There's also a conversation to be had about free speech as a cultural norm. I'm within my rights to shout down everything you try to say in a public forum but I think we've seen that society suffers when that's commonplace.

And this liberal agenda is not a monopoly of the Silicon Valley either. Citi recently did something similar, announcing that it will cease to make loans or provide payment services to businesses who do not comply with its views on gun control. Which I find more problematic than youtube given the regulatory monopoly and lack of competition in the banking industry.

YouTube exists to make money. It makes money through advertisers. If advertisers don't want to use YouTube then YouTube loses money.

Politics/agenda are certainly involved.

I can think of 11 banks off the top of my head, some are big banks, a couple credit unions, a brokerage with banking services like Schwab. If I googled for "local banks" I would get a lot more. What is the lack of competition you are referring to?

Would you fault Google for removing videos promoting unsafe driving practices that endanger lives, or promotional materials or sponsored videos or ads for cigarette brands, or videos demonstrating the means by which fentanyl can be mixed in with heroin? I'm not saying these are perfect analogies, but rather where do we expect massive companies to draw the line when it comes to distributing potentially harmful content?

Does SV/Google have the right answer to reduce gun deaths? I don't know, but do I fault them for trying something when deaths are occurring minute by minute? Certainly not, something must be done to curb the tragic number of deaths we are shrugging off.

There's no good reason to think that this step by Youtube will help with the "public health" side of the issue at all; it's fairly transparently about an animus against guns qua guns.

Problem: Johns Hopkins patient safety experts have calculated that more than 250,000 deaths per year are due to medical error in the U.S. Solution: Videos about medical procedures? Get rid' of em!

and so on. Only allow cat videos.

yes, yes and yes.

I don't know what you mean by that. Please explain.

(EDIT: Legitimately don't understand the downvotes here.)

As for why it was downvoted I guess a number of people on both sides found it to be plain false and maybe also someone though it was a deliberate misrepresentation of the situation.

Second, it is a kind of ad hominem fallacy to claim that there exists some kind of unspecified (and no doubt nefarious) "liberal agenda" to which advocates subscribe. Especially given that 97% of the US supports universal background checks, how can the o.p. be so sure that this is the product of a "liberal agenda" and not instead a sensible response to an epidemic-level problem?

When people refuse to describe the entities they claim to exist (again: where and what is this "liberal agenda"?) there's good reason to be skeptical of both the people and the entities. Often it's scary packaging for something that's reasonable if you take the time to look at it.

You might have noticed already but in case anyone else didn't: yes, I partly agree with you on this (and I also to some degree think this behaviour is childish.)

> Second, it is a kind of ad hominem fallacy to claim that there exists some kind of unspecified (and no doubt nefarious) "liberal agenda" to which advocates subscribe.

It seems to me a majority of HN thinks Youtube is even more "liberal".

> Especially given that 97% of the US supports universal background checks, how can the o.p. be so sure that this is the product of a "liberal agenda" and not instead a sensible response to an epidemic-level problem?

Many of us (me included) would like more background checks etc.

The problem for me is that a number of people see background checks only as a first small step towards banning guns.

I think there is still room in USA for a European style collaboration between hunters, sports shooters and police.

That would be a win-win. But as long as everyone with a brain can see a ratchet I guess enthusiasm will be limited in the NRA/2A camp.

The big tech companies (in terms of direction from the top) are mostly center-right neoliberal in orientation, straddling the US partisan divide (Microsoft has historically been attached to the Republican Party, which paid off big when the Bush Administration took over from the Clinton Administration at the end of their antitrust trial, most of the rest of the big firms have been closer to the neoliberal wing of the Democratic Party.)

That is what is happening. You do not get to force your voice on another person's platform.

How is that justice?

https://www.aclu.org/other/what-censorship

>1 a : the institution, system, or practice of censoring

>"They oppose government censorship."

The example use calls out government censorship as a specific type of censorship. If "censorship" meant "the government censoring things" you would not need to specify "government censorship" in that sentence.

Yes, I know that dictionary definitions are not necessarily the final word on what something means, but they're absolutely correct here. It is a broad word and it is widely used in other contexts. People other than the government can censor things.

For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_censorship

define censor - https://www.google.com/search?q=define+censor

1. an official who examines material that is about to be released, such as books, movies, news, and art, and suppresses any parts that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security.

2. (in ancient Rome) either of two magistrates who held censuses and supervised public morals.

3. examine (a book, movie, etc.) officially and suppress unacceptable parts of it.

So, Youtube and others are indeed censoring you when they do not allow you to publish certain videos.

A private platform saying "You cannot say whatever you want on my microphone" is not censorship in any meaningful sense when you are free to pick up your own microphone.

No one says you have a right to the users on a specific platform. I can't go on CNN and start ranting, so why should I be able to say anything I want with Youtube not able to moderate the content?

It doesn't make sense. You cannot force private platforms to accept views against their economic interests and call that freedom.

If someone says you will go to jail for saying something, that is censorship.

Except YouTube does not prevent you from publishing your videos. They only prevent you from publishing them on YouTube. You can publish them on another platform, or self-publish them.

Censorship is usually taken to mean suppressing or attempting to suppress a work from being published at all across some reasonably large population, which is generally something only governments have the power to do.

One might make a case that a private organization that has acquired a monopoly or near monopoly could do so, but YouTube is not yet there.

I have had to explain why it is a category error so many times that I have it down to a quick patter now, in a couple of forms - one for quick explanation, one as a socratic QA. The latter seems to work better for people who shout loudly about their Constitutional rights.

Going all well-actually and giving people the verbal equivalent of xkcd 1357 lets everyone know you're one of those people.

If I'm bullshitting over a beer, no I don't do that. If I'm having a serious conversation about real things, yes; I prefer to talk about reality. I take it you don't?

>The government supports free speech because it's important and a Good Thing. Just because private companies aren't required to do the same doesn't make it any less important and a Good Thing.

But the reality is that censorship is not all, or even mostly, bad. YouTube censors snuff videos. And porn. Is that bad? How about videos showing how to make bombs? What about nuclear bombs? What about anthrax? What about biological weapons?

Clearly, YouTube and other platforms must and will draw lines on what does and doesn't constitute acceptable content.

The question isn't about censorship. It's about where the line should be drawn.

For whatever reason, there's a lot of people who think that instructional videos on guns should be in-bounds rather than out-of-bounds. To the extent people are talking about "censorship" writ-large it is a distraction from having to justify making specific kinds of content widely available.

At least in theory, the government is an extension of the people, and a private corporation is not. We should decide as a society what topics should and should not be censored. Then we can defend minority viewpoints and make moral judgements, rather than financial ones.

If you fully ramify your position, you're advocating that the government tell me that if I host videos, I can't prevent people from posting videos that I don't like. E.g., if I make a cat video hosting platform, and someone uploads a dog video, I can't stop them.

Again, this is a debate about where to draw the line. It just happens to be the case that there are some people who are fierce advocates for maximizing the amount of gun stuff that is readily available online.

No, I'm not arguing that YouTube should be legally required to permit all legal content. I'm arguing that I ethically expect them to. Or, at least, expecting them to is a valid position.

Or do the ethics have to do with YouTube's utility like status?

I personally am happy that YouTube can and does censor/ban porn, obscene videos, and videos depicting humans dying.

I don't know. Can you explain, why should private companies be not allowed to discriminate, but allowed not to have free speech? In both cases you can say, well, if you're discriminated by a private company, you can always go to a different one.

I my view, the problem is that we don't want to force people (individuals) to non-discriminate or allow free speech. But institutions, it's another matter. If the institution has enough power, it can impede the rights of people.

So people asking for YT and such to respect freedom of speech are asking for them to be treated as institutions, something that is potentially more powerful than individuals. And they understand that freedom of speech (just like non-discrimination) is beneficial (for society) in any institution, not just government. After all, you can select a government too, by emigrating into a different country.

However, we have made laws that prohibit certain kinds of discrimination against "protected classes", e.g. based on sex and race.

Being an advocate of gun rights is not a protected class.

Companies are not allowed to do that, but individuals are allowed to discriminate even "protected classes". I can freely choose not to associate with black people, for instance. And that is a good thing. So even today there is a legal distinction between individuals and institutions.

And in a certain sense, "advocate of gun rights" is a protected class, because you have also non-discrimination (I would assume, like most civilized countries) on the basis of political opinion.

Actually, political opinion is not protected against discrimination. Otherwise I could create a political party that advocated, say, the extermination of a particular group, and then if you refused to hire me (because I'm obviously an asshat if I hold this view) I could sue you.

This is decided in court anyway, so the scenario you point out, while plausible, is only theoretical.

In any case, there isn't yet a gun-rights-maximalist party against which YouTube could be prohibited from discriminating.

I was born in a totalitarian country, and so I don't find "you can choose your political views" very convincing.

What about religious views? You can choose these as well.

Freedom of speech and political expression is very different from your right to not be discriminated against for expressing your political views. I will defend your right to say "poor people should not be able to get healthcare", but having this political opinion provides important information on your character, which seems very legitimate to consider when making, e.g., a hiring decision.

There aren't easy answers here, and laws and policy are blunt instruments that will usually have some unintended and undesirable consequences.

The problem here is that Google's critics feel like the exact opposite is happening.

edited to add: From the article

> It then posted links to YouTube videos on synthesizing meth and other illicit acts.

Kind of hard to imagine that meth instructional videos are good for YT advertising revenue.

It is a great comparison to printing pamphlets. Google is basically paying the bills to print alt-right pamphlets and to me that is wrong.