This argument doesn't really hold when you're discussing a monopoly/social network.

Referring to youtube as "just a private company" or "just a video hosting service" is almost to the point of being disingenuous. There are no alternatives that come even close to what youtube offers. You can't just replicate a social network, and even if you could, who has the hardware and resources to do what youtube does?

Vimeo is niche/specialized, it's not for general video uploads. Selfhosting via e.g. Peertube only really works in smallish communities, due to hardware limitations and word of mouth discovery. No other service has the social aspect that youtube does.

The reality is that this is a much more complicated discussion than "oh, merely switch to another private company".

> I swear, it's like people have never had to cancel a newspaper subscription before

This is such a blithe comment that I'm not sure if you actually use youtube to any degree. It is -the- place to put videos and content. Nowhere else has the sheer amount of educational content, etc, all in one place. There's an extreme wealth of content that is not replicated anywhere else on the internet, much less spread across random websites.

Youtube not only allows for discovery via topics/related youtubers, but it also incentivizes people to make content due to income both internally on youtube and externally as they build a brand. I'm not trying to be a shill here, but without youtube I wouldn't have been able to learn about topics like woodworking, chess, bass guitar, music theory, cooking, programming, etc, to the degree that I have , and discover great content makers as well. Not to mention discovering music that isn't necessarily on spotify/etc.

So it's not so easy as to say "just use a different site/company/etc". What site...?

So under what philosophical model do we justify forcing YouTube to host content that they find objectionable just so that content is more easily discovered using their algorithm?

I'm certainly not arguing that. What I'm saying is it's complicated, and we (the people & our governments) need to have a discussion around youtube/facebook/twitter and private companies that are basically used like public utilities. It's not their fault, but the fact is there is no real alternative to yt/fb/twitter unless one wishes to avoid a large part of the human population.

Of course youtube can remove whatever it wants, it's a private company. This doesn't mean that people can't find this objectionable, and it doesn't mean the only argument has to be "well, just use another company/site/provider".

I think people here are -reasonably- concerned about YT censoring particular information and the precedent it sets. In this case you and I might agree with YT's stance. Will we agree the next time YT decides to take a stance and censors a topic?

YT already flagged LGBTQ content as objectionable and demonitized it years ago, and I, for one, never questioned their right to do so. I think it's a bad look for them and will have consequences, but most of those consequences are of the form "LGBTQ companies are going to think twice about tossing ad dollars your way" and "People have solid questions about your actual dedication to LGBTQ inclusivity," not "We should modify the law to take away your right to flag that content objectionable."

I agree that ad dollars are where YT is hurt the most, and them making bad decisions ought to lead to corrections via advertisers pulling out.

However, a lot of people making content on yt are facing demonetization due to the same thing: advertiser pressure. For things like swearing, any sort of violence, etc. A lot of people have issues in some game communities for example.

So I don't think relying on the benevolence of Coca-Cola is the best solution either. Until relatively recently it would not have cared about appearances regarding LBGTQ+ issues either.

We prohibit discriminating customers on the basis of color. religion etc. Add one more clause: discrimination based on political/social beliefs or something along those lines however stupid those might be.

That's a terrible clause. Half the point of free exchange of information is so we can find which deeply-held beliefs (which are maleable, unlike color) are incorrect, detrimental, or even dangerous when acted on.

Black people and pedophiles don't deserve the same legal protections to have access to a playground or a private school.

I don't think it would make much of a difference. Are there pedophiles who publicly post controversial views without the cover of anonymity? How would you even know what their views are?

So you're whining that you can't make Youtube host your conspiracy theories for free? And that you can't ride of the back of their massive CDN infrastructure? Your biggest issue is that you are being excluded from someone else's assets and that you can't reach as many people through other alternatives at the same price point.

I don't believe I'm "whining" about anything.

"host your conspiracy theories"

I don't even watch anything political on youtube. I use youtube for music and learning about hobbies.

I still think it's worth talking about the precedent that youtube is setting here, and it's not productive to be combative about it. Of course youtube can censor or remove whatever it wants.

My main point, anyway, was that I dislike the "just use a different platform/site/company" argument, for the reasons I outlined above. Not because I think youtube -has- to host any sort of content, nor did I ever state that.

I feel like YouTube is much less of a monopoly than Facebook. Facebook has strong network effects (i.e. everyone you know is already on it and you want to see what your friends post) whereas YouTube has much less of a social network element. Can't someone just host their videos elsewhere? I understand most random viewers are on YouTube, but if there was a niche video site for woodworking, chess, or bass guitar I don't think it would be too hard to convince YouTubers to go check out those sites

The way I see it, youtube is the facebook/twitter of generalized video sharing. There isn't any other site that people use to the same degree.

Sure, one -could- host their own peertube instance for a community. However the discovery probability drops immensely. One of the main benefits of youtube (at least for me) is easily discovering new content/creators. Also, having high-quality videos in one central location versus multiple different sites for cooking videos, woodworking videos, etc. Having something like a global search across federated peertube instances could work though.

At that point you also run into the issue of who has the hardware to power these new communities? Few people have that sort of data storage available, and fewer still have enough powerful servers + cdns across the world. The new owners of an instance could easily just as well decide to censor whatever they want, and if I had to trust a random person over youtube I'd most likely choose youtube. At least it faces public scrutiny, etc.

Any attempt at making a youtube competitor for these reasons will get you banned by paypal and patreon. Any attempt at replacing paypal and patreon them will get you banned by visa and mastercard. Basically you have to start from first principles and create a new global banking system first.

That neutral money and banking system exists today. It's Bitcoin. There are caveats but fundamentally if fulfills this purpose.

Why would you get banned from PayPal, Patreon, VISA, and Mastercard?

This is a subject I've been following for a while.

Basically any content that is controversial for any reason, be it porn, government criticism in china or unpopular opinions, makes VISA and Mastercard wary that it will be bad PR for them, so there is some evidence that the pair is basically threaning to cut service to any of their downstream partners, for example if you google a bit there is some (sadly murky) evidence that they been threatening Patreon if they allow certain kinds of content (for example incest porn).

So people noticed many particularly sensitive political videos, can only be hosted safely on outright porn hosting sites, even self-hosting is not safe unless you also own everything else needed, because the CC providers have firepower to threaten almost any company they wish to, including ISP, DNS providers, etc...

We've seen wikileaks deplatformed and there are many more instances that don't come with a legal power. Not hard to imagine the same happening to "a platform promoting dangerous misinformation" as is the justification from YouTube.

Ah, now I follow.

But that's actually predictable. Banking is built on trust. Trust is a societal construct. "It's hard to open my porn shop because the banks won't give me a loan and the town won't zone for it" is an issue older than the Internet.

I remember reading an article about a patreon competitor that had visa etc refuse to do business with them.

Newspapers typically did not enjoy monopoly positions in the markets they served, and even for those that did, rarely did those translate into worldwide monopolies.

Also, because newspapers have an editor, they are liable for what they print. Google enjoys protections from these liabilities, even though they're clearly willing and capable of editing their users content.

The two situations are entirely different.

> Newspapers typically did not enjoy monopoly positions in the markets they served

On average, newspapers definitely did. Most major cities have at most two primary newspapers. The difference between them and YouTube was geographic reach.

... even still, YT's size doesn't obligate them to provide hosting for high-bandwidth data. It definitely doesn't obligate them to put any specific videos in people's field-of-view. People with alternative viewpoints can buy cloud storage if they desperately need a place to host videos.

The "Is YouTube an editor" question is a good one, but I have a hard time reconciling the notion that they're taking on new editorial behavior with the fact that they've always had both community standards and full control of their curation algorithm. Haven't they always been an editor in that sense, and the new concern is some people don't like how they're using that power?

Maybe prior to the 2000s that might be true, but there are plenty of major metro areas that are served by a single print newspaper.

> If you don't like it, use another private company.

Who are YouTube's comparable competitors?

I hear BitChute is flourishing.

Who?

The monopoly that is Google and its products? There are no other viable options, I promise.

You're free to go to $VPS_PROVIDER and host a video.

You're comparing a nearly perfectly competitive marketplace (newspapers) with an oligopoly due to network effects (social media). The customer has free choice in the former but very little in the latter.

> You're comparing a nearly perfectly competitive marketplace (newspapers)

Ever tried to start a new one? The network effects are real in print media too.

I'm not sure that newspapers have ever been perfectly competitive. Even in my midwest, midsized city, there has really only been one or two newspapers that achieve enough circulation.

Similarly, major television media has always locked out socialist and communist points of view in the United States.

This idea that only Google suddenly has a point of view in their editing what they allow on the platform seems really strange to me.

I agree they're not perfectly competitive but they come close (which was my claim). I view them similarly to the soft drinks market, you have moats due to brand such as Coca Cola, but vigorous competition with a heterogeneity of choices for the consumer. If I'm a socialist I can read Jacobin and if I'm very right wing I can read OANN, no matter my perspective I can find print media to suit. TV networks aren't a good comparison to newspapers/print media since they have very high fixed costs and as a result will only cater to markets that represent a sizeable proportion of the populace.

"We want freedom - except for companies": people who don't realize free speech cuts both ways, without irony.

What do you think is hypocritical about not believing the rights of the individual should automatically translate to businesses? It seems obvious that they should not.

Because in my opinion, freedoms should extend to every person: natural or legal, especially when promoting a absolutist view point.

If you are going to measured/weigh rights against the rights of other persons, then those limitations ought to be extended to natural persons too.

So, since we do not have laws over atoms, neither should we over molecules, etc until we reach humans -- clearly I'm taking your argument to absurd levels, but it does illustrate my point. Something something seeing the forest for the trees.

I don't quite get your point regarding atoms. What I was trying to say is humans are not the only "person" before the law - corporates, trust, clubs and other bodies are also persons, and should have similar rights (including free speech).

If you can get congress/a court to designate an atom as a "person", then sure, the rights would extend to atoms too.

Businesses are made up of people, who have rights

The real irony is wanting the leader of your government, the President, to have absolute power over speech, but then throw up complaints about private organizations trying to combat the dangerous messages coming from the government, because that's censorship.

I wholeheartedly agree. Private companies should be free of regulation and be free to do whatever they want, like refusing service to whoever they want - nazis, flat-earthers, homosexuals, anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists, blacks, etc.

The reason we have specific protected-class carve-outs is because the default, outside of the need for protected classes, is exactly that. Private companies are free to discriminate except in cases where society has determined that discrimination is harmful to society.

Now, if one wants to have a conversation about the societal benefits of QAnon, or broadcasting information that is re-enforcing the President's overt attempt to thwart the American election for his own benefit, we can go through the front door and have that conversation. But if one wants to fall back on general principles of "Businesses should be required to associate with everyone, all the time, forever!" we quickly find society has never actually agreed with that line.

No shirt, no shoes, no service.

I thought Google LLC, it's parent, was a public company?

Publicly traded, but still a private company. "Public" in this context is referring to something being, or acting like, the government.