Do you want a video platform that deletes stuff? Or one that doesn't? Choice A leads to the problem this thread is discussing. Choice B leads to the problem you're describing.
Personally I would prefer a choice C, a platform that deletes stuff I don't like and nothing else, but I don't think that's on offer. The closest thing available is platforms that delete stuff that offends their target demographic, as determined by a conference room full of SV middle-management types, i.e. youtube, which we already have and which isn't all that great.
I'm not trying to snark you, I don't like the content on lbry either. But sometimes it seems like HN's consensus opinion is that censorship is terrible, and also that censorship-resistant platforms are terrible.
>Do you want a video platform that deletes stuff? Or one that doesn't?
If I have to choose between a platform that let's anti-Semitism run rampart and Youtube I'll pick Youtube.
However the actual solution is a platform that that develops enough tools and hires enough human moderators to thwart blatant racism or hateful content while not accidentally kicking creators off the platform. This is mostly a question of effort and resources, and requires not outsourcing the entire process to a shoddy half-working automated system.
You don't have to choose. There are anti-Semitic books in libraries, yet libraries are not overrun with them. The problem here is not that lbry endorses or embraces bigots, it's that the non-censoring platforms are new/wonky/unpopular enough that no one uses them except people who are banned elsewhere.
Library content is strongly curated. You don't self-publish to a library, so in the sense that anti-semitic works exist in libraries, they do so because of historical relevance.
If you're a guy who advocates the supremacy of the white race on lbry, I challenge you to make it into a library
As someone whose skull would get measured again, please don't use tangential topics to justify censorship. It isn't anti-semitism that will get censored, it will be directed towards any form of dissident. Jews or minorities were never suppressed because there was too much freedom of speech or too much free media.
If the internet gets censored in the name of anti-semitism it would certainly not decrease animosity. Furthermore the blind crackdown on "disinformation" only increased reach of right leaning parties. The result should be observable since there is now enough empirical evidence. Trying the same strategy over and over might not be too prudent.
For some people a trimmed garden might be preferable and that is completely fine. But I don't think that is true for everyone. And there are enough alternatives, you can just watch TV or select another channel.
Stop your paternalism by pretending everyone gets influence because some YouTube videos don't fit your taste.
>it will be directed towards any form of dissident.
no it won't, this is just the typical American freakout. I'm German, here anti-semitism and hate speech are not only not propagated by private platforms (which is not censorship by the way), but banned (which is censorship). Our right wing party is diminished and unlike the US, we're not governed by complete lunatics.
There is no automatic mechanism by which stopping hate-speech somehow stops 'any form of dissent' in a democratic state of law and I'm tired of hearing the same argument again and again without any evidence for it. The US is alone among all democratic nations on this planet in their tolerance of bigotry. The UK, the oldest democracy on this planet, does not tolerate any of it either.
I am German too and we have a clear national trauma regarding these issues that should be plain to see and it should not serve as a template for policing speech on an international network.
I don't know if you remember, but we managed to actually create a second dictatorship after WW2 and also gave far left agitators a partial fault for collapsing Weimar. Not that the assassinations that came for their leadership wasn't cowardly and their opposition completely reactionary.
The US also stands out as being actually pretty solid on democracy and a main factor we can enjoy it today too.
And yes, the right got much stronger as criticism on immigration for example was declared to be nationalistic, while left leaning groups were actively mixing up refugees and immigrants to serve business interests. Of course the result is predictable.
You aren't allowed to call anyone a Nazi in Germany, that can have legal repercussions. It often has not because there is a cultural understanding. I think that fact would be a big surprise to many people advocating speech policies like they are implemented in Germany. And don't tell me there aren't staunch crackdowns on demonstrations if they stand in the way of interests. There is enough stuff to do and with more freedom of speech, we would prosper even more.
> Our right wing party is diminished
That should actually have been the argument 10 years ago.
Google tries its best to obfuscate YouTube's independent profitability (believed to be obfuscated because it's not actually profitable) but a few years back Bloomberg reported on an insider source that YouTube barely breaks even. Human moderators at the scale of YouTube is, quite frankly, a pipe dream. Automation is the only viable solution at the scale of YouTube.
Is it too much to ask for a platform in 2020 to not serve nazi propaganda? Specially after we spent a lot of blood to get rid of it in the first place when we left it unchecked.
I see you've rediscovered the publisher vs. platform dichotomy! Those of us who believe in free speech understand that people will say things we don't like, and further understand that the sacrifice of ignoring content we dislike is worth it for the greater principle.
I know this is difficult when people are saying things you believe to be untrue, but thus far nobody has come up with an alternative that doesn't result in censorship or end up having an unrealistically high moderation cost.
I've never understood people's conflation of "I do not like your speech" with "censorship." A bookstore refusing to carry books by certain authors is in no way censorship, for instance (the books still exist, just not in that bookstore), yet when we bring things into the digital realm for some reason people seem to lose the distinction.
Let me put it this way. Nothing is stopping hateful people from creating their own video hosting platform and hosting their drivel. Hence, free speech. But nothing in the entirety of free speech, whether the legal notions or the philosophical notions, requires platforms to give that speech a place to live. The whole "marketplace of ideas" concept fundamentally works by having the community at large reject hateful speech.
Free speech does not mean each instance of speech needs to be weighed and evaluated equally by the community.
From a far more practical perspective, allowing this sort of thing onto your platform spells death for any content-platform startup. Seeing this sort of thing is going to immediately (a) drive sensible content consumers -- your actual users -- away from the platform, and (b) draw other hate speech creators to you like flies to shit. If that's what the platform wants to do, then nothing in the world is stopping them, but they will never gain mainstream success.
The problem with your analogy is how you define bookstore. If there were dozens of Youtube "bookstores" in every major city this wouldn't be an issue but functionally speaking every city or town or hamlet has the same 2 or 3 bookstores to choose from and they're all awful at supporting freedom of speech.
Every era has its things it considers beyond decency to discuss. Most people agree with them, and even if they don't, they know to keep quiet.
Those who agree with the norms of 2020 also think many of the norms of past times were awful. Homosexuality was considered beyond decency not long ago. Race mixing, premarital sex as well. The list can be made very long.
So what are the chances that mainstream decency right now has found the perfect set of correct values, that never needs to be challenged?
You can still do it, you don't need to use cloudflare, you don't need to use that registrar.
You don't even need to use the Internet, paint it on a sign and walk around the street with it on a pole.
You're not having your free speech impeded by any of this, because refusing to carry someone elses speech isn't censorship, it's just that when you say things that are repulsive to people they won't want to help promote it.
If you want free speech go to your door, walk outside, start taking. You got your free speech. Everything else is a bonus.
> If you want free speech go to your door, walk outside, start taking. You got your free speech. Everything else is a bonus.
This argument is reductio ad absurdum, except executed against an argument you support. De-platforming online is in opposition to free speech, and the fact you can walk out your front door with a sign does not mitigate the loss of equal power behind your speech that others enjoy by using Internet services. You standing on the street with a sign is in no way equivalent in character or reach to writing what your sign says on Twitter. So here we are, the Internet is a thing, it exists, and so do digital platforms. Free and open access to web platforms is a core philosophical requirement to ensure freedom of speech, and de-platforming people damages that.
It's okay to be opposed to freedom of speech, it's okay to be opposed to the open web, but don't act as if you are not while advocating de-platforming as being an acceptable behavior.
> A bookstore refusing to carry books by certain authors is in no way censorship
so i have to make my own bookstore just to sell that book? I'd say that's pretty close to censorship. Even tho the constitution doesn't stop private censorship (only gov't censorship), it isn't a good outcome imo.
If you own a bookstore, you should be able to curate its content at your leisure, which includes but is not limited to removing content that you find objectionable. I don't see how this is a bad outcome, because the alternative -- being forced to carry books on your shelves that you have no power to remove sounds like a much worse outcome.
I, a terrible author, am not entitled to your bookstore's audience.
Flip it around: Imagine you have a tattoo. You're publishing the one tattoo therefore "free speech" means you have to publish all the tattoos? Should you be obliged to allow a big "Kick whites out of America" tattoo next to whatever tattoo you have chosen to wear?
Do you know what censorship means? It’s quite literally the textbook definition (explicitly blocking books because of the ideas in them) so I’m curious what you think censorship is.
Is this not "the market" simply deciding not to support something? Is that not one of tenets of free-market capitalism?
In the market of video providers, none of them are interested in hosting a particular viewpoint, then the creators of the video either have to put up with that or go make their own.
What do you think the alternative is? You want the government to mandate that every book store carries all books? Book stores have a right to curate their selection as they see fit in exactly the same way that authors have a right to write what they see fit.
It’s censorship, I didn’t make any judgments about when censorship should be allowed/encouraged. It’s just the literal definition of censorship and you’re being defensive because you think it’s a bad thing.
The most mind boggling thing about your reply is the sentence "I know this is difficult when people are saying things you believe to be untrue"
That's not what is happening here. That's not what the issue is. Hate speech doesn't boil down to "things I don't believe to be true."
Typing "Jews" into these platforms and getting hate speech back isn't an issue of "oh dear, here are some untruths." It's hate and designed to create more hate. Which is why many platforms and many countries have a special category for it.
You can disagree with that philosophically, fine. But you might try not being so flippant about it. Especially when the example here, anti-Semitism, is associated with the death of millions of people's loved ones.
Define "hate speech". You never do, you merely assert that there is such a thing, that we know what it is, that it is legitimate, that it can be and probably that it should be legislated and enforced. I'm asking a serious question because we're witnessing the suppression of discussion that some groups don't like. It's an empty phrase. And in the absence of meaning, guess who decides what to classify as hate speech and thus which groups have a voice and which don't? Thrasymachus in Plato's "Republic" has an answer: the powerful.
Since we're on the subject, anti-Semitism is one of those accusations that is used liberally to attack anyone that organizations like the ADL don't like. For example, if you compare the treatment of Palestinians by the Israelis to apartheid, if you criticize Judaism in a way that resembles what Catholics are subjected to on a regular basis, or some tendency in Jewish culture, then suddenly you're an anti-Semite. Anti-Semitism is a hatred of Jewish ethnicity, a hatred of a person who is Jewish because of his ethnicity. It is not a critical stance toward questions of culture, religion, or politics. But the legitimate definition of the term has been expanded by political hucksters into what Norman Finkelstein (whose parents are survivors) calls the Holocaust industry, where a grave crime is exploited to silence criticism and bully people into silence on matters that have nothing to do with anti-Semitism. So we have a textbook example of how "hate speech" is deployed to silence political opposition and stifle debate. There are, of course, other examples.
Mind you, I do not include things like libel and calls for violence in hate speech. Those kinds of things are already legislated and penalized as they should be. Too many things, like pornography, have been falsely defended by appealing to "free speech". What I'm talking about is the use of this insidious term by powerful groups to silence those they don't like, and then pretending like that's not what's happening. It is that simple.
If your platform has become a host for hateful extremist content, you have a problem you need to fix. Shrugging your shoulders and calling it free speech is a lazy non-answer -- it's only going to get worse if it's left unchecked.
I've never heard this type of speech at a bar when I asked why somebody wasn't shown the door. I guess they didn't have a greater principle.
One core value that a platform could have is common decency, which is not the same as censorship, but it is given up even easier than what your argument calls free speech.
How do you suggest making a platform which allows good content while disallowing bad? Also, how do you expect to be able to define these things? Remember: every person you pay to moderate has to be able to discern good from bad in as little time as possible. Even less time than that.
Ironic argument to post on such a heavily moderated forum. Also kind of beside the point with regards to a site that seems to be intentionally designed as a safe harbor for venomous trash. Not quite the same thing as throwing up your hands over moderation being hard.
The trick with this forum (and IMO the only trick that really works) is narrow-bandwidth community.
I have no idea how to apply this to a content hosting paradigm though. Not without spending a couple million dollars on bots who inevitably make mistakes.
A bar is private property that just so happens have the doors open for potential customers, whilst some things on the internet are public access, nobody is forcing you to go to any specific website if you don't want to, but at a privately owned bar you might not like someone chanting about politics or whatever the case may be, and this is established laws for platforms vs publishers in the USA. This is why a lot of people have issues with Google editorializing search results (check out Project Veritas on the matter) because they reach out into editor territory and out of just being a platform.
Since somebody downvoted without providing references to their refutes here's an actual case about freedom of speech online which is the main one by the looks of it in regards to suppressing speech online:
The burden of defamation is on the person not the website if anything, however, if someone posts anonymously who do you sue? The best a platform can do is delete their account. I've successfully had defamatory / false content about myself deleted from a platform in the past.
No, none of this applies to privately owned web sites. If anything, forcing them to act like utilities impinges on the speech of the platform owners. The Ben Shapiros of the world have desperately been trying to spin a different narrative though and they will jump through endless hoops and contradictions to do it. This is all just moderated-vs-unmoderated newsgroups/mailing lists/web sites all over again. There’s room for both. Nobody has a constitutional right to force YouTube or anyone else to host their content, or to have those companies shield them from criticism.
If someone wants to argue that YouTube should be declared a public utility that is required to host everyone’s content no matter what, that’s totally understandable and they should make that argument instead. Otherwise they’re just asking for the government to mandate that YouTube, etc. are safe spaces where everything is permitted and no one is allowed to judge other people for what they say, including the company paying for the servers. Which is so totally counter to what those very same people seem to think about everything else that I’m surprised the hypocrisy and inconsistency doesn’t create a singularity or something. But here we are, in 2020, and AM-talk-radio types are demanding the government mandate safe spaces for them on privately owned platforms where they are shielded from consequences.
You're not impinging on the free speech of people when you push them off your platform, they are free to carry on spouting their repugnant shit if they want, it's just that they have to build their own site, or even just try talking to people on the street about it.
What you are doing when you allow racism or xenophobia on your site is helping them promote it. There's a difference, and the fact that you have chosen to stand with those people doesn't put you in the free speech group, it puts you in the "I am a racist" group.
That's the classic "us vs them"/"if you're not with us you're against us" argument, and it's really the cause of the recent increase in divisiveness that is slowly destroying society.
I have never heard of lbry before, but I went to your site and was positively surprised. I looked into same gaming content and found what I was looking for. Playback was smooth and high quality.
For my question I wonder how it compares to the other services that deadalus mentioned?
Nice. Checkout https://odysee.com/$/gaming for more curated gaming content. Odysee is another (more centralized) frontend built on top of the LBRY protocol.
I found your site a few weeks ago after some creators I like kept mentioning they were posting there as well. I really like your site and keep up the good work! I use it instead of youtube whenever possible.