There's a huge difference between government censorship/suppression, and a private entity deciding what they will and won't host.
You can quit Google. You can quit Facebook. I know lots of people who have.
Try quitting your government. I don't even need to fill in the rest of this story because you know exactly how well it will go.
You may say that so far google wasn't too bad, and I would agree. Regardless, I still find it concerning that they are able to concentrate that much unchecked power. "Don't be evil" was yesterday, "Don't be evil unless it hurts our margins too badly" is today, I think there is a possibility - but not a certainty of course - that tomorrow it might gonna be "Evil is quite alright if it helps our margins". And that's just google. Other companies with massive influence, like the Murdoch or Koch empires, haven't been as nice as google.
Yes, you absolutely can. Switch from YouTube to a different site, or host video yourself.
If you're complaining about lobbying, that's an entirely different matter, for an entirely different discussion. If you're complaining about monopolies or concentration of power, that's also an entirely different matter, for an entirely different discussion.
Right now we're talking about whether the people running a site, who own the servers on which the data lives, can choose what they host, or whether they're forced to host things against their will. Do you believe that the government should be able to force people to host content against their will?
I am doing both.
Also, switching hosting isn't a cure. Google/Youtube and Facebook and reddit and twitter, for better or worse, control much of the audience online. If they decided you do not exist then for the majority of people you do not exist. Not because those people chose to ignore you, but the companies made the decision for the audience. At the same time companies like google do everything to disrupt the "open market of ideas" and replace it with a "walled garden of ideas we can monetize and do not object to", so far mostly to gain a competitive advantage not to push their point of view, but that may well change.
Taking about hosting in isolation is in my opinion not helpful, one has to always consider the larger picture.
In doing so, you have failed to answer the load-bearing question.
We're talking about whether the people running a site, who own the servers on which the data lives, can choose what they host, or whether they're forced to host things against their will. Do you believe that the government should be able to force people to host content against their will?
I am in favor of regulating the very big players like utility companies are regulated: you don't get to refuse customers electricity or clean water just because you do not like them.
In general, you want liability safe harbor (DMCA, section 230)? Then you have to abide by the same freedom of speech contract the government has to abide by. You want to moderate the content on your platform? Go for it, but then you're on the hook for moderating all of it in a timely fashion.
PS: Companies are not people (SCOTUS may disagree). I'd very much differentiate between a for-profit operation and personal stuff when it comes to certain types of legislation.
But the laws are very clear on it.
Perhaps you’re not looking?
I know it’s hip in the tech scene to wave off politics, but the rest of physical reality still exists.
For one thing, governments can kidnap you, your family and anyone you’ve spoken and lock you in a cage. That’s one of many huge differences between the two.
We live in a time when the ability to find a platform for your ideas is significantly bigger than it’s ever been in history, even without the couple of tech giants.
And just to reiterate, we should be terrified of the power of some of these tech giants, but I’m skeptical of anyone who fails to see a difference between a company saying, “not on my servers” in a world where governments literally kill people who say things they don’t like.
>For one thing, governments can kidnap you, your family and anyone you’ve spoken and lock you in a cage. That’s one of many huge differences between the two.
Companies used to do that already. Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it. That's why, in my humble opinion, the time is now to reign in the power of mega corps.
It also misses the point a bit by focusing on the most egregious things like kidnapping, imprisonment, killings. You don't have to kidnap, kill or "vanish" your opponents, there are many ways to repress them, scare them into obedience and so on.
I’m not saying we’re there just yet, but this Google’s stance is a step in that direction.
That's concerning enough in itself for free speech, but add in pressure from government to "self-regulate," and you arrive at effective government censorship/suppression. When Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai and Jack Dorsey are brought before Congress to testify about what they're doing to stop the spread of "fake news," the implicit threat is that if they don't pro-actively do what Congress wants, then Congress will force them to do so (or punish them in other ways).
Can they seize your assets? Not directly, but try getting sued by the legal department of a mega corp and see what you have left when it's all over. The end result is the same.
As somebody else pointed out, we already had companies that effectively acted as unelected governments in the past, like the East India Company. They used to execute people.
More likely scenario would be exposing anyone That wants to be anonymous. Actually I think that happens in other countries all the time.
What a low quality response. I'm done with you, please do not reply to me further, here or elsewhere.
It does seem like they are used for "news" way more than (in my personal opinion) is advisable, but they are still each independent organizations, and they do not hold (quite) all of the keys to information, and still want to preserve a reputation of impartiality, as difficult and impractical of a goal as that is.
It's certainly a problem when other sources of information loudly pronounce misinformation as fact. If you only compare YouTube and a single other competing news source, you might feel it's rather odd that YouTube is choosing to stop information of a certain nature. If you look widely enough, you are more likely to find that the information is false, and it was your original comparison source that was, in fact, problematic.
The point of all this is that there needs to be more sources of valid, factual information than sources of the same problematic false information, or we are all going to lose the ability to determine any reasonable facsimile of truth. The fact that is it peer-propagated certainly entangles a complexity that is reflected in the very divided opinion on this issue.
But I think in the end it will boil down to something simple. Like other things we've previously agreed should not be free to be amplified on peer networks, likewise demonstrably false information sourced from the government of the people should also not be free to find amplification on those peer networks.