I have no sympathy towards gun use - but the principle of large monopolies applying their own morals to censor content seems wrong.
To me there are two models:
- You are a platform, you don't moderate content (although you do respond to law enforcement), you are not responsible for the content on your site.
- You are a media company, you do moderate content, you are responsible for the content on your site.
Reddit & Youtube want a little from (A) a little from (B). They want the revenue from being a neutral platform, and the control of being a media company to moderate content for PR purposes.
The problem they're facing is that by banning stuff they don't like, they are endorsing everything they don't ban. So for example, at Reddit, Pizzagate is now officially endorsed as a reasonable point of view that Reddit believes is a valid opinion and is worthy of investigation. We know that reddit endorses pizzagate, because reddit moderates their content and decided to allow pizzagate conspiracies.
This could end up being a maximizing rule for revenue. So a pseudo morality may be as simple as “legal, pr coverage, max revenue).
That was the definition in the 18th century but modern liberalism (neoliberalism, corporate neoliberalism, or whatever you want to call it) - as personified by Blair and Clinton in the mid-90s and then continued more or less in-tact ever since - has diverged very, very far from that philosophy. That's neither an endorsement nor a complaint, but a simple historical fact.
Reddit is apparently also preparing an IPO in the foreseeable future. It would appear they are attempting to make the site more palatable for institutional investors by cleaning up.
On guns tons and tons and tons of companies have cut ties with the NRA. Yet Google still has the NRA channel.
Data does not support your post.
Personal!y I wish Google would remove content with no advertisers and we can get rid of the alt right crap.
Another cheaper rate for those that don’t care.
I’ve enabled my ad blocker on Reddit.
Maybe I’ll suggest having it added to our corporate web filters.
The UK court will consider that under it's jurisdiction because the publication was available in the UK. The UK libel law essentially puts the burden of proof on the defendant.
So now an American citizen can force an American company to prove that the claims of an anonymous user were true, or pay damages.
You can't IPO if everything on your platform is a potentially bankrupting libel lawsuit waiting to happen.
This is rather like saying you think it's fine for libraries to only carry books in line with their morals. Or perhaps that your phone only works for approved topics.
At a certain size these sites become primary platforms for communication. I would argue that at that point they should be considered a governmental entity for laws around freedom of speech applied to historical means of communication. Or made into one.
That's then infringing on their freedom of speech (or lack of). It's an interesting opinion but as it's so far away from any other I've read can you explain it more?
Speech was worthy of protection under the universal declaration of human rights, and these platforms are becoming so fundamental to communication that they should be given the same consideration.
These platforms have become so centralized, powerful, and ubiquitous that censorship on a platform has a greater impact than preventing a person from speaking. That kind of power should never be wielded unchecked by a private entity.
This doesn't follow. Not at all. This new rule is pretty clear that users may not use Reddit to solicit or facilitate any transaction or gift involving certain goods and services. Pizzagate has nothing to do with soliciting or facilitating transactions or gifts.
Even if I take your reading of this at face value, it doesn't follow. Having rules against one thing doesn't prove Reddit endorses everything else. That's quite a leap to make, and doesn't follow any sort of logic or precedent.
It's a new world. It's no longer the internet of the 90s and early 2000s.
1 provider falls and 5 more grow from the ashes, less vulnerable than their predecessor.
It plays out the same way every time.
As a collection of standards, yes. However, trying to find a host for the content that is perceived to be wrong or questionable by the mainstream is now much more difficult. The submission is a case in point. youtube bans gun-related videos not because it is directly bad for their business (on the contrary -- it seems to have an active following), but because lawmakers and media are putting pressure on it to do so. This, in my book, is wrong.
Free speech means arguing against messages one disagrees with, or ignoring them, but not trying to suppress them.
Agreed, but "I won't provide a platform for this speech" is not "suppressing". If I put up a bulletin board in my front yard and encourage my neighbors to post things there, in general it's eminently reasonable for me to decide that certain things can't be posted - even if my bulletin board becomes the most popular one in town.
(But if it's made "the official town news source" and local government makes certain posting certain things illegal, that's an entirely different kettle of fish.)
Tangentially, there's a 4th option you don't mention for messages one disagrees with - censuring them. (As in "actively and visibly disapproving" - not "censoring"!) For some types of message, the most appropriate response is a firm, unmistakable "That isn't welcome here" / "That's a terrible thing to say" followed by no discussion whatsoever. (Eg: when arguing lends a platform / legitimacy, but ignoring implies acquiescence.)
No. Free speech refers to protection from the government censoring or jailing for speech they don't want said. If you're relying on a private company, especially one who retains the rights to take down your video at any time for any reason, to disseminate your speech and you're worried about them doing something with that speech, you're speaking wrong.
I know you mention lawmakers are "pressuring" them to make this change, and if that's true, then yes, this would encroach on our freedom of speech. However, I'm having a hard time finding anything that backs up that claim, and "pressuring" is still very different from a government outright telling YT what may or may not be on the platform.
They have ruled that private areas acting as public forums are still subject to the first amendment. See Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins [1]
> A state can prohibit the private owner of a shopping center from using state trespass law to exclude peaceful expressive activity in the open areas of the shopping center.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruneyard_Shopping_Center_v....
This simply doesn't apply to YouTube.
YouTube is clearly a common area.
YouTube isn't even an area, much less a common area. (Not to mention that the “common area” thing is not a federal Constitutional requirement but a judicial application of the positive rights in the California Constitution; it is not a First Amendment right.)
It's a publication in which user submissions that Google accepts will be published, possibly accompanied by ads from which revenue is shared with the submitter.
Furthermore, you contradict YouTube's own mission statement:
> Our mission is to give everyone a voice and show them the world.
> We believe people should be able to speak freely, share opinions, foster open dialogue, and that creative freedom leads to new voices, formats and possibilities.
> We believe everyone should have a chance to be discovered, build a business and succeed on their own terms, and that people—not gatekeepers—decide what’s popular.
[1] First Amendment Architecture, Wisconsin Law Review, Vol. 2012, No. 1, 2012, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1791125
Users of telephone systems have free speech protections against the operator of those systems not because of the first amendment (and especially not because of applications of that to physical common areas against private property owners, which applications don't actually exist—the First Amendment has specifically and repeatedly been held not to apply even in that case against the property owner), but because of common carrier regulations.
> Furthermore, you contradict YouTube's own mission statement:
YouTube's PR has very little impact on how constitutional law applies to it.
Since the citation upthread notes that even physical privately-owned common spaces are not protected by the first amendment against regulation by the owner of the space [0], though the first amendment rights of the owner also do not prevent state constitutions (California's in particular) from creating free speech obligations which do bind certain private owners of an extremely narrow class of public spaces, I think it is impossible to argue that virtual spaces are somehow protected under the first amendment by analogy to private common spaces, since the latter aren't actually protected.
[0] there is, IIRC, a different line of cases applying narrowly to government's or individual government official's use of privately owned physical spaces as a quasi-official two-way channel which does create some first amendment protection in that narrow context, and these principles have been extended to online fora, but that's not germane here.
No, they've ruled the opposite, as your own source explicitly states. Pruneyard permitted California to impose free speech obligations on property owners via the State Constitution that the Supreme Court had previously found were not required under the First Amendment. (In effect, it found that the federal First Amendment rights of the property owner did not extend to blocking the state action.)
Free speech is not simply a law. It's a concept society must both value and uphold, or it is a right only the popular and powerful have. If I can't even speak up outside work about my unpopular political beliefs without the economic death penalty - do we really have free speech? I'd argue not really. I don't care too much that the government can't jail me for it - that's a pretty low bar.
While I do agree Youtube has the right to ban whatever they like on their platform, I don't have to think it's a good thing for society - and I will absolutely continue to call these things an erosion of my free speech in society.
Without citizens that vehemently uphold free speech policies, the entire concept folds as soon as we start carving out ever-longer lists of exceptions of those who do not have it.
You can believe that a private company has the right to do something but also be opposed to them exercising that right.
There's a difference between free speech as a legal principle and free speech as a moral principle. I personally support both, so while I acknowledge that YouTube has a legal right to restrict speech, I still disagree with their use of that right in this case.
I'd go so far as to say the early communities of the internet were, as a rule, more moderated (either explicitly or implicitly) that even these new rules.
Whoever hosts the service (and as a corollary those that pay them) determines the moderation. The thing about "free speech" (taken to mean unmoderated speech) is that's not something you can build a healthy community on top of. No one got "torn down" by nebulous "mainstream" forces; it's just bad business. All hail the invisible hand of capitalism.
What kind of standard are you actually advocating for?
Where did I argue that?
Kara Swisher has the same right to her opinion as everyone else. I do stand by my statement that she's part of a new wave of tech 'elites' who are brown-beating tech companies into accepting certain kinds of ideologically-based standards of conduct. Nowhere did I even imply she doesn't have a right to do that, but I can certainly criticize her for it. Doubly-so because she's a public opinionator with a significant public platform.
If you don't want large monopolies to act as censors then don't put them in the position to do so. You're uploading your videos for free on their platforms, sometimes even expecting them to pay you for it. I can't really see how you can complain if they decide that they don't want to deal with your content anymore. Find an other platform or make your own, that's how the internet is supposed to work.
On the contrary, it's literally censorship. It's moderation through censorship.
> I can't really see how you can complain if they decide that they don't want to deal with your content anymore.
I don't find this line of thinking convincing. It's certainly appropriate to criticize moderation policies of platforms. If YouTube decided to censor videos on how to use condoms, #BlackLivesMatters, "conspiracies" about governments reading everyones' emails, or opinions on the Damore firing, criticism would be entirely warranted.
This in itself is okay. I certainly can find places on the web that would censor / moderate videos on how to use condoms, pro-#BlackLivesMatters posts, etc. Not my cup of tea, but they have a right to moderate how they want. We all can chose the social webs we want with the amount and style of moderation we look for. (Seeing the places on the web that are "moderation free", I don't think that is a great option unless you really enjoy a lot of spam and nastiness.)
The real problem is really that, for the average person, the social web has become monopolized into a few uber-dominant platforms, most of which (due to their size) are going to pursue a middle-of-the-road-American moderation policy that (due to their size) is muddy, opaque, and arbitrary. If one sticks to a social vision of just the monopoly platforms, there is "no choice".
Personally, I don't use the big social networks much. The more specialized, de-centralized social web of 10 years ago (eg: forums) is still around, and they are less subject to big-corporate moderation messes. A quick Google shows that, for instance on firearms trading, several firearms BST forums still are around and active. In forum world, if a lot of people didn't like the moderation of one place, they simply went to another forum. That's something that's not always possible even with the closest big-social equivalent, subreddits. The web in general originally was a lot more decentralized than today. The centralization of social in today's web feels like quite the mistake.
(do note that I'm not a lawyer, so this might not be 100% accurate)
I suppose you can say that but I don't think it's a useful definition. Censorship is a strong word, if we overuse it it's going to lose its meaning. Censorship generally has the intent of removing something from society at large because the elites deem it dangerous. Youtube isn't calling for the removal of gun content from the internet, they're just policing their platform. I mean, if what they're doing is censorship then what isn't? HN will ban/flag/delete many off-topic/controversial posts on sight, is that censorship? If your Dungeon and Dragon forum bans you because you posted porn, are they censoring you?
I'm not saying that Youtube couldn't or shouldn't be criticized for their move, I was specifically replying to the parent's claim that there was a change of mentality on the internet at large. Moderation or "censorship" as you like to call it has always existed everywhere, online and off. The real problem here is that Youtube wields a disproportionate amount of power by virtue of being quasi-monopolistic.
If you expect advertising-powered private platforms that host your content pro-bono to suddenly start fighting for your ideals against what they feel is their own economic interest I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed. Especially if said platform has no serious competitors and knows a huge amount of its users is effectively "captive" audience.
Yes. Censorship is a neutral term.
> If you expect advertising-powered private platforms that host your content pro-bono...
I expect people to let each other say their piece. Content owners and content hosts have a partnership, and the balance of power definitely tips toward Reddit and YouTube at the moment.
We can argue that "someone can go start up a more permissive platform", but if we're not sharp and clear about how current hosts should behave, the next hosts won't have a clear understanding of what they should be doing differently. If we're not sharp and clear about how current hosts should behave, regulators trying to get YouTube and Reddit out of the moderation business will likely defer to whichever lobbyists happen to be in the room.
I expect that, as always in these situations, a minority of users will migrate to alternative websites (voat, alternative video streaming websites etc...) many of them will end up coming back to Youtube/Reddit because that's where all the content is and the network effect is strong. Repeat in one year when Reddit decides to issue a new wave of subreddit bans. I genuinely don't know how we can get out of this situation.
Or where exactly is the line?
This is not censorship.
It's changing because they're trying to follow 'public sentiment' and keep up the sign-ups, views and clicks to get advertisers their money.
If we want them to not be able to censor/moderate/control their platform their own way, they need to be regulated/classed as a carrier/media org.
It's only been 'open' till now because that's the most profitable model...
People need to realise these companies are not public services compelled to free speech, it's just an expectation the users expect to be met.
Sure. They can also choose to lie, say sexist things, and promote irresponsible drinking. And I'll criticize them if they do that, too.
I said:
1. It is by definition censorship.
2. People should strongly criticize things that are both legal and wrong.
I do think content hosts need some legal status if we want an open internet (and digital free speech) to survive. But because I'm for healthy conversation, I'm pushing back on replying to valid point with arguments for ending the conversation.
This isn’t censorship, it’s commercial positioning. You don’t have to like it, and indeed you can pressure the firm to take a different line but centralisation is the real enemy here.
But Other Websites Are Available.
But that's also in the best interested of everyone.
Instead of youtube, we should visit 10 different video sites? Instead of reddit, we should visit 10 different global info sources that now have 10x less content, and spend even more time finding what's relevant? Instead of twitch, we should visit 10 different sites to watch streams?
It's the natural order of things.. there's no way to have a LOT of different sites that also contain basically everything you want.
The only thing you'd lose is the unified user profile but we have the tools to have distributed identities (oauth and friends). Before the era of social networks having mililon of forums for niche topics was common. Now you just create a subreddit instead.
Want to talk about knitting? Search for "knitting discussion online". Here are a few results: https://www.houzz.com/discussions/knitting-and-crocheting https://crochettalk.com/ http://www.knittingparadise.com/active-topic-list
Each site does not contain "everything I want" but each fills a particular niche. The fact that you actually have to search for them to find them can actually be seen as a bonus, you don't have the sort of "cross-contamination" you can observe on reddit when a community is suddenly popular enough to propelled into the frontpage and you have an influx of people who overrun your community and destroy its "culture".
Should reddit disappear tomorrow I'm sure we'll do just fine. Youtube is more complex because video hosting is much more demanding in terms of resources.
YouTube is doing its best to demonetize content that doesn’t result in subscribing to an uploader. Ie: people posting numerous videos that are unrelated because they are so specific.
This is doublespeak.
>censorship: the suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security.
"Doublespeak is a language that deliberately obscures, disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words. Doublespeak may take the form of euphemisms, in which case it is primarily meant to make the truth sound more palatable."
Note that the definition for censorship you quote doesn't necessarily apply here, youtube is not prohibiting "any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security", they're prohibiting it on their platform. That's a huge difference. It's "you can't say that here" versus "you can't say that period". If I invite you to my home and you start spewing nazi propaganda I'm going to kindly ask you to leave, is that censorship?
You can't force Youtube to host your content if they don't want to and they can't prevent you from posting your content on other websites if you want to. There's no censorship or free speech issue here, only the problem of a monopolistic centralized platform without serious competition. That's why net neutrality is important and that's why Making the Internet Decentralized Again is critical if you value freedom of speech and opinion.
It's the suppression or prohibition. Nowhere is the definition constrained by location. There has never been a case of censorship that was enforced on every corner of the globe -- only where one's scope of influence has the power to do so.
Do you have a source for this? The latin word censere does not seem to be defined only as government officials silencing opinions they don't like:
>Definitions:assess, count/reckon, decree, vote, determine, recommend think/suppose,judge
http://latin-dictionary.net/definition/8896/censeo-censere-c...
>Maybe you think the word has a different meaning
It was simias who thinks the word has a different meaning, which is why I cited the dictionary. Do you think the dictionary is wrong?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_censor
The name of the Roman office was based on "censere" but had a more specific meaning, and it's that which evolved into the English word "censor", due to the "supervising public morality" part of the censors' job. But the meaning shifted in the process. The Roman censors didn't "censor" anything in the modern sense; rather, they judged people for violations of public morality.
Makes one wonder where this new definition is coming from?
I suppose we shouldn't be surprised to see the euphemization of technology in a forum full of and run by technologists.
But you see you should because if the government in conjunction with private industry can ban the thing you don't like today, it can also ban the things you do like tomorrow.
You'll probably finally understand when the books start burning because that's right around the corner now.