[ajuc]

It's very hard to find a law without exceptions.

It's forbidden to kill people. But if you are defending yourself it's not. And if you're a soldier you are indeed required to kill.

It's forbidden to break other people's property - but if you're trying to save somebody's life you can break a window to get to them.

It's illegal to capture and keep people imprisoned. But state can put you in prison no problem.

Etc.

Freedom of speech was never intended to be the only fundamental rule of the society. It's one of many. Being fundamentalist about it is harmful.

In particular what is harmful is abusing it to circumvent other, reasonable rules. In USA the reason oligarchs can pay politicians for their campaigns is because it's classified as "free speech". This is corruption on the highest level of the state legalized with idiotic excuse. It's illegal in most democracies, and for a good reason.

Another example is spreading hate campaigns against minorities. We know what happens if you allow this to go on. We've seen 1930s. We have laws against it - but only for traditional media. Internet is a way to circumvent these rules and good practices.

Just like radio was a way for to-be-totalitarian-rulers to circumvent the establishment in 20s and 30s.

[_heimdall]

I haven't seen anyone here claiming that freedom of speech is the only fundamental rule of society.

It is an extremely important one though, there's a reason the US founders listed it first.

What often gets missed or misunderstood is who our speech is protected from. It doesn't matter what YouTube, or any other company or person, restricts. It matters what our government restricts. The government isn't supposed to limit our speech in any way, YouTube can limit all it wants unless it treads into gray area where the limits were specifically requested by the government.

[ajuc]

> It doesn't matter what YouTube, or any other company or person, restricts. It matters what our government restricts

If there is a monopoly - what the monopoly owner restricts matters just as much as what the government restricts. More in fact - because youtube has more influence over what people watch than any single government.

These monopolies should be broken up, obviously - but internet is the perfect example of network effects and there's no regulation - so of course it's monopolized to a degree unimaginable before.

Governments should break up such monopolies, obviously - but they aren't, so far.

[_heimdall]

If YouTube is legally a monopoly that's a separate issue that already has defined legal solutions (well, responses at least since they may not solve it).

Considering it a monopoly and putting a higher bar to their moderation policies takes away agency from the public though. We don't have to use YouTube and there's nothing stopping competitors from entering the market. If people cared that YouTube was a monopoly, or if people cared enough about the moderation policies, they would go elsewhere.

The reason we have to specifically be protected from government censorship is because we don't realistically have that option. Those with the means could move to another country, but that would only dodge one problem for another. When you live in a country ruled by a single government you can't escape their censorship.

[ajuc]

> We don't have to use YouTube and there's nothing stopping competitors from entering the market.

There is - network effect.

> If people cared that YouTube was a monopoly, or if people cared enough about the moderation policies, they would go elsewhere.

They would not, because of network effects. Coordination effort required to jump ship from a billion user website is impossible to overcome. You could have all of Americans stop using youtube, and it would still have more content than whatever competitor they turn towards.

> The reason we have to specifically be protected from government censorship is because we don't realistically have that option.

There's more examples of people overthrowing a government than people succesfully boycotting a social media platform once it gets big enough.

[_heimdall]

You're conflating the risk of a monopoly in a market and the absolute monopoly of a government.

I'm not arguing why people choose to use YouTube, I'm arguing that it is a choice. Staying in a country is technically a choice, but as long as you live there you have no choice in your government and can't opt out of their rule.

Its very different. Our speech is protected specifically from government censorship because their control over us is a monopoly by design and their will is enforced through mechanisms like prison and military.

[ajuc]

There's 200 countries. You can move. There's democracy in many of them - you can vote people out.

How many youtubes are there? How do I vote for the people running it?

I'm not conflating, I'm abstracting from artificial distinction designed to keep the loophole safe from regulation.