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Comment by _wmd | Hacker News Reader

This reply is needlessly personal, are you materially affected by this issue somehow?

> Would you ban beaches as well, because creeps might watch others on a beach?

No, but nor would I pretend people can shower and change without cubicles, or permit the nearby village to drown during the first storm because I deluded myself in the belief there was no need for a seawall.

There is no rationality to be found in an absolute "save the children at all costs" position, much as there is none in "freedom of speech at all costs". This issue like so many more is nuanced, and I'm surprised people here are so easily willing to deny its possibility, but prefer to get worked up by its very existence or the plain reality nuance is required to solve the problem. Progress is never due to people like that.

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This is true, as it doesn't need to be a matter regarding only the creeps. I was thinking sociopolitically, where adults related or not make the decision to use minors as props, whether for a thing as big as ad campaigns or as small as for social brownie points. As a grownup, if someone were to post my image without my express permission I could pull some legality in my favor. Children generally don't have the same resources, lacking their own guardianship. I'm just saying that until they can legally make such decisions for themselves, privacy should be the standard, to save them from embarrassment or abuse. We must all decide for ourselves what to share of ourselves.

>This reply is needlessly personal, are you materially affected by this issue somehow?

No, but you're saying that if we can't limit people from posting bad things then we should remove or change the ability to post. Take that same idea into real life. It's impossible to stop people from saying and doing things without excessively infringing on their freedoms and as a result people say and do bad things. You're arguing that we should excessively infringe on their freedoms to prevent that from happening. This leads me to believe that you are against freedom of expression and speech.

>There is no rationality to be found in an absolute "save the children at all costs" position, much as there is none in "freedom of speech at all costs".

But you didn't express nuance. You categorically said that if a service can't do it, then the service needs to change. If you want to paint a picture of nuance, then express nuance.

And I would argue that freedom of speech is a necessity for a free society, meaning that it is almost "at all costs". I've seen what the Soviet era did with people. I don't want to live in such a society.

> You categorically said that if a service can't do it, then the service needs to change

Would you categorically state that if the service can't do it, the service should continue in its present form?

Walls are some of the oldest inventions of civilization, and YouTube currently lacks /any/ walls. I'm arguing for some walls in the right places, you're arguing for no walls whatsoever. We have a difference of opinion, it's fine.

Kids lack the same free speech rights as adults who don't have to live under a guardian's authority though. If you have open floodgates there will invariably be contradictions and conflict, when a little bit of Reason could avoid much of that. Reason along the lines that the owners of even the biggest online platforms are not themselves magically entitled to all datum.

I'm not trying to be prickly here, but I've thought quite a lot about freedoms of speech, and I believe for it to concisely work, it cannot unto itself guarantee an audience, as that would still be mandating opinion, only in the other direction. It can provide legal protections, but not protections from social ramifications, as again, this would be mandating opinion one way or the other. We can live in a free society without that freedom meaning I can help myself to my neighbor's wife. THAT is nuance.

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