The fact of the matter is that places like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are where a substantial amount of the public political debate takes place. Users banned from there are significantly less able to participate in the political debate, and so significantly less able to peacefully advocate for what they see as their interests.
If you find those people so deplorable that you don't want them to be able to advocate for their own interests, don't be surprised when they return the sentiment with fast moving lead.
Is this supposed to threaten me?
I don't know where you're from but here in Germany there is a difference between public spaces and private spaces. You can suppress free speech in private spaces. You don't even have to allow access to private spaces while it's the other way around in public spaces. There are laws for that.
The amount of people does not matter. You can't display swastikas in a Bundesliga stadium just because there are plenty people there. The owner would throw you out and probably even report you to the police.
Censorship is something the state forces upon you. It restricts things in public spaces. There is no place left you can go in a state with censorship present to challenge that.
Misusing "censorship" for moderation of private spaces plays down the word. It wears it out and it ridicules people who really suffer under true censorship.
And please...spare me the drama. I grew up in a state with true censorship and I've been online long enough to see this ridiculous whining as what it is...
I'm not sure what that would mean in this context.
>You can suppress free speech in private spaces. You don't even have to allow access to private spaces while it's the other way around in public spaces. There are laws for that.
The point I'm making is that it's probably not a good idea to allow certain private spaces to suppress free speech.
>You can't display swastikas in a Bundesliga stadium just because there are plenty people there.
As I understand, you can't display them anywhere in your country, because your country has more restrictions on political speech than some other parts of the world, e.g. the US. Regardless, I am not suggesting that stadium owners should be forced to allow political demonstrations on their private property. I'm suggesting that certain key internet websites where a significant portion of the public political debate takes place should not be given carte blanche to reduce the ability of people to spread political ideas which the owners of those sites do not like.
>The amount of people does not matter.
What matters is whether people feel as though they have lost their ability to peacefully and meaningfully advocate for their interests.
>Censorship is something the state forces upon you. It restricts things in public spaces. There is no place left you can go in a state with censorship present to challenge that.
I'm not interested in debating your strange and highly restricted meaning of the word. I'm interested in the real world consequences of the actions that these mega-corporations are taking.
>It wears it out and it ridicules people who really suffer under true censorship.
The people you mean to refer to are not my concern.
And it's a good idea to force private spaces to allow everything on their spaces or declaring it public spaces even if they are not? What about the implications? If your private space becomes a public space, does it make you some kind of government?
> As I understand, you can't display them anywhere in your country
Sure you can. You can have as many swastikas in your living room as you wish. You can also have them on public spaces or on TV if they are part of some artistic performance for example. But that's derailing the actual argument. The amount of people present on a private property do not take away the owners rights.
> What matters is whether people feel as though they have lost their ability to peacefully and meaningfully advocate for their interests.
Nobody takes that away from them. They can still express themselves elsewhere. Those places exist.
> I'm not interested in debating your strange and highly restricted meaning of the word.
And I guess this is the core of the problem. You just chose to blindly ignore that in favor of the use of the phrase to advertise your point which is based upon a misunderstanding of private vs. public.
> The people you mean to refer to are not my concern.
But they should. Especially if you want concern for your own position. This is how a healthy society works.
You become "some kind of government" by being more powerful than a single citizen should have. A kind of undemocratic, illegitimate government.
It's a good idea to force some of them to allow some things. You don't believe private property rights are somehow absolute, do you? You understand that there can be competing concerns that are more important than property rights is some cases, surely.
>If your private space becomes a public space, does it make you some kind of government?
I'm not sure what that means. Plenty of private companies are heavily regulated, such as utilities. They're not governments.
>The amount of people present on a private property do not take away the owners rights.
Tell that to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama
>Nobody takes that away from them. They can still express themselves elsewhere. Those places exist.
Anyone can express himself in his own living room. But that doesn't do him any good. Telling certain people that they can't express themselves somewhere that it matters, while letting other people express other political viewpoints in that same place, and justifying that by telling them they are free to express themselves in a dark room, is not going to be particularly satisfying to them. Sure, anyone can go put his videos on a website of his own creation, but if no one is on that website, it's not going to do any good. And people know that. Your alternatives are not real alternatives, because they don't solve the problem those people are trying to solve.
>And I guess this is the core of the problem.
Your problem, perhaps. Not mine.
>based upon a misunderstanding of private vs. public.
What do you think I'm misunderstanding? I know what you mean by censorship, and I don't care to make you feel otherwise about the meaning of that word. I don't care if what YouTube is doing meets your definition of censorship. I care if people think YouTube should be stopped from doing what it is doing, regardless of what word is used to describe it.
>But they should. Especially if you want concern for your own position. This is how a healthy society works.
You're referring to people in different countries, where there is what you call real censorship. I don't live in a place that qualifies under your definition, so I'm not part of their society. And I'm not looking for sympathy from them.
Nevertheless, there is big difference between the way violence is advocated for between moderates and extremists in terms of severity, frequency, and justification.
I didn't ask you who advocates for violence, I asked you why you thought the unrestricted public speech of extremists leads to peace.
I've already explained why I think restricting political speech results in increased real world violence. People are going to advocate for what they perceive as their interests, and if they can't do it peacefully, they're going to do it violently.
People advocate for their interests peacefully by participating in the public political debate.
If their ability to participate in the public political debate is substantially reduced, then their attempts to peacefully advocate for their interests are a waste of their time.
If your YouTube video gets taken down, you can re-upload something that is better reasoned and less prone to inciting violence. If you can't do this, then you message is inherently violent, and there was never any peaceful outcome in the first place.
Either way, I'd still rather have extremists arming themselves than spending their lives convincing others to take up violence on their behalf.
Could you word this another way? I do not understand what you're saying.
>then you message is inherently violent
Can you please be specific and give an example of a political ideology that is inherently violent, and also one that is not inherently violent, other than pure pacifism?
>Either way, I'd still rather have extremists arming themselves than spending their lives convincing others to take up violence on their behalf.
Because you are worried that people are going to buy what they're selling? Why are you worried about that, specifically?
I do not find this hypothetical YouTuber to be a peaceful advocate for anybody's interests.
No, I'm not. First, the people driven to violence are not necessarily going to be the content producers. The audience can also be driven to violence by seeing the message they agree with censored. Second, the point is that there are no other equivalent platforms to YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, in terms of their reach.
>It is not.
What are the other platforms where people can meaningfully participate in the public political debate?
>You could even return to YouTube with moderated content.
It's up to YouTube to decide what counts as "moderated content". They are currently under no obligation to act in good faith.
I don't think the world becomes more violent because people defend themselves and others. And if it does, it's still worth it compared to surrendering to every would-be tyrant without a fight.