I say this for emphasis, not to personally attack you: Whenever I read or hear this it makes me extremely suspicious, because it often doesn't come from those who will do the sacrifice themselves.
Censorship and other forms of regulating free speech is simply never a good solution. Perpetrators of lies will even hide behind this, and create a false image of rebellious heroism, instead of facing public discourse and the consequences thereof.
YouTube is a private entity but they correctly assess that they have a significant responsibility here. But curating social media content is not unheard of, Wikipedia manages it surprisingly well. Instead they could for example certify and emphasize content that is grounded in science and verify content creators of such. This is from the top of my head but there are certainly other people who have smarter ideas that don't involve straight up censorship.
Talk is talk. Actions should have consequences, which is why we have rules and agreements in the real world. I also very much doubt that censorship achieves what it is supposed to. People don't suddenly become enlightened (depending on context it might be the other way around) when you ban that stuff. It can easily become worse.
> Censorship and other forms of regulating free speech is simply never a good solution. Perpetrators of lies will even hide behind this, and create a false image of rebellious heroism, instead of facing public discourse and the consequences thereof.
> YouTube is a private entity but they correctly assess that they have a significant responsibility here. But curating social media content is not unheard of, Wikipedia manages it surprisingly well. Instead they could for example certify and emphasize content that is grounded in science and verify content creators of such. This is from the top of my head but there are certainly other people who have smarter ideas that don't involve straight up censorship.
I'm 100% certain that some crank and their followers are complaining about censorship on Wikipedia right now, because that community decided to not present their tendentious opinions or lies as the truth or to not present them at all.
The word "censorship" has been ruined: it's devolved into an epithet to describe any barrier, not matter how justified, between a speaker and his desired audience. It's not censorship for YouTube to ban this content, just like it's not censorship for me to ban anti-vaxxers and white suprecemists from putting signs up on my lawn. The mass dissemination of truth (or our best approximation) has always depended on decisions to not disseminate. You can't expect the common man to sort through a bag of 99 compelling lies and one truth to find the truth. That's too much work for an amateur, and too many will settle for a lie. Everyone relies on others to improve the truth-to-lie ratio to some manageable ratio that an individual can handle.
It's also worth noting is that one of the main reasons Wikipedia does better than YouTube is that it's process is 100% manual. Google's bias towards totally automated processes driven by some quantity of shallow data points greatly reduces how effective they can actually be.
> the massive risk remains censorship by state actors
the state actors are to an extent, elected by the people. The big corporates have no accountability.
> I suggest we in the short term we encourage people like YouTube to censor more evil idiocy
You say that because in this narrow issue, you agree with youtube.
What is the short term?
Have you thought through all the consequences? and still, things will happen that you have not accounted for.
everyone is against evil or idiocy. The question is who decides what is?
The media's propaganda can and is being used to brainwash the people, and the results are clearly out for all to see.
> The social platforms aren't censoring you (or some idea you like) because they disagree with you. They are censoring because they are large social platforms, and ideas are POWERFUL and DANGEROUS.
> Let me be clear: if you run a large social network, you will be forced by inexorable circumstance to censor certain things, you will be forced to "arbitrate" on topics you have an (inevitably) limited understanding of, and it will all be really really shitty.
> (The alternative is just collapse of the platform, so I guess you do always have a choice - but then you're not a social platform anymore)
I'd love if he provided an example of these powerful and dangerous ideas that must be censored. This is exactly the kind of language that any powerful organization that is scared of losing power says - it's all in the interest of saving lives... okay, what are the examples? Why is this not a matter best handled by law enforcement?
This just further convinces me that social media is a cancer to society.
>We need to realize our problem is not with censoring people, it's with who does the censoring.
No, the problem is with censoring people.
You make it seem like censorship is a given. I disagree and feel no need to have a third party prune unwanted ideas for me. This will seem like a strange idea for some but I don't need a priest in between myself and God. I don't need a doctor in between myself and good health. Why would I need a censor in between myself and information?
No need for governments, no need for corporations, just me and my silly brain will decide what to digest. What a concept!
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We need to realize our problem is not with censoring people, it's not with who does the censoring, it's people that try and normalize censorship.
> how our civil liberties are being rapidly threatened
It's not that they're being threatened, it's that they're actively being taken away. Society may react to this loss of liberty by restoring it through alternate approaches. Or, it may not.
> Removing firearms videos from YouTube seems perfectly reasonable to me
I mean yes, obviously there are plenty of people who want censorship for one reason or another, otherwise it wouldn't be happening. So one's own comfort with censorship is not evidence that censorship is not happening.
> Is a company taking steps to distance themselves ...
It's what they're doing, not why. Despite the trope, evil never shows up twirling a mustache.
> I find it disturbing that people have stopped supporting free speech when they stopped liking its content.
I think the problem is that - in the west at least - we have fairly good free speech, and the governments do not routinely go around censoring discussion etc (obviously this is not true everywhere and varies from place to place).
So this means that people who want to say something can say something using the usual means/technologies. They do not generally need to resort to anything special to avoid censorship or consequences.
As a result, a large proportion of the people who do end up using the uncensorable/untraceable tech are the worst of society doing outright illegal stuff. Drug dealers, kiddie fidlers, murders, organised crime, terrorists etc.
I love the idea of decentralised web tech etc, but I do not want to spend my time facilitating the scum of society to break the laws in my country. I also don't want to host their decentralised content on my machines or waste my bandwidth transmitting their uncensorable porn etc.
Of course I realise that there are places in the world where there are not as many freedoms as I enjoy and people might genuinely need to use such technology to avoid oppression. I guess I am just selfish.
Tl;Dr - you can support free speech without supporting illegal activity.
> Not censoring an idea and arguing that an idea should not be implemented are not equivalent.
I'm not sure this is correct, but I'm willing to be convinced if you can expand a little more. I guess I see it as censoring the act of censoring.
> If this is true, i.e. reporting of the censorship increases the visibility of the bad idea, then it completely destroys the pro-censorship argument that it reduces the visibility of bad ideas. It would also immediately cease to be true if censorship ever became uncontroversial, in which case you couldn't claim that it's giving the allegedly bad idea a chance at a fair debate.
In this case, it is true. But youtube censorship is not equivalent to societal censorship, it just signals that youtube does not endorse Icke's ideas and does not wish to publish them, but people can still evaluate them somewhere else.
> Is somebody suggesting that YouTube should be prohibited from creating and distributing their own videos?
No, the suggestion is they should not be allowed to write their own terms and enforce them.
> Because the process itself involves heaping lots of social costs on people
I'm open to that argument. But I think this writer is really trying to have it both ways. They literally say, censorship doesn't work and we shouldn't do it because we are the ones who will be censored. It just seems like a kitchen sink argument. Either it is dangerous to society because it works or it is dangerous to a few because it is unjustly punitive.
I am not fully in agreement with what is happening right now because I believe it is fundamentally immoral to force someone into a society where they must provide for themselves and then to take away their means of provision.
But I also see our society as deeply censoros before this and a lot of people who are very upset now were fully willing to ignore that as long as it didn't broach opinions they value. Two wrongs don't make a right but it does leave me a little suspicious of how genuine they are and how magnanimous they will be when the pendulum of discourse swings back in their favor.
> "Personally, I struggle with this one. My default reaction would be yes, a curated internet, fact checked for accuracy would be better."
And now you've made the problem worse. This is the idea of a benign monarchy. Who fact checks? Who is the gate keeper? Who keeps out content that doesn't meet the standards? This is censorship. You may think it's beneficial censorship but all censors believe their censorship is beneficial.
All power has the potential to be used maliciously, and then it becomes far more damaging than the benefit of it being used benignly ever created. The only checks that seem to work against such things are individual freedoms and democratic governance. They're far from perfect but the alternatives are all much worse.
> Neither of these situations are ideal, nor are they catastrophic
No, no, this is actually quite catastrophic. Someone else is deciding what is and isn't acceptable for you to consume by default. Establishing the precedent that someone else knows better than you, what content is acceptable for you to view. That's absurd.
Christopher Hitchens had a very poignant[1] part about why the path to hell is paved with censorship, and I think it's worth a watch.
> Personally, I think a better perspective is to reduce and/or avoid censorship altogether, especially as far as internet infrastructure is concerned.
Yes! Systems ought to be designed such that censorship is impossible. Not just that we won't censor because we're so liberal and all. No, just plain uncensorable by design.
Literally anything and lead to anything, that's not an argument it's a distraction.
> How about stopping with the censorship
For the 1,000,000th time, private company cleaning up garbage content its "censorship". Only governments engage in censorship. Every private business has the ability to clean up their space without needed to ask permission.
> Try censoring every ideas that conduct people to commit physical violences and you’ll end up with being allowed to talk about absolutely nothing. religion, politics, science, philosophy, all have implications in our lives, and so some people will always take it personally and act violently.
Freedom of speech should absolutely be protected. But censorship is not really the problem. Today, more people have more outlets to speak and express themselves than at any time in history.
The problem today is that institutions of trust are being eroded. Every individual cannot be expected to become an expert on every single issue, they need to delegate that research to institutions they trust, and then trust that institutions recommendations.
The problem today, is that trust is lacking these institutions (whether that's government, academic, religious, etc.). Without proper authorities of trust, there is a power vacuum that charlatans are eager to take.
>If there is now wide understanding that this happens everywhere, maybe we have a chance to build a platform whose express goal is to not withhold censorship actions from the author of the content.
I want to know what rock people have been living under all this time, that this sort of thing is news to them.
> if we decide as a society that deleting information from publishing platforms goes against the common good, then we can do that.
Yeah this sounds nice and all but ultimately someone has to make the rules about what can and cannot be said. Should we never delete any content period? What about child abuse or calls to violence? who gets to define violence? Is telling people that masks don't work a call to violence? Maybe not but you could make the argument.
Ultimately it comes down to who we want to wield this power, and right now it's between corporate interests and the US government. Considering that the ruling party is the one pushing the tech giants into this kind of censorship (pretty evident if you watched the tech hearing last year), I think I'd rather let the corporate interests have the power for now. The funny thing is, me from ten years ago would be outraged by this take. Things have changed pretty fast.
> It's weird to me that we still have people that still cling to the idea that censorship and curation of content is always evil and every site on the Internet should allow completely unmoderated speech
No, not every site. But just as we have some public forums in the real world (not all, or even most "festering echo-chambers of hatred and racism"), we should have some on the internet.
> Not only are you conveniently ignoring that reality, but you're also ignoring the fact that humans are humans.
This reminds of arguing with objectivists who think that everything they believe flows from "A is A". I do agree that humans are humans, I'm glad we found some common ground here. Presumably you are human as well. But you are not concerned that what you believe is the result of "false information that has been carefully constructed and self-selected to misinform you and appeal to your emotions". It's only other humans who are vulnerable to this, and you need to protect them from it, for their own good.
> Stop. Just stop. You're not helping. You're not enlightened. You're part of the problem.
> There are lots of great ideas about how to tame problematic online behaviour.
Isn't that what all the censoring europeans, chinese, russians, saudis, israelis, etc all say? All censors are trying to target "problematic" behavior.
Your comment is no different than what every tyrannical or oppressive regime espouses. The biggest problem with social media and internet is that it is transnational. Countries and people that value censorship really shouldn't have a say in american social media. I believe they should develop their own social media.
I no longer ascribe to the idea that everyone should have free speech. I believe we should have free speech in america and you should have whatever you want in your own country and own social media. The problem with american social media is that it is trying to appease everyone and as a result, it becomes a race to the lowest common denominator.
I say this for emphasis, not to personally attack you: Whenever I read or hear this it makes me extremely suspicious, because it often doesn't come from those who will do the sacrifice themselves.
Censorship and other forms of regulating free speech is simply never a good solution. Perpetrators of lies will even hide behind this, and create a false image of rebellious heroism, instead of facing public discourse and the consequences thereof.
YouTube is a private entity but they correctly assess that they have a significant responsibility here. But curating social media content is not unheard of, Wikipedia manages it surprisingly well. Instead they could for example certify and emphasize content that is grounded in science and verify content creators of such. This is from the top of my head but there are certainly other people who have smarter ideas that don't involve straight up censorship.
Talk is talk. Actions should have consequences, which is why we have rules and agreements in the real world. I also very much doubt that censorship achieves what it is supposed to. People don't suddenly become enlightened (depending on context it might be the other way around) when you ban that stuff. It can easily become worse.
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