Hacker News Reader

Comment by tasty_freeze | Hacker News Reader

How do they combat that without being accused, as youtube is here, of censorship? Will they disallow child porn? How about videos advocating violence against specific people? How about obviously libelous videos, like ones claiming, say, Donald Trump is running a child prostitution ring from the basement of a pizza parlor? When they get sued for hosting such content, who is going to pay their legal bills?

View on HN

For anything that isn't illegal -- offer user controls to block unwanted content.

I'm very much in favor of this principle as well. The problem is that legality is often disputed and not even the biggest platforms have the capacity to resolve all those disputes without taking down the content as a first (and often only) step.

it be interesting if the "censors" actually just made them categories you can block. So they categorize it as "Deceptive" or "Toxic Masculinity" or "Pro X" and you can choose to filter or not.

Offer users control over what they want to filter. As long as it's not against the law, allow it on their platform.

How about they disallow all the illegal content you are using as examples? Legal speech should not be censored.

What if I decide that the goal of my business is to create a platform that excludes particular perspectives I disagree with? Why should the government force me to host things I don't want to for free?

No problem. I don't see a problem with exclusionary platforms as long as they aren't using their extreme dominance in multiple areas to maintain a monopoly. I guess what I am looking for is a cap on wealth and power.

Safe harbor laws make it generally legal for a platform to host such content until certain notification provisions are met. There's a specific process for handling child porn in the US, which you can easily find if you want that in your search history.

Advocating violence against specific people is not illegal in the US unless it is likely to produce imminent lawless action. Saying "[racial slur] should be exterminated" doesn't rise to that standard. A live video saying "everybody get your guns and meet me at [location] - we're gonna slaughter those [racial slur]" probably does, but would be subject to safe harbor protections for the platform.

Libel also falls under safe harbor. The platform could eventually be ordered by a court to remove the content, but not until many people have had the opportunity to see it.

What I was trying to paint was a slippery slope of cases -- start with something illegal and move towards things which are grey to legal.

The question is every such business would need to face, including youtube, is where to draw the line. Child porn clearly is illegal and very few people would object to such a ban. But legal/not legal isn't always so clear, eg, what statement constitutes libel and is a given person enough of a public figure that less stringent standards apply.

Say I create a video saying "zcid lives at 123 Merry Lane in Westchester, MA. I'm not advocating violence happen to him, I'm just stating a fact." Is that legal? (Note: not only is the address made up, I double checked that no such address actually exists)

If there was a bright line then I don't think there would be as much controversy around the issue as there is. Pretending there is a simple solution (just ban illegal things and allow legal things) doesn't mean the distinction really is clear.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com