No, that's not what people arguing for a law think, and if you don't understand that, you can't make an effective argument rebutting their position.
The implied position is that Google is doing something bad for society, even if it's good for business. You may disagree that this is bad for society, or that even if it is, it's still Google's prerogative, but you should at least understand the argument if you want to have a meaningful discussion.
The implied position is that Google is doing something bad for society
That completely doesn't compute. Google isn't in business to make things better for society. If they are, maybe they should give all their profits to charity, stop hosting cat videos and instead become some kind of hoster of national public content? Who said that was their business?
I mean, why not argue that youporn.com isn't hosting these anti-ISIS videos either? They host videos. They could start hosting anti-ISIS videos to archive them.
However, this sentiment bugs me:
> That completely doesn't compute. Google isn't in business to make things better for society.
If we're going to refrain from seeking the violence of state intervention when actors do things we don't like, don't we then have to count on business (and more generally, the market) to do things that we do like?
Yes, I want Google to be in business to make things better for society. I'll go even further: I want Google to position itself so that its profit depends on it doing good for society. I was proud of Google when it aligned things this way re: VP8 / webm.
If the violence inherent in the state is undesirable - and I agree that it is - then we need to build a society in which the free market selects for societal good.
That's not a free market though.
The unfortunate truth is, if you want "societal good" to be guaranteed, (given some definition of that) you have to force it to be so - which is what the violence of the state is intended for. Otherwise markets take the path of least resistance to greatest profit, and that may not be a path which benefits society as a whole.
> markets take the path of least resistance to greatest profit
I assert that a society in which love and compassion are the orders of the day will, in the demands and price signals it sends to the market, not abide by this orthodoxy.
> if you want "societal good" to be guaranteed, (given some definition of that) you have to force it to be so - which is what the violence of the state is intended for
The idea that wonderful ends can spring from such unseemly means is not in keeping with what I am able to observe of the universe.
Such a market (and society) would seem contrary to human nature, therein lies the problem. People are willing to tolerate mob violence, rape and slavery to spend a bit less for their smartphones.
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were
to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government
would be necessary.
--Alexander HamiltonBut anyway, you keep trying to argue with me, while I'm only making the point that you should understand the argument. I'm not sure if you're unwilling to try, but in any case I'm not interested.
I actually sympathize with the position that we shouldn't have laws requiring Google to host this content, by the way.
I now fully support breaking up Google, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft; may be Apple.
Executives at publicly traded companies have no right to enforce their individual political views as company policies. They are not privately held companies, they are public companies who are held at higher standards of equal treatment to all.
What if Bic and Mead said you can't write a opinion that we don't like using our pen and notebooks?
What if US Postal Service said you can't send a snail mail if it contains references to UPS or FedEx?
Youtube is successful and even dominates the space, but is not a monopoly. There are other video hosting services that can be accessed by anyone. You can start your own if you think there's a need. The fact is that people like Youtube.
Monopolies have a specific lock on their customers or their supply of a limited resource. That's why people are okay with breaking them up. Not just because they're really popular and successful.
What if Bic and Mead said you can't write a opinion that we don't like using our pen and notebooks?
Bic and Mead don't host your content. You buy their tools to create your own content and then publish it yourself, give it out yourself on media you paid for, etc.
What if US Postal Service said you can't send a snail mail if it contains references to UPS or FedEx?
The USPS is a government-supported entity. Special rules apply for entities that have government laws behind just them.
If a delivery entity opened your packages to evaluate content, that would present an entirely different sent of problems for them and their customers - because the content is private. Youtube videos are public. That's the point. Youtube has determined for their own reasons that extremist content hurts their business model.
The people who bought into YouTube as a platform, the content creators and their followers, paid for by their time and watching ads into the platform. Remember, when you are not paying for the service, you are the product. The people who adopted into YouTube platform paid for it's success. YouTube was sanctuary when Facebook and Twitter were cracking down on Free Speech. Now, YouTube changing their position is clear bait and switch. You allowed people to use the platform till you are successful, taking their time and energy to drive your ad revenue, now you are cracking down on content you don't like. It is true that it will be relatively easy in this day and age, to secure funding outside of YouTube Ad revenue and host content yourself. Startups will start doing just that. YouTube will look at this moment in time where the executive's individual political preferences were turned into company policy, destroying shareholder value.
>Monopolies have a specific lock on their customers or their supply of a limited resource.
YouTube changes are bait and switch on content creators and consumers who made the platform successful. DeMonetizing someone overnight after years of efforts into the platform and acquiring followers is extreme power held by a corporation.
>If a delivery entity opened your packages to evaluate content, that would present an entirely different sent of problems for them and their customers - because the content is private.
My argument precisely for Net Neutrality. :-) Don't look at content, I bought data transfer, ISP should just forward it on using internet routing rules, just like Post Office does.
The ads pay for the content you watch at the time. It doesn't pay for your right to dictate the terms of their service in perpetuity. Thus, this whole line of thinking is a non-starter. Further, YT is not required to support whatever business model you build on top of theirs unless they've agreed to a contract of some sort. Do you know of such a contract?
destroying shareholder value
Maybe so, but their rationale at the moment is that extremist videos create a hostile environment for their users. They would rather not perpetually expose their preferred users to the toxicity of extremism. It's arguably a move to increase shareholder value. If you think they're wrong, don't be a shareholder.
Now content that does not violate any terms of conditions if also getting removed/demonetized, again following political ideology.
You are focused on Google being able to do what they are doing, I agree, they are quite within their rights to do so.
But, I see this situation same as a Github project uses Apache license to begin, to get adopters, to get eyes that find and resolve bugs, eyes that ask for much wanted features, after being successful the project changes to AGPL or Propitiatory closed-source license selling Enterprise Edition. This is slap in the face of people who gave time to the project.
Anyone who spends time in modern software industry, like an user on hacker news, would clearly see the similarities between the YouTube situation and bait-and-switch on license for successful open source software.
The only monopoly they've ever had is on taste, and for a short period of time I suppose you could argue MP3 players.
Defining a market as "the products Apple sells" for the purpose of determining that Apple has a monopoly on that market is irrational.
The iPhone is one competitor in the smartphone market. Apple clearly lacks a monopoly.
OTOH, only their shitloads of money allow them to resist government demands to hack a user's phone or hand over users' data in their cloud. Every cloud has a silver lining.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)#M...
Their extreme centralization makes it much easier for the government to make those demands. I think you're more right than wrong, though.
The fiefdoms of AFGAM are there for pretty much life.
No really, seriously, this idea is so flawed.
* You don't like the government? Move or start your own government!
* You don't like your house? Rebuild it or buy another house!
* You don't like the way Earth is being run? Move or RIP!
* You don't like the way the school is being run? Move to another town or build your own school!
* You don't like the fact oil is so expensive? Drill your own oil!
* You don't like this comment? Flag it or deal with it or build your own HN.
* You don't like the way anything is done or served? DIY all the way.
* You don't like your local Starbucks? Run one or go to Dunkin' Donut.
* You don't like the way hospital runs? Run one or don't go.
Something more extreme?
* You don't like your parents? Disown your relationship with your parents or make new parents!
* You don't like your child? Disown your child and make one again.
Why don't we dedicate our own life building things every time we don't like? Because we have better things to do. We deserve to complain and we have every right to dislike a service and we don't need to discredit our expectations.
Users want real time PvP and exchange/trade in PokemonGo, but after a year they are still not available. So why don't we build a new PokemonGo? Because we need to rent servers, build the code, maintain the code, make deal with Pokemon rights owners (which is impossible for a small company). So we bend and yield to Google, because we have no better alternative.
This incident teaches us a few things;
1. Please do not think AI/algorithm is smart enough to replace an actual human. Even though human carries biases and are sloppy too, but algorithms are just as bias, if not, more bias and more sloppy (dealing with "abnormality" and edge cases) than a human being will ever be. The hype "AI" will take over... we are nowhere near that.
2. YT is too popular to listen. Losing a few thousand users means nothing to YT. We will soon forget about this in 5 hours and go back to do our own things.
1. No one said it was, but it's their business. We live in a society that allows you to start up your own business in days if you don't like the offering of another private business. Giving up immediately and suggesting that the wielder of force in the society (government) jump in as a parent is usually a fail.
2. That still doesn't give you the right to dictate how they run their business?
There's definitely something going on in our society these days where everyone wants authority to solve all their problems without acknowledging all of the potential problems that strengthening authority leads to. The article below talks about victimhood, but it mainly tries to help illuminate where this appeal to authority strain is coming from.
http://reason.com/blog/2015/09/11/victimhood-culture-in-amer...
So what that society 'allows' you to start up your own business? The economic and logistical barriers to doing so in competition with a monopolistic are significant, and overcoming anticompetitive tactics of incumbents is horrifically wasteful. People have every right to set general standards for how they want business to be conducted and promulgate those standards by law.
Rather than warding off government as some remote and malign force, we should be seeking to make the process of governance more responsive to the public interest. The stability and consistency that allows markets to operate is government's primary product.
"People have every right to set general standards for how they want business to be conducted and promulgate those standards by law."
I think that this in particular is a very important insight with regards to the accountability of multinational corporations. In this case government acts as a way of stipulating conditions of common decency.
Anigbrowl, I'm sure you and I are just going to have to disagree on that one.
The purpose of the federal government in the USA is to execute its duties in the Constitution within its enumerated powers agreed to by the States that ratified it, along with the amendments that have been agreed upon since. Ultimately, the Constitution was constructed in such a way as to protect individual liberty while minimizing the chance that the government would become too powerful. Mechanisms such as the checks and balances and enumerated government powers were put in there explicitly to constrain those in government and prevent them from thinking that they could shape the government however they wanted without fundamentally altering the Constitution through new amendments.
Treating the government like it's a parent there to fix all problems for the children has led to failed state after failed state as leaders assume more and more power over their people. Venezuela is the latest in a long line of where the paternalistic intervenor view of government leads. It's a shame that societies never seem to learn that lesson. My FB feed is full of my more left-leaning friends' laments of how Trump is in control of the American government. But the left still doesn't seem to grasp the fact that Trump isn't as bad as it can get - assuming he doesn't do something that makes things even worse. Keep increasing the power of government and a future incarnation of Trump will really terrify you.
checks and balances and enumerated government powers were put in there explicitly to constrain those in government and prevent them from thinking that they could shape the government however they wanted without fundamentally altering the Constitution through new amendments.
I was talking about people, as in the electoral, shaping government to suit the public interest, whether by the passage of laws or by constitutional amendment.
For some reason you switched that out with 'those in government' - whether you mean professional politicians or bureaucrats, this is a completely different thing to what I was talking about.
Treating the government like it's a parent there to fix all problems for the children has led to failed state after failed state as leaders assume more and more power over their people.
You're the one asserting that government is being used that way. I say that the regulatory role of government is entirely valid and constitutional and reject your claim of paternalism. Your argument is tantamount to saying that any kind of legislation is questionable because it undermines the constitutional role of government, which is absurd.
But the left still doesn't seem to grasp the fact that Trump isn't as bad as it can get - assuming he doesn't do something that makes things even worse. Keep increasing the power of government and a future incarnation of Trump will really terrify you.
You don't seem to get that the left understands this perfectly well, and indeed better than you. You seem to imagine that dictatorships result from an excessively powerful government whose levers are suddenly seized by a bad actor and switches to becoming evil overnight. In reality institutions (both formal and informal) are corroded over time, from within. Hitler had been in power almost a decade before the nazi government began to implement the 'final solution.' You may wish to reflect that the Nazis never abrogated the Weimar Constitution but maintained it as a legal figleaf for their totalitarian policies. The US Constitution is similarly capable of exploitation, eg via a3s2.
Your thesis seems to be 'we must keep government weak so that it can never be used to oppress us' but this is absurd on its face. What keeps governments in line is the granting or withholding of the consent of the governed.
Moreover, I've noticed a certain ideological favoritism on Hacker News towards Google, Facebook, etc. I strongly suspect that if it weren't YouTube, but rather Comcast that was filtering these videos, the community's reaction would be different.
There are countless guides on the Internet for writing software that can create blogs, host pictures, videos, and other content. You could do it yourself or hire a few people for a relatively small amount of money.
Start off with a hosting company and if you're successful, get your own colocation facility.
Build from there.
(yes, I was an engineering founder of an ISP in the Bay Area and built it up to past the point of being capable of the above - and we did it without outside funding, just our own savings from our jobs: engineers, accountant, support person)
I get that you don't like government force and the unintended consequences that often follow from the creation of laws, but you seem oblivious to the fact that markets have externalities and problems of their own, and are not by themselves sufficient for the operation of a society.
If the service you describe exists, it won't survive long. People would begin to swarm such services with rejected videos from Youtube, which you can foresee will be problematic and messy, in the end it might just turned into a 4chan where you can upload video. Hardly an attractive business.
I think that libel involves written statements that have objective specificity that is provably wrong. Subjective statements, especially if only implied by the removal of some videos would seem to be entirely within the realm of protected opinion.
If your videos don't pass the algorithm, post them somewhere else rather than reaching for the government hammer.
Youtube/Google has every right to run their business of posting or denying video content the way they see fit without justifying it to you, free user of their service.
If you think they're making a bad business decision and that there's a need for a video service that gives great explanations when they deny your videos, start such a service.