| > And finally, the word “censorship”. This is an accusatory word used by people who think it relates to their non-existent “freedom of speech”. The first amendment applies to the agreement between the US government and its citizens. It does not apply to your relationship with YouTube.
> YouTube is a corporation that has an entirely separate agreement with its users, which does not include freedom of speech. Therefore, it’s not censorship — by definition. The first amendment and freedom of speech are not synonyms, quite obviously because there can be freedom of speech outside of the jurisdiction of the US government; and similarly, Youtube is a trans-national corporation with more than just US citizens using it. Even if it were wholly within US jurisdiction and Youtube only served US citizens, the first amendment is still not a synonym for freedom of speech. The word censor comes from a Latin word for a governmental position in ancient Rome but it does not follow that all censorship is therefore only possible or enacted by government. Not only is there no supporting logic for that, it's not evident in practice. Companies like Twitter[1], Facebook[2] and Google[3] remove things from their platforms for political convenience (or, as Anand Giridharadas points out[4], for any convenience): > When you look at the ways in which the winners of our age give back, help out, make a difference, they are often designed to protect the system - above all - that the winners stand on top of. As ever, I suggest getting a copy of On Liberty[0] by J.S. Mill, where he goes over both the tyranny of government and the tyranny of non-governmental actors, with regards to speech. [0] https://www.bartleby.com/130/ [1] https://nypost.com/2020/12/15/facebook-twitter-donated-to-bi... [2] https://gizmodo.com/former-facebook-workers-we-routinely-sup... [3] https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/tulsi-gabbard-lawsuit... [4] https://youtu.be/d_zt3kGW1NM?t=179 |