As to your point of information that can potentially do harm, who gets to be the judge of that? That seems like it can be very controversial and subjective.

So far the courts have erred on the side of only ruling against things that pretty much everyone agrees upon and I think we should stick with that.

Having objective criteria for limits to speech is important. Otherwise we run into scenarios where people start claiming "your opinions and words I don't agree with are considered violence against me". At which point ALL speech is fair game.

No new legal precedent has been created, nor has any existing legal precedent been changed. Youtube has always had the right to curate or ban content for any reason, and has always done so, albeit typically in service of advertisers and copyright owners. Legal precedent has never recognized "freedom of speech" to mean that no form of speech can be abridged or forbidden, rather, it has recognized that censorship is permissible under certain circumstances for the common good (laws against slander, libel, fraud, perjury, etc.)

>As to your point of information that can potentially do harm, who gets to be the judge of that? That seems like it can be very controversial and subjective.

Just because it can be controversial and subjective in some cases, doesn't mean it is equally controversial and subjective in all cases, nor does it follow, therefore, that no cases can reasonably be judged by any criteria, because all cases cannot be equally judged on exactly the same criteria.

>Otherwise we run into scenarios where people start claiming "your opinions and words I don't agree with are considered violence against me". At which point ALL speech is fair game.

The problem with the slippery slope argument is that it assumes humans merely process the law like algorithms, and that it will consider a statement like "your opinions and words I don't agree with are considered violence against me". perfectly valid merely because it is logically consistent. Even without "objective" criteria for limits to speech, someone making the argument you're presenting will be laughed out of court, both of law and public opinion.

The only way the slope can be slippery is if no one had ever looked at the slope, considered that it might be slippery, and maybe added a sidewalk or some stairs or a railing or a sign or something. We as a society are already aware that the dynamics involved in something like speech can be complex, and that the potential to abuse freedom of speech exists. Feedback has already been added to the system, because the system is self-aware and self-correcting. It may not be perfect in that regard, but it's still there.

You dodged GPs question. Who gets to be the judge? We already have a system in place which has answered that question - one which aims to prevent abuse of the power, give every party an opportunity to make their case and be judged by a jury of their peers.

All you are asking for is for this to be circumvented.

If the press have the editorial freedom to chose which of their reporters articles they publish -- be it factual, opinion, or even outright biased -- then why shouldn't other private platforms have the same editorial freedom?

The "who" in your "who gets to judge?" then becomes a simple answer: the platform owners. The uncomfortable part is that some platforms have a larger impression on people than others. But short of government intervention -- which is a hugely unpopular option in America -- that's just the markets working the way you guys want your markets to work (ie given the psychology of confirmation bias, if platforms were to focus on unpopular view points their viewership would diminish).

That's the paradoxical part of all this. The same freedoms are being used in both cases but in one instance it enforces principles you believe in and in the other instance it erodes those principles. But you cannot have one instance without having both.

Why shouldn't platforms be stripped of their legal protections (and some effectively destroyed) if they are exercising editorial discretion? Why shouldn't YouTube be responsible for the videos that they do allow/have approved?

If someone doesn't think that YouTube should be accountable for content, then should a newspaper be accountable? Should a person be accountable for his content?

In fact the only defence platforms like YouTube had was the telephone company defence you’re making (as it happens telephone companies haven’t been immune from the demands of censorship either) but the moment platforms do start self-censoring they lose that ISP/telephone defence because they’ve proven they can moderate contributions (even if that moderation is effectively worthless in a great many cases)

In many regards I think "common carrier" status applies. Private companies like ISP's, telcos, and parcel delivery services are not allowed to discriminate based on the content nor the individual. This is similar in spirit to "net neutrality".

The larger a platform becomes, and the more essential it is for communication and daily business, then the more important it is that it does not discriminate.

The grey area is that platforms like YouTube both are public communication platforms, but they also curate content as well. Not sure the correct answer in that case.

What muddies the water even further is that some platforms even pay contributors, albeit for ad impressions rather than directly, but again it makes the distinction more subjective than it appears at first glance.

Eventually there will come a point where the people outside the tech community will deem the responsibility of moderation greater than the the need for an open platform. I’m not sure which side of the fence I sit on but I do agree that the government mandating moderation has the dangerous side effect of raising the barrier for entry too high for any new players to challenge existing networks.

No... because the legal system and the courts were never involved in these matters to begin with.

You, however seem to be insisting that every online platform first go before a judge and jury and seek permission to be allowed to moderate their content, as if doing so should implicitly be considered a crime, which would be far more fascist than anything Youtube is actually doing.

Like it or not, freedom of speech and freedom of association are considered equal to one another, alongside freedom of the press and freedom of religion. Your right to speak doesn't override my right not to allow you to speak on my private property, especially if I object to your speech.

And no, just to preempt that possible rebuttal, Youtube and other sites are not de facto public property. No matter how popular they are, they are actually private platforms whose use requires accepting terms of service under which which those platforms maintain the right to delete and moderate content or terminate service at any time. The only exception that I'm aware of is Trump's personal Twitter account, in order to keep him from blocking anyone who criticizes him.

And even public property has laws, and thus limits, on free speech and expression. "Post no bills" and such.

We have so little precedent with these society shaping forms of communication and content, it would seem very strange to me if we had already arrived at an optimum when it comes to how we should treat them. I don't necessarily have an answer to said predicament, but I definitely think 'do nothing and let unelected business decide how the conversation should end' is not a good answer.

And where precisely has that happened here? Icke floated a theory. Some of his other theories include Hillary Clinton being a literal lizard. Should we ban his videos saying that as well, before people start trying to put chemicals toxic to lizards in the food of politicians?

The only way this could be comparable if someone threaten or assaulted you to get Medicare for all or stop Climate Change.

>"Information" that's not only going to get people killed but also is factually wrong is definitely fair game IMO.

We don't want an advertising company in a capitalist society deciding that. That's the whole point.

Everyone has the responsibility to decide that! Their platform, their responsibility.

At some level of "taken responsibility" (which I think should have been passed), they should be considered publishers and be stripped of their legal protections.

Meanwhile the author of the video played with and mocked the censorship regime to market themselves. Spelling words out, writing them on a whiteboard, talking up how many times this information has been taken down, etc. The more a topic is censored, the more the nonsensical narratives look like forbidden knowledge. It plays directly into the conspiracy angle.

If something technological needs to be done to address misinformation, it revolves around viral sharing, filter bubbles, and most importantly basic scientific literacy. Swiping at the video hosting itself is an ineffective blunt instrument from the same exact toolbox that regressive dictators always reach for.

I think this is a false dichotomy. There is a difference between freedom of speech and freedom to use the most popular communication service. Just because a communication service is popular, does not automatically mean that everyone should get equal access. Freedom of speech means that you are free to say what you want. You are free to publish what you want. It does not mean that the most popular distributors of information a forced to carry your message.

Going back in time, it means that you are free to write a book. You are free to print the book. You are free to distribute the book. You are not free to demand that the most popular bookstore must carry your book. Neither does it mean that the most popular newspaper must publish serialised versions of your book.

It also doesn't mean that you must have equal access to the most cost effective means of distributing your message. Even though the news paper (in times gone by) reached every house and syndicated stories could travel the world incredibly efficiently, it doesn't mean that they are forced to syndicate your story. They have a choice. It may be true that you can't afford to send information to practically everybody in the world like the wire services can do, but that's just too bad.

These days because communications are so cheap to be practically free, people often thing that they should be entitled to the best delivery mechanism possible and that everything else should be considered censorship. A private entity choosing not to spread your message is not censorship. It's a choice and it's a choice that every private entity should be able to have.

I'd rather have the freedom to choose even if it means that tons of people do not have access to the most popular and efficient means of spreading their message.

Of course, if there are groups of people colluding to block your message, then that might be a form of censorship. If you have Youtube making deals with ISPs to make sure that you can't host your own content, etc, then I think that's a problem. That's the kind of action that only governments should be able to take (and with the correct oversight). But people and corporations should have the right to choose what business they want to engage in unless it impinges on special categories that we have already marked for protection (and insane consipracy theories are not marked for such protection).

I don't think facebook and twitter can be compared to something like an ISP, the truth is somewhere in the middle.

I personally find it concerning that more and more everyday human communication is moving to platforms that can arbitrarily ban you from communicating.

Now, YouTube’s algorithms are finely tuned to keep you hooked in front of the screen by continuously feeding you things that are just enough outside the expected zone to keep your attention. Slowly eroding away that critical thinking by simply normalizing the non-expected.

So while I might agree on the principle I think the area is a little gray.

Youtube is not more powerful than the government. The government has the power to create laws, levy taxes, raise an army and wage war, arrest, detain, torture and kill. Youtube only has the power to control speech on its own platform, governments have the power to do so across entire societies, and to enforce that will on businesses subject to their laws.

You can say the same about any social media platform - none of them are governments, nor are any more powerful than governments. This kind of hyperbole only undermines the strength of your argument.

"outsource our critical thinking to private companies"

But by profiting off ignorance, that's exactly what media companies are doing.

That's a nice normative statement, but that battle has been lost over a century ago with advent of cheap mass media that enshrined consumerism. Consumerism advocates that the optimal behavior isn't "what is optimal and fair here?" but "what do I want ?"

It erodes critical thinking at grassroots levels.

Not to mention that these days media companies have perverse incentives to generate outrage and polarizing viewpoints instead of just reporting the damn news

YES lots of people get things very wrong. But we are now throwing data, charts, statistics in front of the general population. People are seeking out data and trying to make decisions for themselves (even if they are not doing a great job yet, it's far better than before!).

I know it is fun to be doom and gloom but the reality is our society is better than it was before. People are calling out the media and politicians on their BS faster than ever before.

No one understands even a small fraction of all branches of science, let alone engineering and the rest of it.

Freedom of speech is just double-speak for the idiot masses. You're free to say things and others are free to put you in jail for hate speech, inciting violence or the other 100+ laws that limit free speech.

The sooner you quit thinking in double-speak slogans meant for idiot masses, the sooner you'll realize you don't know what you're talking about, realize how much work it'd take to know what you're talking about, give up and live your life, relying on appeals to authority.

Try knowing what the hell you're talking about in your professional discipline of choice, intimate relationships, physical health and parenting. That's enough for a single human being - most are utterly incompetent at these matters of vital importance to their well being. When you have those under a solid grasp - you can venture out into contemplating politics, propaganda and law.

It doesn't even work in principle: as long as you are limited to receiving information over the internet, it's impossible to verify any of it from first principle. The results of some automatic processes can maybe use cryptography for verification. But any real-world fact relies on people observing it and providing you with texts/photos/videos: there's no end-to-end process to definitely proof that Angela Merkel is the chancellor of Germany. You have to either travel to Berlin and check for yourself, or you have to trust a single source completely, or you construct some most probable version of reality by aggregating many sources weighted by whatever trust you assign them.

"Having trust in..." is obviously the same as "appeal to authority". And if you belief you're not relying on that mechanism you're delusional.

Every time you trust Google Maps to get you to your destination, you do so because your experience with Maps specifically and Google more generally has taught you that this company and product can be trusted to a certain degree.

Every time you're more open to lending your car to your spouse than some random stranger, you're acting on trust.

Every time you return to your favourite restaurant, you're relying on the intuition that past behaviour is predictive of future behaviour. That's yet another formulation for "trust".

Do you believe there's a virus going around right now? How do you know? Are you just counting the number of sources saying so? Because in that case I can probably find more anonymous twitter accounts denying it. Do you consider a story in the New York Times to carry more weight than @justin1256 on Twitter? That's trust.

When you get a vaccination, you're relying on the combined authority of your doctor, and your country's licensing scheme for physicians, and the FDA and the company producing the vaccine.

What does "thinking for yourself" mean in that context? Reading a few papers online doesn't qualitatively change anything: you're just distributing your trust more widely. In practice, it typically means giving yourself license to find whatever study or YouTube video best conforms to your priors. Those people currently setting 5G towers on fire in Britain are excellent at "thinking for themselves" and "consuming a wide variety of sources".

Not relying on some sort of authority implies proving information from first principle. How do you go about it? Are you going to run your own clinical trial? That would cost billions, and expose dozens or hundreds of people to whatever danger you're trying to evaluate, defeating the purpose. It would probably also involve more work than you could do yourself, so you'd need to trust some collaborators. Foiled again!

I also don't get what's so bad about trust? If you want to define it, it's making predictions (about some person's or institution's honesty and competence) based on past experiences. Is there any difference between extending someone (limited) trust after a good experience to, say, jumping headfirst into a pool after you've swam in it to check its depth? Or cuddling a dog you know to be friendly? Yes, people can change (so can dogs), which is why trust isn't binary, and needs continuous updating. Which is why it's so fortunate that nature has evolved a whole range of emotions, from love to friendship to sympathy to fear, to keep track of this elusive quantity called trust.

There are two things at play here, one is misplaced trust. These people are trusting the wrong authority that are feeding them bullshit. Why? They may have had legitimately bad experiences with the sources you and me trust. Or they may just not know one way or the other.

To go along with your example, flying these people to Germany so they can check for themselves whether Angela Merkel is the Chancellor might actually work.

Then there are also people with mental illnesses like schizofrenia. They will not be persuaded either by logical arguments or having the evidence in front of their two eyes.

We ran into the same issues as mass communication started to appear in the 1920s and 1930s. The danger of giving everyone the megaphone is obvious then and now. Tight regulation limited the impact of extremists and crazy people in the United States and other places, it empowered fascists and dictators in other places.

Twitter and YouTube's promise was and remains amazing. The problem is people whose speciality is garnering attention will drown out rational voices. That why the POTUS is a demented game show host.

An entity has the inherent right to control what is on it's own property. Full stop gentlemen.

Why isn't YouTube a publisher now rather than a protected platform?

Why couldn't the NYT justify itself as a platform instead of a publisher if YouTube is a platform?

Freedom of speech doesnt apply on websites. It's their platform, they call the shots.

Dont like it? Start a competitor and pay the bandwidth bill. Google doesn't have to allow misinformation any more than they have to allow someone being an incendiary asshole in a comment section.

Allowing private owners to have total control of these public resources is obviously not what we want or need. The problem is that the formal owners of such resources also have a tremendous amount of influence - as single entities or altogether ("Big Tech") on the politics of states. And this influence is very fundamental to modern democracies, it's not some aberation.

Also:

1. It's nearly impossible to "compete" with such platforms once they are established.

2. Google not only allows misinformation, it intentionally pushes misinformation on YouTube: Sources which are politically acceptable to it are strongly promoted and recommended (e.g. CNN, MSNBC, Fox) - even when they peddle misinformation, which they occasionally do.

> It's their platform, they call the shots.

Agreed. But let's call spades spades.