Hacker News Reader

Comment by LudwigNagasena | Hacker News Reader

> "innocent until proven guilty" only applies in a court of law.

“Innocent until proven guilty” is a philosophical concept that many legal systems subscribe to in the context of criminal law.

> Similar to when people cite the 1st amendment in situations where a private company is taking action

Indeed, it’s very similar in the sense that the concept of the freedom of speech goes way beyond the 1st amendment. It existed before it. And it is the first amendment that exists because of the freedom of speech, not the other way round.

> A private company can do what it wants within the bounds of the law.

Yeah, including immoral actions that others may disagree with.

View on HN

The whole philosophical backing of both "freedom of speech" and "innocent until proven guilty" is that the government doesn't itself have civil rights, only the rights explicitly outlined to it in the founding documents of that government (e.g. US Constitution).

Once you venture into private parties evaluating other private parties, you encounter a collision of rights. It's still freedom of speech and association to not want to do business with certain people, and as long as those certain people aren't of a protected class, this falls well within the moral concepts of both free speech and presumption of innocence.

> government doesn't itself have civil rights

Neither do corporations. This is easy to demonstrate. Imagine you refuse to talk to Trump supporters - most people would say that's your right.

> It's still freedom of speech and association to not want to do business with certain people

imagine the outrage if Tomorrow YouTube deletes accounts for anyone that supported Trump

Corporations are owned by people who do have civil rights.

Let's go more extreme. Tech companies are free to not host Nazi content. The US govt is NOT free to lock someone up for being a Nazi. That's the power of the 1st amendment.

Why can I never find you 'Corporations are people' advocates when corporate manslaighter is being discussed, for example when Boeing killed 200 people with a faulty plane?

Corporations are not people. Congress could pass laws saying that tech must host Nazi content. But they haven't.

Thanks for making the correction, luckily we don’t live in a world based purely on Lockean principles, but rather a practical one with a society much larger than existed in his day.

John Locke is renowned for being pragmatic, not an ideologue. I'm not sure why societal size would matter, but he lived in a period of social upheaval with lots of negative effects from intolerance and partisanship. Not really that different from today.

> Yeah, including immoral actions that others may disagree with.

The morality in this instance does not follow this principle. If people find these allegations credible—and most should—the morally correct action is to deplatform him and delete his content.

> If people find these allegations credible—and most should

Why should most people find these allegations credible? I do not believe there is a police report, arrest, and let alone a trial. These are currently just allegations, their credibility has not been adjudicated.

One might evaluate the situation based on what I think is called a "preponderance of evidence", combined with an understanding that the legal system is both slow and tends towards innocence unless a crime is proven "beyond a shadow of a doubt".

A person may know how slow and different a legal decision is compared to what may be obvious and a reflection of reality, and therefore might arrive at a conclusion well before a system designed to be conclusive would.

The law is more about what can be proven than it is about what is true, and for people who know that, legal judgement stands separately from moral evaluation.

What evidence has been provided to meet this preponderance of evidence standard you are putting forward for moral evaluation?

You have one party making an allegation claiming they have documents to back it up and the other party denying innocence with claims of their own exculpatory evidence. Nothing has been shared to the public by either party for me evaluate who has the preponderance of evidence.

I do believe YouTube (or any other private platform) can and should be able to set it's own rules for participation so I see no issue with what they did here. If it's a right for someone to be on that platform then we should not be relying on a private party to guarantee that and make the necessary legislative changes.

I would just love to understand why I should be outraged at this individual before anything has been presented before me so that I can evaluate for myself.

No one is telling you to be outraged about it.

But we are being told (in this thread) that we should assume that the allegations are credible.

> ...to what may be obvious and a reflection of reality

And how exactly is it obvious that the guy is guilty? Just because he makes click-baity divisive videos, might allegedly have been a playboy in the past, and you don't like him, doesn't equate to "obviously he must have done it".

> and most should

Why?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com