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Re:Germany fines YouTube for removing video of anti-lockdown... by ehsankia on Wednesday July 14, 2021 @10:50PM (#27840939)
What does "national law" mean for a global platform though? Does Youtube only have to restore the video in Germany and still block it everywhere else?

I don't even understand why Youtube should be forced by a country to host someone's content. I can understand the opposite (being forced by the government to take down content in their jurisdiction, that has been done before), but forcing a site to keep a video feels really strange to me.

Re:Germany fines YouTube for removing video of anti-lockdown... by _delirium on Wednesday July 14, 2021 @11:24PM (#27841080)
> I don't even understand why Youtube should be forced by a country to host someone's content.

It doesn't appear to be settled even in U.S. law whether requiring a company to host something would be governmental overreach. The traditional "common carrier" doctrine is pretty broad. It's not an exact analogy for the kind of regulation some people would like governments to undertake regarding YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc., but it's not totally unrelated either.

Eugene Volokh from UCLA's law school recently posted a 79-page draft article on the legalities of regulating social media companies as common carriers under U.S. federal law: https://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/carrier.pdf. One large section, II.A., "The General Constitutionality of Compelled Hosting" (pp. 35-58), argues that compelled hosting isn't in general prohibited by the U.S. federal constitution, so in his view the U.S. Congress could pass a common-carrier-style law mandating such companies host content on a neutral basis, if they wanted to (at least if the law avoids various issues he identifies).

Re:Germany fines YouTube for removing video of anti-lockdown... by em-bee on Thursday July 15, 2021 @12:28AM (#27841350)
youtube is effectively operating a bridge, or rather the majority of bridges in germany. it pays for maintenance but gets to charge a toll and keep the profits. however, in order to use this privilege, it does not get to decide who should be allowed to cross
Re:Germany fines YouTube for removing video of anti-lockdown... by em-bee on Thursday July 15, 2021 @11:39PM (#27852837)
it seems that some people disagree with the analogy. could you explain why?