[zozbot234]

Meh. YouTube is only one site among millions. They're a profit-seeking business, not a charity. They're under no obligation to host Dan Bongino's video content, given that they have clear policies against posting health-related content that's widely discredited as misinformation.

[xiphias2]

A few years ago I would have agreed, but all the top sites (which means the best ones technically) share the banning information with eachother.

[ahthat]

I'm disinclined to think that a world in which we do not speak against the consolidation of the arbitration of truth to small groups of individuals is a good one, and its a particularly icy form of irony where such groups of individuals gained power on the back of the wave of freedom of information.

They're doing nothing illegal, I'll still speak out what I observe to be sad unfolding of events.

[throwawaysea]

The thing is social media, including YouTube, is the new public square. Exercising our fundamental civil liberties like free speech means exercising them on places like social media. Otherwise those rights are simply not as useful. Social media has a massive impact on our society, including on politics. If it doesn't have that impact, then why bother censoring someone at all? I also think platforms above some size simply should not be able to ban people in order to make Democracy work.

Another angle here is that social media companies are ultimately just plain old telecom companies. We regularly regulate private businesses and limit the ways in which they conduct business. Your electrical utility is not allowed to deny you service based on your political opinion. These companies shouldn't be able to do so either, as they are common carriers (https://reason.com/volokh/2021/07/16/conclusion-social-media...).

Additionally, social media is built on network effects (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect). The larger the network, the stronger the service, but also the higher the barriers to entry. Businesses built on network effects inherently face limited competition and must be regulated since they do not face competition as much.

Finally, our government is already censoring speech by hiding their influence through these social media companies. Tech companies have an incentive to play nicely with the government, since they might otherwise face difficulties like anti-trust action. Glenn Greenwald had written extensively about this proxy censorship:

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/how-silicon-valley-in-a-sho...

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/congress-in-a-five-hour-hea...

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/democrats-and-media-do-not-...

[zozbot234]

Some social media companies could indeed have their "platform" components broken off from the rest and run in a 'fair and neutral' way, but not YouTube. The whole value of that "platform" is in the algorithmic content promotion and curation they do, and that promotion relies critically on "harmonious community" policies. Otherwise, they're not inherently different than Rumble.

[ahthat]

Indeed they do.

The problem is their betrayal of the spirit of the internet. We built the internet with a vision of optimism, but now that the vision is in danger. When things become difficult for only a moment, we abandon that spirit altogether. For shame. It'd be much better if their service didn't abandon it. The Internet has been the great social experiment of our time. I'll take any opportunity to speak out against actions that diminish free and open discourse.