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Comment by foolinaround | Hacker News Reader

Youtube has actually been censoring content it does not agree with for quite a while, and unless it hurts us in some personal way, we have been ok with it getting away.

eg., Youtube has been censoring a lot of conservative content. They won in court[1]

Youtube cannot have it both ways. Either they are a publisher and if so, must be fully responsible for the content they host. Or they are a platform, and they need to be neutral.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-google-censor-court-...

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> Youtube cannot have it both ways. Either they are a publisher and if so, must be fully responsible for the content they host. Or they are a platform, and they need to be neutral.

As demonstrated by the court case you mention, that is false. I am surprised how tightly people cling to this notion, which has no basis in reality.

can you please be clearer? What is false?

Do you think youtube is a platform? even, a monopoly of sorts?

The publisher/platform distinction that you think exists in US law does not. The CDA does not say what you think it does. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/04/no-section-230-does-no...

Out of curiosity, has there ever been a case where a government has demanded that Youtube remove a video and it has not done so? I may be wrong, but I actually believe that they are fully responsible for the content that they are carrying. They do actually go to considerable lengths to remove content that they think is in violation of their terms of service as promptly as they can. I don't believe they are required by any law to review every submission for possible problems; only to remove content that they are aware is not compliant. I believe they do that. If they don't, I'm sure some enterprising lawyer could fashion a lucrative class action suit. It's not like they aren't sitting on a mountain of cash.

Just to be clear, they are not a common carrier and I have never seen any evidence that they claim to be one. I don't think they have to both ways. I understand (and have sympathy with the idea) that it would be nice if they were, but I really don't think they are.

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