Think about it this way, you build something that looks like a pub, provides the services of a pub and say you are open for business. Would it be really that surprising that the state enforces laws that apply to pubs on your business or would you tell the health inspector to fuck off and open his own pub if he has problems with it?

It’s the wrong analogy. Phone service is the correct one. It’s something basically everyone uses. You should be able to call or group call anyone you want. The phone company can’t claim they own the phone lines so they decide which content can be discussed or who is allowed to make a phone call. It’s that simple.

Whenever someone proposes a simple solution to a social or political problem that nobody can agree on, and says "It's that simple", they're marking themselves as not understanding what they're talking about while arrogantly pretending they do. It's automatically not simple or it wouldn't even be in the news. You certainly aren't the authority on it.

So you would be ok with a phone company that doesn't allow certains groups of people to make phone calls? For instance, people whose political views it doesn't agree with? Or even worse, people with certain ethnical backgrounds?

Of course now you might say, if such a phone company existed, those people who were denied service could just choose another one. But if this company would be the one dominating the market, this would mean they couldn't reach all the people they would want to anymore. This is the analogy with Facebook.

Seems more like the government ordering you to serve a disorderly patron you previously ejected

If you want a real analogy, it's more like a pub where most drinks are free because they're served by other customers and the owner makes money by auctioning ad space on the glasses. Anyone can go there to hand out free drinks, provided they follow the rules, like no alcohol in the kids' corner and no coca wine. If someone's drink is very popular, they get a cut of the pub's advertising revenue.

Now someone walks in and starts offering Corona. It's not everyone's favorite, but still decently popular, and the owner has no problem with that.

Until a few hours later, when a new line is added to the list of rules on the door: "no Corona". Then the owner tells the person handing out free Corona that they're breaking the rules and kicks them out.

Is that fair? Not in this case, says the court. Everyone agrees to the rules when they walk through the door, but the owner can't just willy-nilly change them after the fact.

(If you want to really understand the decision, you'll have to read the original instead of relying on analogies.)

I don't see any similarities here: A really disorderly patron is hard to avoid in a restaurant but easy to avoid on YouTube.

Then, on YouTube (or woke mailing lists) there are mostly two sides, only one of which gets censored: The one that opposes the dominant clique.

YouTube is full of filth that is kept up because it is non-political and makes money for Google. If Google were really woke, it would take down all videos that are demeaning to women (according to their ideology). They don't, because these videos are a cash cow.

Yeah, but it’s still my property and you can’t make me serve a beer I don’t like.

If your pub, for example, refuses to serve people of color, then yes, the government will come in and shut it down.

But you will be required to serve non alcoholic drinks.

that are cheaper than the cheapest alcoholic one

> You're encouraging government coercion of action.

And you're advocating for foreign private companies to have more rights than the democratically elected governments of the countries they operate in.

Last time I checked laws still come from countries, not from Google. The world isn't America's private companies playground

> And you're advocating for foreign private companies to have more rights than the democratically elected governments of the countries they operate in.

The biggest difference generally between a private enterprise (foreign or domestic) and a democratically elected government is that participation with the government and its rules are:

- compulsory - enforced by physical violence

If I disagree with googles rules I can avoid google. If I a disagree with the governments rules (for example tax rates they impose), there will be people with weapons to force compliance.

> If I disagree with googles rules I can avoid google.

That's exactly what Germany's highest court denied if they "move into a dominant position and take over the provision of the framework conditions of public communication themselves" because it is not easy to avoid Google/YouTube.

Sadly Google isn't your mom and pop convenience store at the corner of the street. Arguing it is just a regular business is dishonest and you know it

If you don't agree with the laws, emigrate! It's probably easier than completely avoiding Google.

Swedish government asked Google to remove YouTube news channels that was critical of the Swedish state owned media, and Google did.

I think we are way past the illusion of democracy and governments protecting their people at this point.

I'm talking about national sovereignty of democratically elected governments.

They might have very different views than Americans and Google about what should or shouldn't exist.

As if America and its private companies have the monopoly of what's "right" and what it means to "protect the people" of the world, this is ridiculous

Do you have a source for this please?

So using "foreign" as a pejorative is cool as long as the foreigners are Americans?

Companies can only provide products and services to willing customers. To restrict them is to restrict the choices of your own people to choose products they prefer. So what you're really arguing for is the majority in a country restricting the freedom of a minority in that same country.

> So using "foreign" as a pejorative is cool as long as the foreigners are Americans?

How did you extrapolate that ? No

I really don't get your second point. You can't sell me a car without seat belt, you can't sell me weed, you can't host a jihad video platform.

You're already restricted in many ways. The world doesn't have to kneel in front of YouTube &co and accept all their bullshit.

America isn't a role model, neither in politics nor culture, the world doesn't need to conform to what America think is right.

Also, YouTube doesn't exist to serve the people, certainly not, it exists to make money and uses tax evasion to pay as little as possible in most EU countries, if they wanted to serve the people they could start there

You're the one who brought national origin into the thread. The arguments on both sides were made just fine without it.

As for the second point, yes and those examples are also cases of restricting their own citizens. Hence the discussion is still about rights of the citizenry versus their own government restricting them, not "rights" of companies as you put it.

The world is free to not use YouTube and always has been. And by the way I don't agree with many of the major websites' censorship decisions in the last couple years either. They depict only what a loud subset of America thinks is right.

Companies generally make money by serving people. I suppose there are business models where this isn't so (e.g. they exist to sue people or something, but exploiting govt's ability to take money by force instead), but in YouTube's case, they entice people the consensual way.

The vast majority of companies shaping the social discourse are American. You can't conveniently ignore the fact, it's inherently part of the discussion. I'm not drown in Gambian or Afghan cultural bs

> If the German government wants to provide a free-speech "safe zone", they should provide it themselves.

But that is what they are doing here, no? They just use Youtube as the way to provide it. Governments doesn't have to run businesses themselves, private actors are much better at running the day to day stuff usually.

Similarly if you own a huge amount of land and build a city there and let lots of people move in, don't get surprised when the government seizes your square and roads and make them public, or at least force you to let people move there as if they were public roads.

but the government isn't paying YouTube to host videos. eminent domain and related takings require compensation

Historically corporations were given a license to operate by the state, and limited liability conditional on their serving a public good.

Some people currently seem to have the attitude that a corporation can be protected by the state but not responsible for its actions that negatively impact the common good. This was not the original intention.

> But wether public or private, corporations were originally only granted special legal privileges by government, conditional on them serving some PUBLIC good. With special rights came special restrictions, and their operations were periodically reviewed for compliance with their stated purpose. However, over time the system of incorporation has been altered by corporations themselves, such that the benefits of state-grants have been kept, while the responsibilities discarded. [0]

[0] https://ptolemy3.medium.com/but-corporations-are-private-com...

This isn't eminent domain, the government didn't decide to build a video service that they need to evict Youtube for. Apparently Youtube decided to remove a video without proper support in their terms of service, so they're being judged to be in violation of their contract with the user.

Whether or not Youtube should have a clause in their terms allowing them to remove arbitrary content is a different question, and yet another is whether they should be allowed to have such a clause.

YouTube is free to pack up shop and stop servicing Germany if they do not like it's Terms and Conditions.

Perhaps in your jurisdiction, but in this hypothetical example, I guess not.

I am surprised you are downvoted. Engineers are the worst kind of people to make rules, as they see things as simply black and white when things are much more nuanced. Best thing to do is "mind your own business". Unfortunately they feel its their business lol