Re:Germany fines YouTube for removing video of anti-lockdown...
by anm89 on Wednesday July 14, 2021 @04:15PM
(#27837870)
Right this is the entire point about how crossing the line poisons the well.
Which is why they would have to be very clear that their policy is to only respond to legal orders for takedowns and nothing else.
Re:Germany fines YouTube for removing video of anti-lockdown...
by duxup on Wednesday July 14, 2021 @04:24PM
(#27837963)
I think the issue then is that the platform becomes ... unusable.
The scale of spam of all kinds would render the service useless. Even inaction would be interpreted as part of the game ... and you're in the game again.
Re:Germany fines YouTube for removing video of anti-lockdown...
by anm89 on Wednesday July 14, 2021 @04:41PM
(#27838146)
You could ultimately be right that they took the better of the two options and that this path would have killed them. I personally disagree.
I think there is also more Grey here. They could have de prioritized things in the algorithm to encourage the direction of the community without explicitly depltforming anyone or blocking\removing content. I think its possible that they could have achieved a lot of what they wanted with this method while avoiding poisoning the well.
It's not a case of deciding to:
>optionally censor your platform in response to political pressure
Because so many people assume that if some content is removed and it is <content I think should be permissible / like> well then that must have been because of political pressure or views at that company or something like that.
So by default:
> The platform ends up being collateral damage in some political war
Even if the content removed wasn't removed due to political pressure the accusations fly and the game begins.
Nobody is forced by a platform's actions to play the game, the sad truth is people will believe the game is on all the times to explain anything they don't like / don't understand.
Rudy Giuliani thought that Twitter was 'allowing' someone to post content to his account without his permission ... but really he had posted a link to a domain that didn't exist, then someone registered and had some fun with him.
Rudy of course just filled in the blanks of his ignorance with concerns of bias by Twitter... and there's A LOT of people who do that (with all sorts of political views).
We had an article here on HN where up and down votes changed on YouTube ... it was interpreted by some immediately as some sort of political bias.
Have a platform? You're in the game...