Media outlets have immense political power because of this ability to keep the demos out of the loop of what can and can't be censored. Politicians have leverage with the media outlets, but The People do not.
I'm not particularly content with that.
This strikes me as a backward way of approaching the problem.
My opinion is that it's not only acceptable for YouTube to ban certain categories of videos, but morally obligatory. It would clearly be atrocious for them to officially permit ISIS recruitment videos in the name of freedom of expression, or in the name of never taking down political videos (ISIS is political, after all).
To put that another way then, my position is that:
1. A video platform like YouTube clearly needs to have, and to enforce, a content policy. It seems obvious that it cannot be a free-for-all. 2. Videos with political content cannot be granted a special exemption from the content policy on the grounds of political videos being special.
The question then is what categories should be on the ban list. It clearly shouldn't include ordinary political videos. It clearly should include recruitment videos from ISIS or neo-Nazi groups. It clearly should include dangerous misinformation about COVID19.
There may be contentious edge-cases, as there are for just about any matter of policy. That doesn't mean YouTube should run a free-for-all. That's just not a reasonable option.
If you want a free-for-all, a centralised platform like YouTube isn't the place to start anyway.
Same as online, officially accepted information. Only the latter can be even more dangerous.
As a reminder, the actual Nazis had the official, state sanctioned, platform on their hands, and they also labelled whatever they didn't like "misinformation" (from Jews, communists, etc).
No war was ever started by David Icke and his conspiracy theories. But NYT "official" and "sanctioned" Saddam's WMDs stories were crucial in building support for the Iraq war. Same for many other wars -- it's usually the state, official, sanctioned, news that are more dangerous...
Nothing. I hadn't meant to imply it was, but I can see how my comment could be read that way.
I'm not about to explain why I believe YouTube should officially oppose neo-Nazism. [0]
> Do you also want the "far-left" silenced?
If there are left-leaning life-threatening lies being spread, YouTube should treat them similarly. It's not the left/right spectrum that matters here.
I suspect anti-vaxxers tend to lean left, for instance (the natural=good branch of human folly), but it's less clear-cut on the left/right spectrum than Nazism.
On a related note, jihadist recruitment videos could be described as 'far right', but that's not normally how we think of them, and it's not especially relevant. YouTube should clearly ban those videos; the left/right question is of little concern.
Censorship can kill people. Look at China's initial reaction to COVID19, to name a timely example. Admittedly, YouTube doesn't censor to the extent that China does, but whenever you have censorship you open the possibility of censoring life-saving speech, which may be controversial at the time.
Yes, if taken blindly without critical thinking, online misinformation has the potential to do harm and even lead to deaths, as you mention. For freedom of speech to work best, you need an educated and thoughtful population. If you think people are sheep and believe everything they read online, then certainly at first pass it sounds like censoring what they see is the right move. But this relies on a critical implicit assumption: that you (or the censor you defer to) know better and are never wrong. Have you ever changed your opinion? Perhaps you from five years ago would censor something important you would say today. There is no flawless human being in the world that can be trusted with this power.
Okay then, how about we just censor the obviously bad stuff, like Nazis or the 5G conspiracy theories? As other commenters have suggested, censorship will just feed into their narrative, further radicalize, and drive them underground. Instead, for things that are indeed so obviously wrong, simply explain why. Counter their flawed ideas with your correct ideas. If they're so obviously wrong and you're so obviously right, this should be trivial. Reasonable people will see that you're right, and those that don't would be radicalized anyway.
> It strikes me as odd that more people seem to want YouTube to permit far-right propaganda on their platform, than want YouTube to permit 'adult content', which just about no-one advocates.
Personally I would have no problem with adult content on YouTube as long as it's labelled as such. And it's not just "far-right propaganda" that falls under free speech, but also "far-left propaganda" and anything in between. True free speech would not discriminate.
> 'Disagree with' is trivialising the problem. This stuff is serious.
Censorship is also serious, and has serious consequences. It is important to think carefully about the consequences of censorship.
The link with Brexit and T you make doesn't make sense either, both of these phenomenon got plenty public exposure, with all information available to those who wanted to find it. The central theme tieing both those developments was the ability for people to use the architecture built by digital corporations to quickly spread misinformation unopposed. People receive the information in isolation, they don't get it side-by-side with other views. People engineering the spread of misinformation know it's not a fair contest, that's why it is so effective.
And that's the point being missed by people who say keep the content up and let bad ideas be exposed by better arguments, the problem is that the ideas aren't being opposed or presented in a robust way. Hosts like Brian Rose and others for instance interview in a way that don't challenge their controversial guests, instead they add credibility to their guests. And because we are thinking of these characters as individuals expressing themselves and exchanging their personal views, people are distracted from the fact that they are businesses operating a money making scheme. And they are only able to do that on this scale because they can use other corporate infrastructure for free.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency
Of course various US (Chinese, UK, Israeli, Saudi, Indian, Iranian, etc, etc) interests run their own versions, both at home and elsewhere.
And corporate astroturfing is not a new thing.
There's a huge difference between kooks sharing a bit of kookiness with each other, and industrial misinformation campaigns created for political and strategic ends - which may include political destabilisation, radicalisation, and the promotion of extremism and domestic terrorism.
The two phenomena are not even remotely comparable. But at the moment information consumers literally cannot tell them apart, because there is no practical way to do that.
The crucial distinction is between individual freedom of speech, where people with unusual views are allowed to say whatever they want as long they don't incite violence, and industrial misinformation, which is inherently toxic and cannot be excused or justified.
There is no principle that can defend deliberate mass manipulation of the public through lies, exaggeration, and wilfully misleading manipulation.
The challenge is getting that principle enshrined in law. So-called free speech advocates will of course agitate against it, and they will be wrong. Knowingly and deliberately running a campaign to mislead the public should be considered a criminal act with criminal consequences.
In what way were Brexit or Trump "forced underground"? Trump got millions of dollars worth of free advertising from the second he announced he was running because the media could not stop covering him. CNN, MSNBC, and Fox aired 30 minutes of an empty podium for him!
And Brexit was constantly in the media in the UK. There was no "underground" at all. The BBC were almost a full-on propaganda arm with their fawning over Farage and terror that any even slight non-worship of the Tories would be reflected in yet more license fee beatings by ukgov.
If you force them underground you have no idea how prevalent the ideas are, nor do you have any oportunity to genuinely change peoples minds. You cant address a problem you are not aware of.
My mistake, I misfollowed your logic.
> it was not socially acceptable to have a reasonable conversation around them without being labeled racist
Well, that's because Trump is an outspoken racist, the GOP is also pretty racist (but better at keeping it quiet), and Brexit was largely predicated on racism.
If you truly believe that then I feel sorry for you, because you live in a really sad world. Is that really the experience you have living in or visiting these countries or travelling around them, that 1 in 2 people you meet are racist?
I think its a bit lazy and easy to substitue fringe views from within these two camps as the views of the majority.
If you agree that they are not the views of the majority of peoplpe who voted in these directions then clearly there are other areas that made them vote this way that could have been discussed and had there minds changed over but werent, because well racist. Everyone loves to complain that trump supporters and brexiters suffer from a lack of critical thinking, and especially conspiracy theorists, but come on. How lazy is it to say all these people are/were racists or that is why brexit/trump won.
So yes, it's absolutely believable to have 15M racist wankers in the UK.
Which is easily demonstrated by their support for platforms and policies that crumble under the merest hint of application of critical thinking.
That's racism/xenophobia, isn't it?
Brexit seems to be predicated on the idea that Brits would rather suffer than risk the possibility that mutual benefit would be weighted towards others in the EU. That's pretty extreme racism (albeit founded on greed) IMO, and is endemic in British society AFAICT.
Obviously that depends on how you define "racist". If you define it as "votes for an explicit racist from a racist party espousing distinctly racist policies", about 62M.
Instead, debate the policies. Explain why they're wrong in a reasonable conversation. You'll actually have a shot at changing people's minds this way.
This seems to be expecting the opponent/interlocutor to be open to having their mind changed, while not being open yourself.
Also, when it comes to values (as opposed to questions of fact), you can't really argue the point, you can just understand the differences between the positions. If someone values sovereignty so highly that it outweighs any possible cost of Brexit, for instance, then they're not likely to change their mind after a discussion.
It was silent to you, because the broadcast wasn’t aimed at you.
Disagree. Online misinformation can kill people [0] and act as a recruitment tool for Nazis [1]. Less seriously, it can result in people burning down 5G towers. There's plenty to lose by YouTube hosting this stuff, and they're under no obligation to do so in the name of free speech.
It strikes me as odd that more people seem to want YouTube to permit far-right propaganda on their platform, than want YouTube to permit 'adult content', which just about no-one advocates.
> YouTube is the only serious option at the moment for general video content
People don't have a positive right for their poisonous nonsense to be hosted by, and discoverable on, YouTube. Such content should be forced off mainstream platforms.
> if YouTube begins to aggressively censor opinions they disagree with
'Disagree with' is trivialising the problem. This stuff is serious.
[0] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/iran-700-dead-drinkin...
edit It's not clear to me whether [0] was the result of online misinformation.
[1] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mbzzzx/youtube-decides-to...