Why do people confuse legality with morality? I can't legally stop Youtube from censoring videos. But I can criticize the practice, think it's unethical, or be concerned about the consequences.
I'm not confusing the concepts. And I'm not stopping you from saying what you want. I don't see the point though. There's no content there.
"This company is legally allowed to deny random user #24232's attempts to get us to stream video #198284, but I don't agree with that; I think they should be allowed to upload it". Well, so what? Who cares?
If you felt that strongly about it - not just "i'm going to type a really angry comment about it" strongly but "actually do something about it" strongly then you'd be hosting content yourself. Or at the very least trying to show why it's so important that this particular company should be hosting it. Or you could find another company which would host it and tell people they should be using that site instead. A lot of the complaints I read about freedom and censorship just seems like empty posturing about what companies should or shouldn't do. It's just lazy. These companies only do it at all to make money. Your statements about whether a company should or shouldn't host something would be better phrased as "this company should be hosting this video because it will make them more money". Of course, with a lot of this content the opposite is likely true; complaints from advertisers, users etc will cost them more money (and hassle) than any money they'd make from the average video. It's time to stop thinking of facebook, youtube etc as being a social media version of the First Amendment and more like a conservative pension fund.
If you really don't care then why are you here? Do you not care so strongly that you feel the need to write a 3 paragraph comment on how much you don't care? I dont get it.
I do care. Internet censorship has real world consequences. Maybe censoring ISIS stuff is good, but what if they start filtering other political content? What if that leads to fewer followers of that idea, or pushes it out of discussion entirely?
I think it's unethical and worth protesting. I think Google especially has more responsibility than a random website. Given their overwhelming market share to the point they are nearly a monopoly in some areas. And I think this sets a terrible precedent, that tech companies will work with the government to censor political speech.
I think protesting it has value. People working at Google might read this and change their mind. Or at least be aware lots of people disapprove. And it might convince future website owners or startup founders to care more about free speech issues. I certainly plan to do so on future websites I create.
But if nothing else it's just a discussion. I don't get the your idea that every discussion needs to have immediate actionable value. Most things on hacker news are not actionable. It's just interesting or fun to discuss.
Lastly I highly doubt YouTube is doing this for money. They need to hire dozens of people to review and moderate this stuff. And they gain nothing from it. They are acting under government and ideological pressure.
>If you felt that strongly about it - not just "i'm going to type a really angry comment about it" strongly but "actually do something about it" strongly then you'd be hosting content yourself.
Or one could exploit the technicals of such platforms and while increasing the costs for such platforms in engaging in such behavior. Like exploiting oauth keys, public wifi networks, shoddy encryption, etc, to upload/modify content on behalf of "acceptable" users/accounts or engage in a number of interactions on such platforms in ways one wants to without the explicit permission that is not protected or enforced by such technical implementations. There's a lot of creativity to be had beyond self hosting.
The companies just want to make a profit, sure, but not every "user" has to care about that just as the companies don't give shit about the users freedoms. Plenty of jurisdictions where IP addrs are assigned in the world that would turn a blind eye to such actors who are acting agaisnt such platforms.
"This company is legally allowed to deny random user #24232's attempts to get us to stream video #198284, but I don't agree with that; I think they should be allowed to upload it". Well, so what? Who cares?
If you felt that strongly about it - not just "i'm going to type a really angry comment about it" strongly but "actually do something about it" strongly then you'd be hosting content yourself. Or at the very least trying to show why it's so important that this particular company should be hosting it. Or you could find another company which would host it and tell people they should be using that site instead. A lot of the complaints I read about freedom and censorship just seems like empty posturing about what companies should or shouldn't do. It's just lazy. These companies only do it at all to make money. Your statements about whether a company should or shouldn't host something would be better phrased as "this company should be hosting this video because it will make them more money". Of course, with a lot of this content the opposite is likely true; complaints from advertisers, users etc will cost them more money (and hassle) than any money they'd make from the average video. It's time to stop thinking of facebook, youtube etc as being a social media version of the First Amendment and more like a conservative pension fund.