[mkolodny]

> I think it's better to have a society where property rights (which includes the right of self-ownership i.e. owning your own body) and other natural rights (speech, self defense [technically these are just derived from property rights but I digress]) cannot be infringed upon for any reason

In this YouTube situation, property rights and freedom of speech are mutually exclusive. Either the owners of YouTube have the right to censor whatever they want on their platform/property, or people have freedom of speech and YouTube can't remove speech from their platform/property. In this situation, you can't protect both property rights and freedom of speech - you can only protect one.

[tux1968]

If enough people demanded it though, we could make it socially unacceptable for Youtube to use their property rights in the pursuit of censorship. The problem really isn't the law, it's public opinion. We've lost sight of how important freedom of speech is, and we are by and large cheering on censorship where it hurts those we disagree with. It's short sighted and will ultimately cost us a lot more than it gains us... but it feels good for now.

[AndrewUnmuted]

Ultimately, if people didn't accept these draconian measures, advertisers would complain because there would be notable data showing a decline in consumer engagement.

I actually like that YouTube is announcing all of this stuff up-front, because it makes it far more clear and crystal that if you have an alternative viewpoint from the mainstream, you will have to build your own infrastructure to support your message. It's best that people learn this sooner, than later. Enough people have suffered by being too trusting of brands like YouTube.

[tux1968]

I think you're missing the forest for all the trees. This isn't a tactical debate, it's a philosophical and foundational one. Until we all defend the right of people we despise to voice their opinion, everything else is playing at the margin.

People have forgotten that it's not just good for the people we detest, it's good for us to be able to listen to bad ideas and form rational and compelling counterarguments and defences against them. And since none of us is perfect, there will be times when it is _us_ that is espousing the bad idea, and it will be damn good for everyone that people are able to speak up and correct us.

There are indeed growing pains as the world comes online and starts being able to talk to each other. We're really in our adolescence as it pertains to life online. But we're making the most naive and expedient appraisals and supposed remedies to the discomfort its causing. My hope is that we're able to turn a corner and wrest control away from the reactionaries who currently control the narrative and the agenda.

[AndrewUnmuted]

> it's good for us to be able to listen to bad ideas and form rational and compelling counterarguments and defences against them.

I agree, and it's quite obvious that if you want this, then you should not go to YouTube.

> But we're making the most naive and expedient appraisals and supposed remedies to the discomfort its causing.

The only naivety being expressed here, is the idea that YouTube is the be-all-end-all online UGC video provider. Why are you placing YouTube on such a high pedestal, assigning such a non-deterministic fate to its decisions and outcomes? They're not even a little important to the dissemination of free ideas - perhaps they once were, but that ship sailed long ago.

Why are you so in love with YouTube? You clearly despise their choices; abandon the platform and don't look back.

> This isn't a tactical debate, it's a philosophical and foundational one.

I agree; you need to change your philosophy. Stop relying on YouTube to be the heroic service that you want it to be, and start realizing that it will never do what you want it to do.

[AgentME]

YouTube is a specific company and they run an engine for recommending videos to people. YouTube doesn't prevent people from finding other hosting for their own videos and linking people to those videos. Do people have any more right to YouTube's megaphone than they do to any specific newspaper or TV channel's reach?

I despise people pushing anti-vaccination misinformation. Would it be good for us to fight for their right to have their message to be uncritically broadcast on say NBC? I might care if the government made a law that was ambiguously too broad that happened to make it so antivaxers couldn't possibly be broadcast on TV at all, and it was clear that antivaxers winning that fight against that overly-broad law would open things up for other groups I thought the law was too strict against, but if it's just the case that every TV station decided of their own will and probably specific reasons to not broadcast them, then even if I thought all the TV stations were generally too strict, I'd pick something I actually liked that they were being too strict against to support to convince the stations to change their opinions.

[betwixthewires]

Nobody is suing YouTube over this though, they are just sharing the information about it so that people can decide whether to keep using YouTube to host their content, and encouraging people to stop using the service.

Also we are discussing the ethical issues surrounding this decision.

[lopmotr]

The bigger conversation isn't really about YouTube, it's that some people want these ideas suppressed from everywhere and some people don't. Youtube just happens to be more flexible than the government, but don't think for a second they're all going to draw the line if the government passes a law prohibiting saying those things. Legally enforced censorship is what many of them ultimately want.

On the other side of the coin, the anti-censorship people also want the government to prohit Youtube/FB/etc. from censoring their ideas. That's just as anti-freedom.

[AgentME]

Why would YouTube want legally-enforced censorship? The existence of that would make more work for them and would open them up to liability.

YouTube is specifically pushing back at propaganda coming from the government here, so I don't know how it makes any sense to assert that it's evidence they really want to allow government propaganda.