It makes very little practical difference if the censorship comes from a large company or a government if at the end of the day you can't say what you want.
And yes:
I do believe in the basic free speech bargain. I do think it's better to have ISIS recruitment videos (and anti-ISIS videos, and everything else) up freely than to have some organization sitting in judgement of what's "acceptable" and not.
Of course it's a trade-off. There is a cost to social harmony from free speech (& democracy!). China seems to be doing pretty well with a very different approach; they value social harmony highly.
But I was raised like a good little patriotic American boy, so I value free speech pretty damn highly, and I find this policy misguide and scary.
Also, let's not kid ourselves -- ISIS is just an excuse. I guaran-fucking-tee this policy will be used to stifle all kinds of objectionable, non-politcally-correct videos.
I'm all for free speech, but why should Google distribute that for free so we can have more lone wolf terrorist attacks?
Would a disclaimer blunt its impact as a recruitment tool?
> But I was raised like a good little patriotic American boy, so I value free speech pretty damn highly, and I find this policy misguide and scary. Also, let's not kid ourselves -- ISIS is just an excuse. I guaran-fucking-tee this policy will be used to stifle all kinds of objectionable, non-politcally-correct videos.
What about that isn't clear to you? He supports it on principle.
This new policy and the tech that backs it are little more than a political cudgel.
Recent example: Trump decided to end the CIA program arming rebel groups in Syria after watching a video of one such group behead a young boy.
And there's also the difference between reporting horrible, graphical news, and being the platform for ISIS to tell and show them in their terms.
Do you have a source for that? The only one I could find is The Weekly Standard which doesn't cite any officials or sources itself.
Maybe that's what you want – not be aware of those drawbacks. But those people who are censored still exist, are more rejected, and they can't confront their ideas, so they derive towards extremism. Now you can't hear their demands, you get surprised with their votes (hello Trump voters) and they keep being racists (or insert minority here).
Extremism isn't a birth defect. It's a reaction to circumstances. Go visit 9Gag. Under anonymity, huge numbers of young people have very pronounced hatred towards minorities and SJWs.
I'd prefer seeing this debate happening on Youtube and public spaces than excluding them than not knowing where they are.
Google is a company backed by advertising. Youtube has faced very noticeable controversy from advertisers (including a "boycott" -- https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/24/15053990/google-youtube-a...) over "hate speech" and other offensive content.
In my opinion, this update is a direct response to that issue (the paragraph on "de-monetizing" content that is found unacceptable, but still within content guidelines, suggests to me as much). This is all about placating advertisers, who didn't want an advertisement for Brand XYZ appearing to ISIS recruitment videos and the like. I can't really think of a way to get around this -- to do so, you are basically asking Google to force brands to pay for content they find objectionable. (Which they won't do, in the end.)
I agree Google doesn't care about free speech.
I'm not sure about the best remedy to the problem. Things as diverse as legislation to alternative non-centralized social network to simply trying to change corporate and cultural values all come to mind...
There is a reason every single state constitution has provisions on the abuse of speech, and that is because we always saw the potential for this. (Why not the constitution? Because the Federal government has no jurisdiction over speech. It's up to the states. See e.g. Federalist #84)
This idea that "freedom of speech" means "I can say whatever I want, and any and all platforms must amplify what I say" is a completely misguided idea that has no basis in reality, the constitution, or even the debates the founders had.
> "I can say whatever I want, and any and all platforms must amplify what I say"
That's not an accurate summary of what I want.
Instead of 'any and all' and 'amplify', how about 'dominant' and 'not suppress'?
That is, I'm saying that pervasive communication mediums like YouTube or Twitter or Facebook should not be arbitrarily censoring content.
That's all.
(Is it really that dangerous to let people express themselves?)
Sure you are. Except... you tie them specifically to the American interpretation. Which is firmly rooted in the Constitution/1st amendment, and what our founders thought about it.
Quoth: "But I was raised like a good little patriotic American boy, so I value free speech pretty damn highly"
So, either you subscribe to those specific values, or you should scrub the patriotic rah-rah from your argument.
> Instead of 'any and all' and 'amplify', how about 'dominant' and 'not suppress'?
Nobody "suppresses" anything. If you want to be a white supremacist, host your own server. These platforms are private entities - they get to choose who is welcome. (cf https://xkcd.com/1357/)
> Is it really that dangerous to let people express themselves?
Yes. Once a line is crossed, because at that point it turns from speech to acts of aggression utilizing speech. As I said above, everybody arguing free speech understood that back when we decided what basic rights we wanted or didn't want.
And please don't argue "slippery slope", because that's a strawman. There's a very clearly recognizable line from free speech to hate speech, be it white supremacy, gay bashing, nazism, or ISIS. And the vast majority of people is perfectly capable of recognizing that line
(Here's an interesting read on the whole concept that there are limits to tolerance: https://extranewsfeed.com/tolerance-is-not-a-moral-precept-1...)
I feel like we're talking past each other. My belief is that when a corporation becomes large and omnipresent enough, it's basically a de-facto government, and should probably be constrained from abusing its power in similar ways.
Imagine that YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit &c decide that idea X is inappropriate. It will become difficult for us, as a society, to have a discussion about X, because it has been suppressed in our dominant discussion forums. That's not a healthy thing for an open society.
But even if we leave that aside, a loss of YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit is not a threat to discussion. You seem to imply that before these existed, there wasn't any actual discussion of important topics.
Sure, social media has enabled massive amounts of screeching and foaming at the mouth, but beyond that, the impact on useful debate is more than doubtful.
Unless you prefer populism over democracy, in which case it's an incredibly useful tool.
For instance, Jordan Peterson's Google account was suspended today for "violations of terms of service", with no other reason given and no official channel for recourse. It was only reinstated after news of the ban began gaining traction on twitter and other outlets. What will happen to smaller entities caught in the net, with less social clout to defend themselves?
https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/89244909895099187...
This is almost drumhead court martial for peoples online personas. :-/
Those shouldn't be tolerated any more than videos that show torture of animals or abuse of children.
Seems like a reasonable standard and not necessarilya slippery slope?
If this was all that was censored then we'd likely be more agreeable. Unfortunately there is cases like this which seems to be from today:
If we have no limits, then should YouTube also allow pro-child rape videos showing how awesome a 3-year old gang bang is with a crowd of guys cheering that on?
At some point you have to draw the line. I admit this is a very hard and nuanced thing to do, I generally support free speech, but I think that ISIS deserves a platform on YouTube. I'm not sure I'd support outlawing it from the government level, but that doesn't mean we can't do things to curb its influence online.
In fact, from an anti-terrorism perspective, it may be more effective to leave ISIS's videos up (and keep tabs on their most frequent watchers, if anything). It can even have direct benefits in terms of intelligence gathering (e.g. the locations shown can be identified).
That is not a reference that supports your claim.
by that logic they shouldn't allow US military recruitment videos either
We are not talking about the Russian. We are not talking about the Arabs. We are talking about the Anders Bering Breiviks, the Timothy McVeighs, the real nazis of 2017 and of course ISIS.
Or am I missing the really juicy part here?
and no, mcveigh did not act alone. he conspired with terry nichols and michael fortier, who also served and met in the military. according to his biography, mcveigh took joy in being ordered to slaughter surrendered prisoners. did the military radicalize him?
further: did it train him in the skills he needed to successfully carry out such an atrocious act? was he provided adequate care when he returned home from iraq and kuwait, broken? to what extent is the military responsible? should youtube ban anti-US videos in general? does an organization need to be on a particular US government-sanctioned list to be considered a terrorist organization by youtube? the list of questions goes on.
overall, what I'm trying to express is that it is bad for youtube to make decisions based on politics. if they want to make decisions on morals, that's fine, but apply it to everyone, not just ISIS. either that, or allow them all.
Our opinions will still differ somewhat though.