Doesn't this just feed into people's fears about conspiracies? I can't understand why people are signing off on this. Let the Like/Dislike button do its job.
It is much easier to stop harmful ideas from spreading rather than trying to argue down these harmful ideas once they have already taken a foothold in someone's mind.
It’s fucking terrifying that anyone holds this view, considering the implications. That’s CCP logic. Pro-censorship, “for their own good”?
Have we lost our fucking minds?
You have full access to facts here. Nothing is being truly hidden. Hell, all of these videos can still be shared a million other ways. It’s insane, systematic misinformation that YouTube doesn’t want to actively help spread.
I've often thought this way of thinking is a remnant of the media we've consumed in the past, where there were higher standards because producing media was more exclusive. Think print, radio, TV. On those mediums not just anyone could produce content.
What happened?
(Along with an endless stream of Minions memes, it would seem.)
Megacorps should never become arbiters of truth.
No. That is not how 230 works at all. 230 does not add any requirements for web hosts. They don't have to conform to some "impartial host" or "publisher" distinction. It just means that websites cannot be sued for illegal content on their platforms, regardless of whether they attempt to remove other similar illegal content.
I can't imagine a judge hearing "we removed a malicious and harmful disinformation campaigns using our platform that were trying to undermine election integrity and trust in government and scientific bodies during a global pandemic" and saying "Yep, obviously that's editorial slant."
If a platform chooses a video to play next, based on "what we know you like, what we think you'll like" then it cannot be a mere hoster. Choosing means making a choice.
Youtube has been called a "radicalisation engine" with some evidence for that (search terms: "youtube radicalization", "Algorithmic Extremism"). This might just be a terrible consequence of "maximising engagement" rather than pushing a fixed political agenda. But evidently, they want to do better.
The capital requirements today are an internet connection, a phone, and about ten minutes of typing. For the vast majority of people today, the ability to publish to the world is beyond the wildest dreams of William Randolf Hearst.
Section 230 was created after people sued ISPs using laws intended to allow lawsuits against newspapers.
Section 230 is overall, a good law, but the bigtech abuse of it is greatly risking it to be killed for good, they are supposed to be either a platform, or a publisher, not Frankenstein's Monster that has parts of both, having the protections of a platform while having the powers of a publisher.
No, they sued a Prodigy as a forum, not as an ISP. The distinction is critical. ISPs are closer to common carriers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratton_Oakmont,_Inc._v._Prod....
There's a point where enough is enough, and a blatantly dishonest treasonous war on the very fabric of the government is over the line.
However, I also believe that any algorithmic removal without human oversight should be prohibited by law. The abuse of DMCA requests should be addressed, namely by prohibiting algorithmically generated requests and by treating repeated bogus DMCA takedown requests in a way similar to commercial copyright infringement.
Just letting companies take down whatever they like in whatever way they want is not the right solution. They are basically "information utilities" and provide public goods of a value to society that goes beyond those company's personal advertisement income.
YouTube can censor whatever and however they want. I just don't see this as making much of an impact either way.
Joe Biden, who won the most votes of any candidate in American history with 66% turnout and 51.3% of the vote, still had his announcement video [0] at 50/50 like/dislike.
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbOU2fTg6cI&feature=youtu.be
So that can't and shouldn't be cited as a reason not to be concerned over the spread of misinformation.
I disagree, the reason is because when people have access to multiple ideas they can choose what ideas are best for themselves and other people can judge the outcome based on both the ideas and their effects on people.
> So that can't and shouldn't be cited as a reason not to be concerned over the spread of misinformation.
Without free and open exchange of ideas its not nearly as easy to even tell what is misinformation.
Community moderation has completely and totally failed. Giant, enormous lies are being told to half the population without barrier. People who want to believe in a completely fabricated story about election fraud have all their eyeballs can get.
Fine. I get the free speech angle. But... who cares about free speech when democracy is dying in front of us? Free speech was supposed to have prevented this. It made it worse.
I don't have the answer here. But all I can see is people trying to deny the problem.
I personally believe in "Trust but Verify". There is no way to verify this election. The process is made impossible, because signature check was not done on mail in ballots in any meaningful way. And has not been done now either in any of the recounts. We only know that currently 0.02% of ballots were rejected vs 6% previous elections.
To my common sense, this election could have been spammed with mail in ballots, and almost everything accepted. No meaningful signature match was performed, when only 0.02% of ballots were rejected.
Rather it's a success in tearing down that trust. And the tools used in that effort were lies like this one:
> We only know that currently 0.02% of ballots were rejected vs 6% previous elections.
See: https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-georgia-rejecte...
It's lies. It's all lies. You're reading lies and choosing to believe them[1]. So is it any wonder that Youtube is thinking that maybe they shouldn't have a hand in spreading those lies?
[1] As proven by your reply that the link does not "prove a lie"! That's not the way the burden of proof works. You are choosing to believe this categorical statement given to you without support. That is a "lie" in the vernacular.
From the fact check:
"Georgia rejected 6.42% of mail-in ballots in total in the 2016 general election "
"The higher percentage he mentions for past years is likely based off the total rejected ballots (here) which can not be compared with 2020, as this information is not available."
Georgia 2016 6.42%
Georgia 2020 .60%
Source https://ballotpedia.org/Election_results,_2020:_Analysis_of_...
Which cites the official Georgia election website as source of the raw data.
Apparently a lot of people!
Yes, Google is entirely within their right to censor whatever they want on their platform. Does it make them look like anti-free speech goons? Yeah, it does.
Is it? Where is this implication that the constitution is simultaneously both a legal document and also a list of broad values held by the nation's people?
That's a bit of a silly question.
You probably support democratic control over the government where each citizen gets one vote. But very few Americans support democratic control over private corporations (that would be socialism after all). There are enormous numbers of such examples.
I think it is unreasonable to claim that because the constitution limits the state's ability to restrict speech that Americans believe that other actors should not be able to restrict speech in places where they exhibit control. It certainly could be the case that Americans support free speech more broadly, but it definitely does not follow from just being in the constitution.
The 1st amendment doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
IMO, this does not come across in the posts I responded to.