Comment by patagonia | Hacker News Reader

Comment by patagonia | Hacker News Reader

You ever been to a legit protest? Have you been near the police line at a protest when there are thousands of protesters and hundreds of police officers and tensions are high and really not nice stuff is being said all around? And the police officers just stand there at the ready. (Sometimes they don’t and they antagonize protestors or just plain assault then, but my experience has been that is the exception.) I have immense, enormous, huge respect for those officers. Sometimes the individual officers personal beliefs align with the protesters. Sometimes not. But they stand there. Just stand there. If things get violent then they shut things down. But a lot of times it feels like things don’t get violent because they are there and people know they will shut it down if things get violent. That’s what I want YouTube to be. YouTube should be the public infrastructure that is available for people to gather and exchange ideas upon, such that most people don’t even give a second thought to the importance of having public streets available to protest on, and the police are there when the law is broken or unprotected speech is spoken. That is it. The job doesn’t pay well. It’s not a glorified role. And it’s prob pretty miserable when things get heated. But it’s a beauty to behold when you step back from it all and take it in and see what is happening.

> The job doesn’t pay well.

I think this is an outdated belief. Many officers earn 6 figure salaries in the US.

A quick google, the top three results said average was 50k-60k. One result said the top 10% make low 6 figures. I doubt the majority of officers in those lines are top 10%, almost by simple math.

Departments pay differently, but it is not uncommon that protests pay overtime and that picking up extra shifts in 'normal' work also pays overtime. Such things that pay overtime may be providing security at a parade, may be going into a school for education, may be going to a confrence, etc. Typically, any time you see an officer in uniform, they are getting compensated for that. This is VERY dependent on department, but it is typically not difficult to make much more than 60k.

Well. Then it would be over time? So they are paid more for the time worked during a protest, but that doesn’t make them “well paid” overall. I guess, I’m not seeing any more data in your comment. But. Even if I grant that they make 80k or 90k (up to 50% increase in base pay of 60k, and I’m gonna suppose the cost of living for those officers is commensurately higher), argument sake, I don’t see that really making a substantive difference in the argument

There are detectives in my city that make $150k+ It's not unusual for police to double their base salary though overtime

Do you not consider an average 50-60k "high"?

That is more than basically anyone I know personally outside of software, and I'm not in a low COL area.

For a job that I may get shot and die on any given day, no. I do not.

Police dont even rate in the top ten most dangerous jobs in the us.

They rank 15th. Electrical Engineers, loggers, fishermen, etc all have more dangerous jobs.

http://time.com/4326676/dangerous-jobs-america/

Median household income is 56k.

I don't know if this is what you meant, but that's what youtube is doing now. They've decided that these neo-Nazi videos are causing violence, so they've stepped in to remove those bad actors for the sake of everyone else.

> They've decided that these neo-Nazi videos are causing violence

By this logic, shouldn't neo-Nazi rallies or protests be "causing violence" as well because they influence people to commit violent acts later the same way neo-Nazi videos influence people? Yet that is the very thing the officers in GP's comment are protecting.

The fundamental distinction is government vs private.

Police carry weapons that can kill, and have jails that can lock you up for a long time.

Youtube has none of those negative things. They have positive things: great technology and a huge audience. The worst they can do is deny you access to those.

In general, you're not owed an audience. The police won't bring you an audience for your protest, and Youtube won't bring you an audience for your videos unless they want to.

> They've decided that these neo-Nazi videos are causing violence

I’ve decided that your comment causes violence towards people inclined to believe in freedom.

And so does Antifa, BLM, third wave feminists.

When do we start banning them? And are you “ok” with having someone else randomly labelling your speech as something “causing violence”?

No? Then if it’s not ok to do to you, why is it ok to do upon others?

I don't think you're running a video hosting platform - and if you are, I'd be inclined not to use it.

You're also welcome to take your business elsewhere, if you wish YouTube had more Nazis on it.

The problem here is not real Nazis.

It’s that leftists are increasingly categorising reasonable discourse and arguments they don’t agree with as “extremist right wing propaganda” (or just Nazis), and based on that get accounts defunded or banned.

The left is widening their already rampant use of censorship.

Allowing one side to dictate what the other is allowed to say is generally not good for a democracy.

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