to do business with people I don't want and if you're a professional I can't force you either to do business with me. Why would you think this would be a good law to have? Only discrimination would be a valid reason. If Google (business) doesn't want to platform a creator (another business), that's their right. Of course we can question the morale or ethics, but that's about it. > If Congress made a law tomorrow (laughable in the current environment, I know) that said that any public video platform provider with over X users couldn't ban anyone except for specific reasons, then YouTube would, indeed, have to keep such people on their platform. But such laws do not exist in pretty much any part of the world: you can't force a business (Youtube) to do business with another one (a creator). The reason why this is obviously different is because Youtube is a de facto monopoly on large parts of internet content.
- danaris 1y ago
  > Prove me the contrary: find me a single law that forces any business to have business with any other, regardless of them wanting to or not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anti-discrimination_laws_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anti-discrimination_la... Sorry, but either you've phrased yourself poorly for what you actually want to say, or you're genuinely unaware of the many anti-discrimination laws in the US, a substantial number of which explicitly prohibit businesses from refusing service to people in protected categories.
  - epolanski 1y ago
    Addressed already in my original post: > unless you can prove discrimination, it's their house, it's their business, they can and should do what they want None of the links you posted, I skimmed quickly, says anything about my point: that you cannot refuse business if you don't want to (unless you can prove the reason you don't want to is illegal).

cwillu 1y ago

Then they shouldn't be permitted to operate at a scale where their unwillingness to do business with you causes you to be unable to transact with entire business sectors. If digikey decides they don't want to do business with me, I am not suddenly unable to buy from 30% of the world's manufacturers, unable to sell to 70% of my customers and locked out of my manufacturing line's plc. If Safeway decides to decline my business, I am not locked out of eating bread from anyone who buys their flour from them. If Cocacola doesn't want to renew our contract because I mentioned to my customers that we also stock Pepsi, I can still buy Cocacola from the wholesaler and resell it, and regardless I don't lose access to my accountant and mailbox when they terminate that relationship.

epolanski 1y ago
> Then they shouldn't be permitted to operate at a scale where their unwillingness to do business with you causes you to be unable to transact with entire business sectors. That I agree 100%. But Youtube really did nothing to become or preserve its monopoly really. It's really a reinforcing most creators -> most users -> most money -> most creators -> most users.

miki123211 1y ago

> If Google or any other platform doesn't want you on their platform, nobody can force them to have you. This is demonstrably false. Where I live, stores aren't allowed to refuse a sale under most circumstances (barring some specifically-listed exceptions like selling alcohol to minors). Same for schools, we don't have a concept of "expulsion" unless it's court-mandated. There's no reason a similar regulation couldn't be applied to digital platforms. Whether such a regulation should exist is a different matter entirely. Fighting fraud and scams is difficult enough already, making them harder to fight means we get more of them. Either that, or Google starts demanding rigorous ID verification from everybody who wants a Youtube channel.

strictnein 1y ago
Any government which will assert it has the right to force you to platform people will absolutely also assert that it has the right to force you to deplatform people.
epolanski 1y ago
No it's not, in most of the world if a business doesn't want you as a customer they can refuse you, end of story. That's not only true for B2C, as most codexes have at best laws about public utilities (you can't be denied electricity for no reason), sometimes banks, and sometimes regulated professionals (lawyers, insurers, etc). This is particularly true for B2B, as Youtube and creators transactions are.