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> For example, if someone is posting about something harmful the videos should remain and the person who does that should face the consequences.

Ok, so now a video is up and people are tricked by it and injure themselves in the process. Some people die. Is that an acceptable cost? Does your solution make any considerations for ongoing harm?

Sue the person who uploaded the video, as it happens with all the malicious activities with the real world.

Sure, we can have tools to reduce risk - maybe there can be a warning under the video that the contents are disputed and some people claimed harm. If those people are lying the video uploader can sue them.

Just because some people don't know how to behave and have delusions that nothing is real on the internet, we can't have total speech control in an attempt of "saving the kids".

Just as with the real world, people need to develop the right habits to stay safe.

> Just as with the real world, people need to develop the right habits to stay safe.

Just as with the real world, you don't have a right to a broadcasting platform for anything you wish.

You actually have that right in any sane country. The limitations are on the frequency you can broadcast or the volume if you do your broadcast through sound systems.

Actually, only on extremely crazy dictatorships you will have police storming you before you finish your broadcast. On most places, you can be sued but the police wont try to silence you as if your words are a spell.

Where did the police come in? We were talking about Youtube selecting what to make available on their platform. Is that analogous to the police stifling your speech in your view?

Yes, it is in the same effect due to the ubiquity of the platform. IMHO, platforms with that significant user base should be regulated as utility.

So you think all guidelines should be eliminated? https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9288567?hl=en

Guidelines on the nature of the content? Yes.

Things harmful for the platforms itself? Removing stuff like spam is fair IMHO.

You don't want private entities making decisions on what content they host on their platforms, but you do want the government to make that decision (host everything) and force those private entities to abide by that decision under threat of penalty? And that is how we avoid dictatorships in your view?

The government has a due process, if the government doesn't have a fair due process you change them until you have a fair due process. You change the governments by election and if that's not available by burning down their stuff.

Companies don't have a fair due process. Google is infamous for not providing a human response for their algorithmic censorship. You can Google it.

Of course you do, as long as it's not illegal.

People forget even TV had public access, which could get pretty ridiculous back in the day.

Your argument is old, tired, and nonsensical.

Where is this right to a broadcasting platform to publish anything you wish as long as it is legal enumerated?

Depending on your dictatorship, it will be different everywhere.

In free countries you just broadcast. It's like the right to eat pancakes, it's not specifically regulated. Of course there are rules of what you are allowed to do or not, for example you can't broadcast in specific frequencies because those are licensed and if you like to do that you need to purchase a license. If you broadcast using loudspeakers, you will have regulations on the loudness of it.

The commercial license might come with its own limitations. Depending on your location, you might get into trouble if you take advertisements for drugs or cigarettes or alcohol. You can lose your license over it but your broadcasting equipment wont try stopping you from doing it.

> In free countries you just broadcast

Sure, and anyone who is banned on YouTube can still "just broadcast". Their rights were not harmed in any way.

To borrow your analogy, you may have the right to eat pancakes but you don't have the right to eat at IHOP. You can be banned from every pancake selling diner in town yet you can still eat pancakes. No one has stopped you from eating pancakes.

I can't agree with this one. Due to the different nature of the mediums(radio waves v.s. internet platform) you can't just broadcast because unlike radio waves Youtube will refuse to carry your signal. That's why I advocate for Youtube be impartial to the content and carry whatever the users put in it. If there's a problem with the content, let it be solved by the parties impacted.

Again, unlike radio, with internet platforms each platform is in its own reality. With radio, when you broadcast your signal reaches everyone indiscriminately. On the internet you broadcast into platforms as if they are different universes with different populations.

Public access tv (in the US at least) is actually a private platform, you do not have the right to broadcast anything you with on it "as long as it's not illegal."

As with newspapers, magazines, radio, social media platforms, etc., the owners public access tv stations are allowed to exercise editorial discretion with regards to what they publish. There was actually a landmark Supreme Court case about it:[0]

[0]https://www.commlawblog.com/2019/06/articles/broadcast/supre...

> Sue the person who uploaded the video, as it happens with all the malicious activities with the real world.

A corpse is discovered in a garage with charred stumps where the hands should be. Investigators look through that person's browser history and find they watched a few hundred wood burning videos. What now, hundreds of lawsuits? Who would pay for that?

> Some people die. Is that an acceptable cost? Does your solution make any considerations for ongoing harm?

You talk as if this isn't exactly what happened in the current framework of private censorship.

Even if abolishing private censorship would cause the scenario you outlined, that wouldn't be worse than the current situation and at least you'd solve the problem of pointless censorship.

If the video goes down and fewer people see it, fewer people die. How was the censorship pointless? You didn't "solve" any problems, you just ignored the actual complexity of the real world to uphold your ideals.

Speech is not magic spell. Sure, in Turkey the government believes that Netflix makes people gay and they regulate Netflix to ungay the Turkish youth but this is just as ridiculous as the censorship on other topics on other parts of the world.

If someone is dying because of a video, the fix is not in removal of the video. Sure, you can put labels agains poor judgement like they do on physical products.

> If someone is dying because of a video, the fix is not in removal of the video

It might not be 'the' fix but it could be 'a' fix. If your interest is preventing deaths that is.

Many things can be a fix to many problems. Listening devices at homes can be a fix to domestic violence for example.

The point is, for "a fix" of an issue we are trading things and I don't find it a good trade. Total unchallenged censorship is ot a good compromise to "save the kids".

I don't think a private company choosing what they host on their platform is total unchallenged censorship. With such a vast gap in understanding of terms I don't think discussion will get us anywhere.

You can find a lot of feedback of creators about their objections falling on deaf ears but yes, you are right; that's the core of the disagreement, let's agree to disagree.

> If the video goes down and fewer people see it, fewer people die.

Isn't it the case that the dangerous video was left up while the criticism was removed?

> How was the censorship pointless?

I'm talking specifically about private censorship.

> Even if abolishing private censorship would cause the scenario you outlined, that wouldn't be worse than the current situation

This seems like a statement with nothing behind it but your confidence that it is truth. I believe that could be much worse than the current situation.

YouTube didn't introduce content moderation (apart from copyright, and flat out illegal material) because daddy government told them to.

They introduced moderation because companies threatened to pull advertising because they didn't want their brands plastered next to awful content.

YouTube totally has the right to leave plenty of dangerous or morally repugnant content up. But they don't have the right to other companies' advertising money if said companies jump ship.

I would agree that eliminating content removal would make sense if they also eliminated their recommendation system.

From a legal perspective, making them legally liable for any content they promote (but not content they merely distribute) might fix the problem.

Even just bringing thumbs down would go a long way. They took a very useful metric away from technical how-to videos.

> simply hold people accountable for the content.

Yes but by what level of accountability? If I make a video about changing a clutch, and then some kid drops a gearbox on his face and kills himself, who is responsible? Is Demolition Ranch responsponsible for mass shootings? Is the History channel actually racist because it rebroadcasts Hitler all the time?

That's up to the courts to decide. Definitely not Youtube's business though.

Right. It's kinda hard to get upset about youtubes content and then claim it's up to the courts to decide, huh? ;)

What's hard about it?

The thing is the whole house of cards was built on pseudonymous growth. Most Youtube accounts can be traced back to specific people and corporations, sure, but it takes a lot of manual effort to figure it out and the success rate is not 100%. And what do you do when the person is based in a country with no regards for the rule of law, no extradition treaty with the US, yet its citizens still have the ability to post videos to Youtube?

What you're proposing would not only slow down the growth of Youtube, it would contract it. And proposing to Google that anything they do should get smaller for the benefit of mankind is somehow a cardinal sin against capitalism.

I have this proposition that I wrote about previously. The core of the idea is that the platforms can remove your content only if you are anonymous and you can re-instantiate your content and override moderation by accepting full responsibility through revealing your true identity. So if it happens that someone post some really nasty material, the police knocks on their door and content is removed only then(some type of content can be straight out illegal, like specific types of porn).

Here's a better idea: hold the publisher responsible for what they publish. Don't force the public to dive down rabbit-holes trying to figure out who uploaded the dodgy content, find out what jurisdiction they're in, and try to find an advocate in that jurisdiction to hold the uploader to account.

Sure, the publisher can also be responsible but YouTube is not a publisher. They are like electrical company that provides you with cables and electricity.

Youtube removing videos is like the electric company cutting of your electricity when they believe there's something harmful on the TV.

There are plenty of publishers on youtube and as they do curate their content, they should definitely be responsible. They are already responsible actually.

> They are like electrical company that provides you with cables and electricity.

Well, except that they don't provide anything similar to cables or electricity; what they distribute is content. How's that not a publisher?

> they distribute is content. How's that not a publisher?

Because they are not involved in the publishing? They are a platform where the publishers engage in publishing.

They're publishers to me. They produce, even if it's with computers, a landing page where they recommend different. They produce recommendations. I don't get how that's not publishing.

I agree that the lines are blurry. They definitely have a publisher and producer aspect with their discovery algorithms and their monetisation.

I don't think the lines are blurry. Discover algorithms and monetisation are not content.

I understand the desire to protect indy content from megacorps litigation. Some kind of protection is needed. But swearing that black is white is a "solution" that's bound to cause new problems.