[duemti]

I'm baffled how people support this behavior from big tech. It almost seems like they think of themselves as immune to this somehow, like little sheep unable to comprehend that they themselves once will deviate will get the same treatment (assuming they have spine to stand for what they believe).

[chki]

The "slippery slope" argument doesn't work in this case (as for usual). Youtube already removes certain types of content and it already removes certain types of political content. This is necessary to monetize the platform in a meaningful way.

[gravity13]

The year is 2047 and California is half desert, half ocean. Youtube has moved their offices to the hippest, most promising upstart of a community, Beluga, once a suburb of Fairbanks, Alaska.

A small collective of cyberpunk hackers have declared independence on an island remainder of Mt. Diablo. They call themselves "Hackerbridge" and base their upcoming government around ideas of universal basic income and their culture is based on pansexualism.

Youtube blocks any videos recognizing the independence of Hackerbridge.

As Hackerbridge fails to be recognized as a real nation, they cannot trade their wealth of knowledge building outdated UI apps with necessities like food, water, toilet paper, and general plumbing.

As their society perishes, their leader, Alexis Ohanian, finally leaves behind a stranded leftover on the island as he pushes away his hovercraft in the direction of Reno.

It is thought to be heard him say, "Where were you in 2020 when Youtube caved to corrupt government censorship?" but this quote is contradicted by other accounts.

[syndacks]

Cool story but not really sure where this is coming from:

>Youtube caved to corrupt government censorship

Youtube, the private company, is doing what it thinks is best for the business. They are not the government, free speech does not apply, there is no censorship against any right.

[duemti]

"Independent", Satire right?! Haven't you heard of PRISM? or 'patriot act'?

The biggest concerned, i believe, most people have with censorship is that "they censor and at the same time claim to be a 'platform' not 'publishers'".

It would be 'ok', if they say who they 'are', not pretend to be open and at the same time silence voices who they disagree with by pretending to 'fact check'. 'Fact check' what? Peoples conversations? For what reason? Then it should, at least, be voluntary. You see the concern people have, right?!

[Raidion]

It is voluntary, you agreed to the EULA when you signed up for Youtube.

"If we reasonably believe that any Content is in breach of this Agreement or may cause harm to YouTube, our users, or third parties, we may remove or take down that Content in our discretion."

[failuser]

The current leader of American government has a position on election directly opposing the one of YouTube and threatens to defund the military unless section 230 which allows distance of user-generated content to legally exist is cancelled.

[mcavoybn]

deumeti isn't making a 'slippery slope' argument. A slippery slope would imply that the issue gets worse and worse along some spectrum over time. For example: arguing that allowing homosexuality will lead to bestiality and pedophilia because they all exist along a dimension of perverted acts.

deumeti is just pointing out that cheer-leading censorship and tyranny, just because you are on the 'winning side', will inevitably lead to you becoming oppressed in the same way. Think of all the stories where a bunch of lackeys support the antagonist, only to be ultimately betrayed and destroyed. It's more of a 'Lucius Malfoy' argument, not 'slippery slope'.

[chki]

My underlying understanding was that the soon to be deleted videos are in fact misinformation, that's why I understood this to be a slippery slope type of argument. Of course if one assumes that the President is actually correct this could be construed in another way. (But I'm definitely not going to argue with people who believe in these stolen-election allegations here, some divides are too deep to overcome in an online forum)

[duemti]

That's why there is a legal system in place for disagreements, not at the discretion of some corporation.

It is tyrannical, voices of concerned are silenced, it is wrong, it is evil.

[allarm]

Sure, they even support it right here on hn - the downvoted comments are very difficult to read and you can’t read the flagged comments - thanks guys for your gentle care for my mental health.

[tomjakubowski]

Yes you can read flagged comments. Turn on showdead. I leave them off because they're far less often than a regular comment worth the time spent reading.

[allarm]

Oh, didn’t know that, thanks. But still, it’s turned off by default.

Is there a way to improve readability for the downvoted comments?

[garaetjjte]

You could play with CSS, but I'm just selecting these with mouse.