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by amanaplanacanal 2668 days ago
So they can move to a different platform, if they can find somebody else willing to pay them for it. If they can't, then, so what? I doubt I could find somebody willing to pay me for expressing my opinions either.

If the line for free speech has moved from "you must be allowed to speak" to "somebody must pay you for your speech", I just don't know what to say.

1 comments

The "move to a different platform" is a cop-out excuse because YouTube's dominance in the sector is so extreme that you will have difficulties finding a "different platform" with a similar reach. The closest probably being Twitch but that's a tad bit a different of an audience and comes with its own set of issues.

> If the line for free speech has moved from "you must be allowed to speak" to "somebody must pay you for your speech", I just don't know what to say.

I never said anything like that, that's just assuming bad faith on your part. I'm merely pointing out that this sets a very troublesome precedent.

Particularly in the context of how dominant these companies are: For the vast majority of people Google, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter ARE the Internet. Giving this position even more power, without acknowledging it even exists, is a very dangerous thing to do.

I don't need nor do I want these companies to define factual reality, just because their stance, in this case, aligns with what's sensible, does not mean that will always be the case.

Because this will already further play into this "Silicon Valley censoring conservatives" narrative that's even peddled by the US president himself [0]

Note: I'm not saying that's actually happening, I'm merely pointing out it's a thing and how this will very likely further feed this notion.

[0] http://nrb.org/news-room/articles/ft/ifw/president-trump-den...