People are allowed to form an opinion on things. They are even allowed to publish that opinion online. That's not "policing."

Your opinions have consequences. They can affect other people in real ways. In this case, the imprecise, incredibly untrustworthy outrage of thousands of people -- fueled by a sensationalist media hit job -- almost ruined someone's career.

You're welcome to your opinion. But you also have to take responsibility for it.

> almost ruined someone's career

There are countless millions of people with no careers at all. Clearly, our society doesn't believe in a right to having a career at all, let alone a right to keeping one's existing career.

If we're worried about the threat to PewDiePie's ability to make a living, to his life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, it seems like the fundamental problem is not with people on the internet having opinions, it is with the system where losing a career threatens all those things. Fix capitalism, implement a UBI, whatever, and then his loss of a career wouldn't seem like a threat to his ability to live a fulfilling life or to reach an effective means of speaking to people.

The same argument can be used to say, "Your opinions have consequences. In this case, shutting down the TSA's security theater program put a lot of TSA agents out on the streets. You have to take responsibility for it." Or "In this case, Edward Snowden almost ruined the careers of many NSA spooks who could never make it in the private sector." Or many similar things. Would you agree those are bad arguments for not fixing the TSA or reforming the NSA?

"Almost ruined someone's career" is such a stretch here. PewDiePie is a multimillionaire. He didn't almost lose his career, he almost lost a few business opportunities. Others like as not would have opened later. This is a very successful entertainer facing criticism; it's not analogous to a normal person being forced out of their job.

Can't this exact same argument be made to PewDiePie? He is welcome to make whatever kind of jokes he wants, but 'his opinions have consequences.' If he makes a joke that causes people to write articles criticizing him, then that is a natural consequence of telling those types of jokes.

Just like no one gets to decide what kind of jokes are allowed to be told, no one gets to decide how someone reacts to those jokes.

Yes, and it should be. I took it for granted that this sort of argument is already applied to celebrities. The unexpected/counter-intuitive part of my claim is that it should also apply to the people writing one-off tweets that they think are harmless and that nobody will read.

If you're talking about the tweet by IAC's global head of communications, I would like to opine that tweets by a global head of communications for a major media company should possibly be considered more like tweets by celebrities than tweets by some bored high school kid.

We do have a serious problem that someone can say things in what feels like private, to what feels like a private audience, and they can attract a global audience very quickly. I said lots of dumb stuff both in person and online (on AIM or Xanga or something) as a teenager, and those are gone from the internet and that is very good. That seems to no longer be true for today's teenagers. I'm worried about this, and I'm specifically worried about the inevitable media circus once the generation that grew up on Facebook and Twitter starts running for elected office. Democrats will be vilified for liking Ayn Rand for a few weeks in 10th grade; Republicans will be vilified for liking Karl Marx for a few weeks in 11th. If you remember the hullabaloo over that one Bernie Sanders college essay, imagine that, 24/7.

But I don't see the "destroyed their career" argument being applied to teenagers; I see it being applied to people who basically have communication as their job. PewDiePie's entire career involves making as many people as possible watch him talk about things. Of course people are going to have opinions on what he says, and of course his career is going to be affected by whether the general public likes what he has to say. That's the career he chose.

> almost ruined someone's career.

Yeah, and people saying "Death to Jews" managed to murder six million of them. Yet apparently you think that is funny and beyond reproach, while taking issue with it is a serious problem.

Strangely, it takes time and maturity for people to realize the difference between being criticized for airing cruel or insensitive humor on an internet video venue and being locked in a cell and tortured for their political views (as in a police state).

Sure. The question gets fuzzier when you publish on something like the WSJ that has a reach of millions.

Example: If an anti-vaxxer published their opinion in a private blog, you'd probably be OK with their speech (as misguided as it is). If the same person started promoting their "opinion" using a national newspaper, you'd be a lot more upset.

Moreover, it's documented that the WAJ article authors went after PDP's livelihood directly (they contacted youtube and Disney, PDP's sponsor) with their allegations and were successful when Disney dropped PDP and Youtube cancelled PDP's new show!

It's kind of off topic in the thread though. Sure, GP didn't like it, a lot of people didn't like it. That's beside the point. You're allowed to not like things, and people are allowed to publish (most) things you don't like. It doesn't add anything to the discussion to state you don't like it.

But should pewdiepie be punished for it?

Some people would rather no one can get the content than simply not consuming it themselves. It's not enough that they don't see it: No one should, because they know what's best.

Are those articles advocating that youtube ban him from the site? Are they arguing that he should be arrested, or prohibited from creating his content? I don't think they are.

What the articles critical of PewDiePie are saying is, "here is what he said and why we think it is offensive and why we no longer watch his channel. If you agree with us, you should also not watch his channel"

Everyone is free to read this opinion and then decide for themselves if they agree with the writer, or if they want to keep watching. If it turns out that so many people agree with the articles that PewDiePie no longer has an audience large enough to sustain him, then that sucks for the people who DO want to keep seeing him, but is just reality. If not enough people want to watch content of a certain type to sustain the producer, then that content will not be produced.

He is "the public" - the same kind of public that kinda sets social norms for all other types of behaviour in media and real life.

And he can feel free to tune out and watch other content.

The underlying assumption behind free speech, free assembly, the public sphere, democratic assembly, etc. is that some ideas are better than others, that people can argue about these ideas and determine which ones are better, that other people will be convinced by rational argument, and that society is better when the better ideas win.

I don't think this is quite what you're saying, but "Why is your definition better than mine" reminds me of a lot of discourse I see about free speech, where free speech is an inherent virtue, and you should be able to say whatever you want to say without anyone doing anything about it - neither censoring it, nor objecting to it, nor listening to it with a critical ear or responding with anything other than "Yay, speech."

This seems to me to be the most fatal form of censorship. We're essentially sandboxing speech. Say whatever you like, as long as it doesn't actually mean anything. Participate in public debate, as long as it doesn't change. Respond to others, as long as you don't dare to claim that any idea might be wrong. What is the point of free speech in such a society?

If all ideas are equally valid, or at least the ideas of the inside crowd are valid and outsiders get a "who are you" response, why do we even try to have a democratic society? Just let the king do what the king wants, or the CEO do what the CEO wants. Comment and criticize all you want, as long as it doesn't have an effect.

But if we believe in there being a point to free speech, we should respond to speech with "Why do you believe that, and can you try to convince me that I am wrong while I try to convince you that you are wrong" instead of "Who are you to disagree with me".