This guy crashed a plane for profit. The fact that US law doesn't seem to have any meaningful sanction for him is not a reason for it to stay up.

They should delete the video. And I really don't understand the argument that they shouldn't stop him using their platform; my goodness if Youtube was mine he'd be gone and I wouldn't for a second wonder if there was any meaningful free speech implication for removing it.

He is dangerous, and the allure of more views on youtube made him do a dangerous thing. I'd be like: "OK, you're not my customer anymore".

> This guy crashed a plane for profit.

So did the Discovery channel. The only difference is that they had asked the FAA permission to do so.

This guy crashed a plane for profit without permission. This may have just been stupidity, not understanding the consequences. Loads of people also crash other vehicles for fun and profit, so why should YT distinguish between someone crashing a car vs a plane. Where should YT draw the line? They don't make the laws.

The discovery channel didn’t try to pretend it was an engine fire. They set out to plan a plane crash with the full involvement of relevant authorities.

Yes, but now the FAA has stated what we all knew already — it was dangerous stunt undertaken entirely for self-promotion. YouTube don’t have to be experts?

There is nothing wrong with dangerous stunts entirely for self promotion. He just should have done it over private land with permission

> The only difference

If you're pinning your argument on this, then fine. But it is a huge difference.

Honestly this whole idea that Youtube should willingly be a party to this sort of thing is a libertarian take too far for me, but then I'm British.

It may be a huge difference, but the problem with asking Youtube to take that kind of decision without a court order is that you're expecting them to have expertise in aviation law. What next? Should they remove house flipping videos because of realtor regulations in various jurisdictions? Remove DIY videos because some jurisdictions require electrical repairs to be performed by certified technicians? The list is endless, and the precedent is so very bad.

> It may be a huge difference, but the problem with asking Youtube to take that kind of decision without a court order is that you're expecting them to have expertise in aviation law.

This is a bit of a silly way to look at it, I'm sorry to say.

What if they just remove the video on the balance of probability that it involved, in the FAA's judgement, a deliberate dangerous plane crash without permission?

This is not a challenging precedent. House-flipping is not smashing a plane into the ground without planning and without regard for safety, is it?

Honest question, is it illegal to crash a plane? Or just secondary crimes, false flight plan, littering, reckless endangerment

What about infringement on the regulation on the handling of unsafe chemicals?

Regulations on performing archælogical excavations?

Food safety violations?

Alcohol production?

Blasphemy laws in any country Youtube might be accessed from?

Animal cruelty laws? (Are hamster wheels cruel?)

Religious laws on the consumption of cattle / pork?

Privacy laws in Germany? (Dashcams are heavily regulated there)

Is it legal to show a Nazi swastika everywhere? A non Nazi swastika? A communist symbol? What about an imperial Japanese ensign?

Is it legal to say the Armenian suffered a genocide, or to claim they didn't?

Is it legal to cast doubt on any one finding of the Nuremberg trials?

What about mentioning a crime committed by a living person more than 20 years go? (Hint: it may not be legal in some European countries. Which ones? You tell me.)

Oh god. Look. I'm sorry. You're right, obviously. And I am wrong and of feeble mind.

But please, make the libertarian Gish galloping stop.

Just to add - getting permission alone is a few man-years worth of paperwork for planning, executing and cleanup.

I'm sick of people calling in the hall monitors. Let things burn.

At least you're honest in your nihilism.

I prefer to live in a world where people at least try to navigate grey areas.

Do you think youtube should systematically go through all videos for perceived dangerous people or people who look like views might "make" them do dangerous things, or just the ones that are brought to their attention by angry mobs / report volume?

And would "dangerous" include technically legal but dangerous actions like speaking up for gay rights in Yemen or criticizing cartels in Mexico? Or would they be more limited to the youtube wrong-think-corrections officer judging the video to demonstrate outright illegal actions like protesting Putin's special operation while in Russia, or publishing documents containing evidence of western war crimes?

Well done shoehorning all of that in.

Great job not answering.

I would normally agree with you but I feel like there’s a moral issue with what is essentially monetizing criminal activity. At a minimum, it should be demonetized and YouTube shouldn’t show any ads either.

Shouldn't his status as a criminal be decided by a court of law first?

I guess "criminal activity" may have been the wrong phrase. "Illegal activity" is more what I meant. Because not all illegal activity is adjudicated by a court, and a regulatory action by the FAA is one of those things.

It's pretty obvious, but I guess we could suspend his pay and if he ends up being guilty youtube can donate the proceeds.

There may be no meaningful legal sanction for this.

Many jurisdictions have ways to seize profits of crime, and just about all have ways to punish crime including paying fines and restitution.

Don't you think it would be better to go through a system which has (at least a semblance of) due process, fairness, and transparency about the rules? Yes yes I know I know, "they're a private company they can do what they want". I'm not wondering what they can do, more flabbergasted about the apparent sudden and large support for corporations acting to censor and punish people like this.

But he isn't convicted yet...

The solution would be for a court to take that money away at the same time as convicting him. And I think many courts would do exactly that.

Agreed. YouTube is profiting from his malfeasance.

Otherwise, it's just malfeasance for malfeasance's sake.

> there’s a moral issue with what is essentially monetizing criminal activity

Then it should be in their terms of service. In fact it probably is…

Shadowbanning is another option.

> This is a dangerous thought. There is already too much decision making of what is allowed on our social platform by the big corps

In this case though the FAA has made the decision, he didn't do something in bad taste - he did something that could have been very dangerous to others, could have started a major fire, and was illegal (or at least broke the FAA rules enough for him to loose his license). And the reason he did that was (almost certainly) to make a YouTube video - I think YouTube would be justified from kicking him off their platform for this.

> he did something that [...] was illegal

But remember that aside from a few narrow exceptions (e.g., CSAM), sharing videos of someone doing something illegal isn't itself illegal.

No, but in this case it's probably certain that if he wasn't going to make a YouTube video he wouldn't have done the illegal act. It's probably something that most companies and advertisers, wouldn't want to be associated with incase they were seen to be endorsing and encouraging the act.

Pretty sure profiting from illegal activity is.

That's a good argument for demonetization, sure, but the person I was replying to was advocating for more than just demonetization.

A privately owned platform can (should?) apply higher standards than 'is it illegal' when moderating UGC.

Since the service is 'free' and no money changes hands it's not as if they have to refund banned user etc.

> YouTube should at best demonetize the video, and only if it does that consistently based on a public policy.

Exactly.

I'm generally in favour of youtube removing objectionable material, or at least corralling it somewhere as they already do with their half-assed "mature content" filter, but it absolutely must be done on a policy basis which is written down upfront and made clear to uploaders, and subject to fair reviews. Doing it on outrage based case by case basis is just enraging to all involved.

And it's not the actual content of this video which is objectionable, but the circumstances under which it was made. Possibly it contravenes UK rules on profiting from crime if it's monetized: https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN02...

- but (a) it's not in our jurisdiction and (b) he hasn't actually been convicted yet.

demonitization seems the best option I guess. Leave it up as a display of stupidity, and aviation history. But don't let him profit of something illegal

People write books about their past illegal exploits. Are you against people documenting their lives for profit, in-general? I don’t see the difference here except that it’s a video instead of a book.

I think the tricky part with this particular video is that the documentation (plane crash video) was the entire point of committing the act. If people were committing crimes entirely to sell tell all books or documentaries about doing it that would be a lot more sketchy.