I have no doubt that there are some terrible awful racist videos in that lot but you have to wonder how many times this is ALSO used as a mean to censor pretty much any video that the youtube execs don't like. Censorship is getting worse
Edit: Replacing "Censorship is coming back" with "Censorship is getting worse"
The fact is that YouTube has become one of the primary places (along with Facebook and Twitter) where people not rich enough to own a newspaper or television station engage in political speech. Preventing people from meaningful participation in the public political debate is a precursor to real world violence, because you leave people with little other choice to advocate for what they view as their interests.
YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, and all other corporate entities attempting to regulate political discourse are driving us toward a civil war. There is no good reason for us to allow them to do that.
YouTube has always been free to remove any content they'd like for any reason. When they more specifically define the content that they will be removing, it somehow now becomes controversial? This surrounds the argument with uncomfortable undertones. The idea that your message deserves equal treatment despite the content seems to be a value promoted by racists.
Also, Google/YouTube, Facebook/Instagram, Twitter, etc, don't owe anyone a platform. If this were not true, I don't quite understand how corporations could reasonably comply.
Censorship never left. What's changing is who controls the Censorship and those few people are wielding very very powerful weapons of mass surveillance that will ultimately "disrupt" civilization as we know it.
Censorship is bad for the platform as a whole.
The only reason there is a press release for this particular event is for the inevitable positive press and media attention it will garner.
Might be something newer, of course, in which case I didn't see it and can't comment on it.
This is way more than the few cases that float up into your attention. It's been going on for years across all these big silos. People who fully endorse actual censorship know they can abuse automated systems to silence marginalized people.
Very true. This statement is neutral with regards to both the left-right axis and authoritarian/anti-authoritarian axis. In order to have a society in which people can speak truth to power, in 2019, we have to be on the lookout for new forms that censorious power can take.
Technology is a double edged sword here. New tech introduces ways of circumventing censorship, but also introduces new forms of censorship not covered by old laws.
You won't get large companies to officially make value calls and say "no, it's okay if this user says that because they are part of a special group", they will be too vulnerable to public/media/political pressure, especially in a culture that is generally pro free speech.
Conspiracy theorists and/or political extremists (on both sides) should have to seek out their extreme content with prejudice. No more marketing birther theories alongside CSPAN videos on YouTube, or click-bait "TOP 10 UNEXPLAINED PHENOMENON" when someone looks for academic material. It shouldn't be possible to "stumble" onto a video that promotes falsehoods like vaccines causing autism or holistic medicine alongside legitimate medical content. It's damaging our society because not everyone has the acumen to know when they're being gaslit.
If these content creators were doing this as satire and advertised as such it wouldn't be an issue. What we have are content creators creating deliberately misleading content and then pushing it deliberately to the most gullible audience they can.
The first amendment shouldn't be used as a weapon to trick stupid people. It's diluting real political discourse and creating factions of people who don't have substantial opinions, just a bunch of inaccurate facts and unscrupulous sources for information.
A free society has costs, including tolerating speech you find deplorable. To support censorship because it aligns with your current political leanings makes you no different than the politics you take issue with.
Will you complain if Google mass fires left leaning employees? It's entirely within their right to do. You could even start a competitor to hire those people!
I also think it’s grotesque to quote an anti nazi poem in defense of nazis.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance#Tolerance...
Then you should understand that when "threatening speech" is used to censor people on false pretexts, then this dilutes reasonable concerns about threatening speech. If one is really concerned about truly threatening speech, one should be actively calling out such abuses from one's own side. Also, what naturally goes with that, is the calling out of actual violence from one's own side.
This is also why civility is useful for the public discourse. It acts as a sort of "DMZ" wherein actual hostility is more readily visible. (And certain people on all sides of the public discourse should be called out in this regard.)
Sounds circular but you do you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bijection,_injection_and_surje...
Or to put it in very simplistic terms so that there is no misunderstanding, I am more worried about people who want to promote or engage in genocidal behavior than I am about missing out on possible future contributions to society from genocide enthusiasts who had difficulty reaching a sufficiently wide audience.
It's funny how right-wing people, who argue so hard for capitalism, fundamentally don't understand capitalism.
No. It's funny how people refuse to acknowledge the fact that Free Speech in the Public Square is held as more important than property rights.
The fact of the matter is that places like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are where a substantial amount of the public political debate takes place. Users banned from there are significantly less able to participate in the political debate, and so significantly less able to peacefully advocate for what they see as their interests.
If you find those people so deplorable that you don't want them to be able to advocate for their own interests, don't be surprised when they return the sentiment with fast moving lead.
Nevertheless, there is big difference between the way violence is advocated for between moderates and extremists in terms of severity, frequency, and justification.
I didn't ask you who advocates for violence, I asked you why you thought the unrestricted public speech of extremists leads to peace.
I've already explained why I think restricting political speech results in increased real world violence. People are going to advocate for what they perceive as their interests, and if they can't do it peacefully, they're going to do it violently.
People advocate for their interests peacefully by participating in the public political debate.
If their ability to participate in the public political debate is substantially reduced, then their attempts to peacefully advocate for their interests are a waste of their time.
If your YouTube video gets taken down, you can re-upload something that is better reasoned and less prone to inciting violence. If you can't do this, then you message is inherently violent, and there was never any peaceful outcome in the first place.
Either way, I'd still rather have extremists arming themselves than spending their lives convincing others to take up violence on their behalf.
Could you word this another way? I do not understand what you're saying.
>then you message is inherently violent
Can you please be specific and give an example of a political ideology that is inherently violent, and also one that is not inherently violent, other than pure pacifism?
>Either way, I'd still rather have extremists arming themselves than spending their lives convincing others to take up violence on their behalf.
Because you are worried that people are going to buy what they're selling? Why are you worried about that, specifically?
I do not find this hypothetical YouTuber to be a peaceful advocate for anybody's interests.
No, I'm not. First, the people driven to violence are not necessarily going to be the content producers. The audience can also be driven to violence by seeing the message they agree with censored. Second, the point is that there are no other equivalent platforms to YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, in terms of their reach.
>It is not.
What are the other platforms where people can meaningfully participate in the public political debate?
>You could even return to YouTube with moderated content.
It's up to YouTube to decide what counts as "moderated content". They are currently under no obligation to act in good faith.
I don't think the world becomes more violent because people defend themselves and others. And if it does, it's still worth it compared to surrendering to every would-be tyrant without a fight.
Is this supposed to threaten me?
I don't know where you're from but here in Germany there is a difference between public spaces and private spaces. You can suppress free speech in private spaces. You don't even have to allow access to private spaces while it's the other way around in public spaces. There are laws for that.
The amount of people does not matter. You can't display swastikas in a Bundesliga stadium just because there are plenty people there. The owner would throw you out and probably even report you to the police.
Censorship is something the state forces upon you. It restricts things in public spaces. There is no place left you can go in a state with censorship present to challenge that.
Misusing "censorship" for moderation of private spaces plays down the word. It wears it out and it ridicules people who really suffer under true censorship.
And please...spare me the drama. I grew up in a state with true censorship and I've been online long enough to see this ridiculous whining as what it is...
I'm not sure what that would mean in this context.
>You can suppress free speech in private spaces. You don't even have to allow access to private spaces while it's the other way around in public spaces. There are laws for that.
The point I'm making is that it's probably not a good idea to allow certain private spaces to suppress free speech.
>You can't display swastikas in a Bundesliga stadium just because there are plenty people there.
As I understand, you can't display them anywhere in your country, because your country has more restrictions on political speech than some other parts of the world, e.g. the US. Regardless, I am not suggesting that stadium owners should be forced to allow political demonstrations on their private property. I'm suggesting that certain key internet websites where a significant portion of the public political debate takes place should not be given carte blanche to reduce the ability of people to spread political ideas which the owners of those sites do not like.
>The amount of people does not matter.
What matters is whether people feel as though they have lost their ability to peacefully and meaningfully advocate for their interests.
>Censorship is something the state forces upon you. It restricts things in public spaces. There is no place left you can go in a state with censorship present to challenge that.
I'm not interested in debating your strange and highly restricted meaning of the word. I'm interested in the real world consequences of the actions that these mega-corporations are taking.
>It wears it out and it ridicules people who really suffer under true censorship.
The people you mean to refer to are not my concern.
And it's a good idea to force private spaces to allow everything on their spaces or declaring it public spaces even if they are not? What about the implications? If your private space becomes a public space, does it make you some kind of government?
> As I understand, you can't display them anywhere in your country
Sure you can. You can have as many swastikas in your living room as you wish. You can also have them on public spaces or on TV if they are part of some artistic performance for example. But that's derailing the actual argument. The amount of people present on a private property do not take away the owners rights.
> What matters is whether people feel as though they have lost their ability to peacefully and meaningfully advocate for their interests.
Nobody takes that away from them. They can still express themselves elsewhere. Those places exist.
> I'm not interested in debating your strange and highly restricted meaning of the word.
And I guess this is the core of the problem. You just chose to blindly ignore that in favor of the use of the phrase to advertise your point which is based upon a misunderstanding of private vs. public.
> The people you mean to refer to are not my concern.
But they should. Especially if you want concern for your own position. This is how a healthy society works.
It's a good idea to force some of them to allow some things. You don't believe private property rights are somehow absolute, do you? You understand that there can be competing concerns that are more important than property rights is some cases, surely.
>If your private space becomes a public space, does it make you some kind of government?
I'm not sure what that means. Plenty of private companies are heavily regulated, such as utilities. They're not governments.
>The amount of people present on a private property do not take away the owners rights.
Tell that to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama
>Nobody takes that away from them. They can still express themselves elsewhere. Those places exist.
Anyone can express himself in his own living room. But that doesn't do him any good. Telling certain people that they can't express themselves somewhere that it matters, while letting other people express other political viewpoints in that same place, and justifying that by telling them they are free to express themselves in a dark room, is not going to be particularly satisfying to them. Sure, anyone can go put his videos on a website of his own creation, but if no one is on that website, it's not going to do any good. And people know that. Your alternatives are not real alternatives, because they don't solve the problem those people are trying to solve.
>And I guess this is the core of the problem.
Your problem, perhaps. Not mine.
>based upon a misunderstanding of private vs. public.
What do you think I'm misunderstanding? I know what you mean by censorship, and I don't care to make you feel otherwise about the meaning of that word. I don't care if what YouTube is doing meets your definition of censorship. I care if people think YouTube should be stopped from doing what it is doing, regardless of what word is used to describe it.
>But they should. Especially if you want concern for your own position. This is how a healthy society works.
You're referring to people in different countries, where there is what you call real censorship. I don't live in a place that qualifies under your definition, so I'm not part of their society. And I'm not looking for sympathy from them.
You become "some kind of government" by being more powerful than a single citizen should have. A kind of undemocratic, illegitimate government.
With that line of argument, there is no possibility for censorship anywhere, ever. You can always create your own country someplace else.
Also note: YouTube is already a heavily moderated platform, see pornography.
It is a private company doing the censorship but this is 100% in the definition of censorship.
censor verb censored; censoring\ ˈsen(t)- sə- riŋ , ˈsen(t)s- riŋ \
Definition of censor (Entry 2 of 2)
transitive verb : to examine in order to suppress (see suppress sense 2) or delete anything considered objectionable censor the news also : to suppress or delete as objectionable censor out indecent passages