YouTube not bound by first amendment

submitted by jamesK_3rd from reason.com

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[–]steaknpotatoes 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

They should be.

[–]Drewski 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Disagree, a private company or website should be able to host or remove content as they chose. Forcing a site to host content against their will is not a first amendment issue. Even if one has the right intentions (and I suspect many pushing this narrative do not), giving the government control of online discussions and content will not result in more transparency and freedom.

That said, Youtube and other tech companies engaging in censorship absolutely deserve criticism and should be abandoned in favor of free, open and decentralized platforms.

[–]jamesK_3rd[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Ditto.

And someone should take them to court to determine if they are publisher or platform.

Once that's established, they need to be sued out of existence at even the most minor offense.

[–]steaknpotatoes 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Disagree, a private company or website should be able to host or remove content as they chose. Forcing a site to host content against their will is not a first amendment issue.

I think it would be a first amendment issue for a small site being forced to do such, I don't think that should happen. For a site like Youtube they shouldn't be able to discriminate against free legal speech because they have captured too much of public discourse and information dissemination to give them that power over us. Why allow corporations control how we use our first amendment rights, doesn't make sense.

Not sure if you don't believe in any regulation on private business or not. A few questions. Do you think it would be acceptable for telecoms to kick people off or disallow them service because they are known to be conservative or liberal? Imagine not being able to call someone because they're a conservative or liberal. How about Verizon and Comcast not giving you service because of that, so no broadband internet. Would you be okay with ISPs blocking any sites they want including proxies and VPNs? Would you be okay with pharmacies and drug companies denying people their service and products for their political affiliation or views? How about grocery stores? What about a restaurant denying service to people because they're Muslim or black or white?

giving the government control of online discussions and content will not result in more transparency and freedom.

I think you maybe misunderstood, ruling a site like Youtube as a legal public forum would mean they have to allow free legal speech and not discriminate at their choosing with all their political biases. The government would only get involved if they weren't allowing free speech.

Captured markets, monopolies, duopolies, oligopolies are very dangerous to allow to go unregulated, you don't allow giant corporations to decide who gets to exercise their first amendment rights or gets to have medicine or food etc. We already regulate and make laws for private business to protect the people and their rights.

[–]Drewski 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

For a site like Youtube they shouldn't be able to discriminate against free legal speech because they have captured too much of public discourse and information dissemination to give them that power over us.

Nobody is forced to use Youtube. They haven't captured public discourse, people choose use their services. If you don't like what they're doing, don't use it. Youtube doesn't control how I use my first amendment rights, because I don't use Youtube (or at least, I don't have an account there). There are better, decentralized, and more open alternatives to Youtube and other social media and if you choose not to use them it's on you.

Not sure if you don't believe in any regulation on private business or not. A few questions. Do you think it would be acceptable for telecoms to kick people off or disallow them service because they are known to be conservative or liberal? Imagine not being able to call someone because they're a conservative or liberal. How about Verizon and Comcast not giving you service because of that, so no broadband internet. Would you be okay with ISPs blocking any sites they want including proxies and VPNs? Would you be okay with pharmacies and drug companies denying people their service and products for their political affiliation or views? How about grocery stores? What about a restaurant denying service to people because they're Muslim or black or white?

I only believe in regulation of private businesses if they're violating someone's rights. This means polluting the environment, physically harming someone without provocation, stealing someone's property, that kind of thing. The telecoms industry is a unique bag of worms, because it's a government created monopoly which is not good. In a free market, yeah ISPs should be allowed to deny service to anyone, block sites/VPNs, deny service to anyone. This would be a shitty thing to do though, and people would rightfully boycott their services. Same thing with other industries...people do ban people from their businesses for racial, religious, or other reasons and they rightfully get called out and boycotted for it.

I think you maybe misunderstood, ruling a site like Youtube as a legal public forum would mean they have to allow free legal speech and not discriminate at their choosing with all their political biases. The government would only get involved if they weren't allowing free speech.

This is a nice ideal, but you're expecting the same government (I assume we're talking about the US government) who persecutes whistleblowers, spies on it's own citizens, spreads propaganda, interferes in foreign elections, props up dictators and rebels then turns on them the next week, wants to ban encryption, I could go on and on... we're just going to give them the absolute authority to enforce "free speech" and prevent discrimination online. I don't think so. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and the US government is already a behemoth far outside the constraints designed by the founding fathers.

[–]steaknpotatoes 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I can see you didn't really try to understand my points and are one of these people that thinks the market corrects itself all the time and that monopolies, duopolies, captured markets, mega corporations etc should be able to wreak havoc on our first amendment rights and fourth amendment right without regulation. No thanks your brand of libertarian is dangerous to a free people and the rights they're guaranteed in the US constitution.

[–]Drewski 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I did though, I replied to each of them. I don't think the market is the end all, you didn't address my response at all. My main point was that this government that is violating our rights on a massive scale is not to be trusted with more power to regulate the internet.

[–]steaknpotatoes 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

You want to allow a few tech corporations to decide what people can say and express online, hell under your Laissez-faire ideas ISPs and telecoms can just deny you service totally if they don't like you. That's just ridiculous, which is why I'm not gonna argue much further. How about phone app stores there's only 2 that have captured 99.999% of the market, and somehow you think the market will magically correct this, wake up it's not fixing itself. Yeah lets allow drug companies to only allow certain people to have their life saving drugs. Simplistic lazy libertarian views are dangerous and the thing is your support for allowing big tech to censor based on political biases you'll most likely be one of the people silenced.

Under a public forum designation the government would only step in if Youtube was not allowing free speech, so maybe you just don't like free speech, hard to tell. Oh and net neutrality is a good thing, these few private ISPs need to stay the fuck off our internet traffic.