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Comment by psyc | Hacker News Reader

I don’t expect many minds to change. I predict the “‘private’ [misnomer] companies can do what they want [broadly false]” crowd to dig in and rationalize why art is not a special case. My own hypothesis is they personally identify with the corporations, e.g. they are entrepreneurs or might want to become entrepreneurs someday.

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Honestly I don't think it's that they identify as entrepreneurs or business owners, I think it's just that they identify as progressives, and there is an incredibly prominent pro-censorship current in modern progressive ideology. I say this because I've definitely interacted with many people in real life who are not the "entrepreneur" or "pro corporate" types yet happily cheer on the censorship being practiced by big tech and the like

Progressives are not necessarily for censorship (though some are). But this "private censorship" is a consequence of not regulating new media industries.

So seeing some people complain about censorship after being against regulation has very much "you wanted this, serves you right" vibe.

I agree but would like to posit that that attitude is yet another issue of the current political landscape. The "your previous idea has turned out poorly, both this is your fault and I can now justify slightly this bad thing because it's happening to you" I probably phrased that poorly but I see lots of people who are against things, no longer being so strongly against that thing when it starts to hurt their 'enemies'. It's like a rule change in sport, I'm against it until it starts to give me a competitive advantage.

Which really just goes back to the two party, my enemy or my friend trope. Tribalism etc.

> My own hypothesis is they personally identify with the corporations,

I used to be like that and I remember defending YT censorship as I thought I would probably wanted to be able to do the same had my project took off. It took me a long time to realise I was wrong.

What do you think the people who now shout "censorship" would say if few years ago, someone sugested "the tech giants should be regulated with regards to what content they host and follow due process when removing content"?

The tech giants are unregulated. They can do what they want. They want this for some reason, so they do it.

What is the alternative?

Doing what random HNer's want, apparently. Disrupting industries by straight up breaking the law: totally ok. Choosing what content your website will and will not host: absolutely monstrous. That's tech culture in a nutshell.

I mean, "the tech giants have enormous control over society, monopolistic positions and levels of vertical integration and trilions of cash at hand that make it impossible to fight them in market, can we do something about it?" is definitely a good discussion to have.

Not sure if "they should be hosting dangerous antivaxx content during global pandemic" (that some people claim doest actually exist because of previous content) is a good way to kick that discussion off.

(I realize this particular video possibly isnt that dangerous.)

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