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by thorough 2019 days ago
How would you suggest a company like YT can "allow people to make up their own minds" about an issue if they do not "provide a platform for views" of that issue that they "don't share"?

Unless you are just making the point that YT censorship is more acceptable than government censorship (which I think everyone agrees with), then I'm not sure how you can have your cake and eat it to here.
1 comments
charonn0 2019 days ago
I'm saying it's not censorship at all. Being denied by your preferred publisher is not the same as being prevented from publishing.
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thorough 2019 days ago
Right. The actor matters a huge amount. We all agree on that.

But if you run a forum and say you will not allow any view to be expressed therein that you don't agree with, you aren't in fact "allowing people to make up their own minds"---unless by "allowing people" you just mean not actively harming them for expressing views in other places, or something equally wild.

Another way of saying it is that no one would say you are "tolerant" if you only "tolerate" behavior you agree with.

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togs 2018 days ago
> But if you run a forum and say you will not allow any view to be expressed therein that you don't agree with, you aren't in fact "allowing people to make up their own minds"

I think you're missing their argument. YouTube censoring doesn't prevent information from being published elsewhere.

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thorough 2017 days ago
Yeah, I've definitely grasped their argument, which became clear once they clarified that "allowing people to make up their minds" doesn't mean "allowing content the owners disagree with" but rather "we won't try to criminalize this speech on other platforms." After all, if I were a publisher who refused to publish books with a certain viewpoint, in what other way could I say I (as opposed to the government, say, or the publishing industry as a whole) am "allowing people to make up their minds"?

(Sidenote: I do think YouTube and other corporate-run forums like that would welcome some regulation in the area, for two reasons: (1) they'd no longer be blamed for how they decide difficult content questions, and (2) it might make it more difficult for small startups to disrupt this space by increasing the legal barriers to entry.)

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