Can you define what a "platform" is? And do you think there is a legal distinction between the two?

If this is regarding section 230, around which this dichotomy always seems to surface, then are you aware that the word "platform" does not appear in the text of said section?

Platform is user uploaded content with minimal censorship and where the platform has minimal responsibility over the content. Publisher is curated content with arbitrary censorship and heavy responsibility over the content.

As a voter, I'd expect to be able to use the platform/publisher spectrum to determine how much censorship a service should have. If a service has censorship capabilities different from what a large enough part of the population thinks they should have then the law should be changed to rectify this.

My questions to you (and anyone else):

Where does YouTube lie on this idealized platform/publisher perspective? How much censorship ability should they have? To what degree does your expectations of their censorship ability differ from their actual censorship ability according to the law?

There is no legal basis for the false distinction you're making between platform and publisher.

The law explicitly allows YouTube (or Twitter, or HackerNews, for that matter) to do exactly that.

You are operating under at least one misconception. Perhaps this[0] can help.

[0]https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello...

The now somewhat controversial Section 230 of the CDA would classify YouTube as an "interactive computer service," and the actual text of the law says "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected." Videos pushing to delegitimize the entire democratic process could certainly be considered "otherwise objectionable". That would be subjective, to be sure, and perhaps challengeable, but I'm going to bet that Google had a lot of discussions with their legal team before taking this action.

tl;dr: being a "platform" is neither a Get Out of Lawsuits Free card nor a requirement for content to be unmoderated.

I'm not particularly interested in what the law says. Leave that to the lawyers :)

As a voter/citizen it would be great if we had reasonable expectations about our what these services are and how we should set our own expectations for censorship. The platform/publisher spectrum is an easy jumping off point for a casual discussion.

Where is "Youtube" on this spectrum? What stops Youtube from marking all content associated with a particular religion/political party/national origin "otherwise objectionable"?

Many questions. I can state that as a citizen I view Youtube as a platform that should take a minimal approach to censorship. I view the attempts to control what the "plebians/proles" believe as excessively paternalistic and likely to be unhelpful. If the censorship causes these people to visit more radical sources of information then who is to blame when they get further radicalized? At least Youtube has washed their hands of the situation.

You are free to set up a “free speech” alternative to YouTube if you think that is a better system. Unfortunately you will not be able to get many users because it will be full of porn and spam, and you won’t be able to fund it because advertisers won’t want to be associated with it.

>What stops Youtube from marking all content associated with a particular religion/political party/national origin "otherwise objectionable"?

Market forces? Advertiser pressure? Bad hair day?

They are under no obligation to host anything they choose not to host.

And that's a good thing too. If Google can be forced to host content they don't wish to host, then so can you, and so can I and so can HackerNews or Bernadette's Knitting website.

Also

> otherwise objectionable

along with

> whether or not such material is constitutionally protected

gives them fairly broad leeway to pull down whatever they want.

It does read that way, definitely. (I admit I was a little surprised at how broad that seemed when I was looking it up!)

Something else, which is the whole point of section 230 in the first place.

You may disagree with the law, but it doesn't mean I have to agree with a bullshit dichotomy that hasn't been the state of reality for the last 25 years. Instead you have to convince me that state of reality is a bad one to be in.

Pointless distinction, only meant to muddy the waters.

It is not pointless. A platform cannot be sued. A publisher needs to maintain journalistic integrity when it publishes. Can’t be both.

Youtube, at least up to now, is a platform not a publisher.

Part of the muddying is that it is very difficult for people to see information if it is not on one of these major publishers or platforms. Information that is legal to present, but no one will ever see, may as well not exist.

My personal opinion:

The answer to that question is "Yes."

A platform is a particular kind of publisher, and a publisher is a particular kind of platform. 'Publisher' and 'Platform' are two overlapping circles on a Venn diagram.

No. Under Section 230, they are treated mostly as a distributor, like a book store or a news stand.