Bear Stearns wrote:Dawn Denac wrote:Money makes problems disappear. As long as people keep using these sites, they'll keep having money to throw at their issues. Good luck with lawsuits too, cause they'll likely drown you in litigation and legal fees.
The situation with YouTube is particularly alarming. YouTube is a near monopoly in its space (bitchute and dailymotion will never be real threats), with deep institutional power, the ability to leverage Google's search engines, and deep relationships with traditional media companies that are using YouTube to forestall their coming obsolescence. And it's structurally set up to be this way. There can really over be one YouTube-like platform at any given time. If two exist at the same time, one will eventually win out. The reason is because content creators will gravitate towards the most accessible and concentrated platform, and viewers will gravitate towards the platforms with the most content. So it becomes a feedback loop. YouTube is dominant because that's where the content creators are, and content creators go to YouTube because YouTube is dominant. This is why it is practically impossible to develop a real alternative to YouTube. The only way these sorts of natural monopolies are disrupted is either through government regulation or the development of new technologies that make the prior models obsolete.
And given YouTube's accessibility by billions of viewers and content creators, it's essentially the closest thing there is a public platform for all, and is often the primary source of video information for millions across the world. Because of the centrality of YouTube to the flow of information in our daily lives, saying "lol it's just a private company they can do whatever the fuck they want" seems really dumb. In other sectors, when these monopolies arise, the government usually allows the monopoly but regulates them to prevent abuse. Such is the case with water, power, and telecom utilities.
If we're comfortable regulating utility and telecom monopolies, then it's probably time to seriously look into treating YouTube the same way. To get an analogy of how bad this could get it, imagine if AT&T could shut off your phone service because they disagreed with what you were saying over the phone.
A privatized, CCP-style, social credit system is what these leftist MSM and social media companies are aiming for. Don't support Black Lives Matter? Your Facebook subway pass has been invalidated. No reason given. You can't ride the high-speed train from NYC to L.A. You can't book a hotel room. You can't dine at McDonald's. You can't even find a fucking job because Facebook has blacklisted you for some reason. Socialism with Chinese characteristics is coming to a city near you. China Uncensored and other alternative news outlets have already been demonetized and shadowbanned for daring to go against the establishment grain and report the facts as they are simply because they contradict a simplistic, woke narrative of white man bad, orange man bad. Today, it's HK. Tomorrow, it's the world.
This kind of censorship that affects users not just in the United States, but all over the world, is the reason I'm seriously tempted to lend my support to Donald Trump and the Republicans even if a million Americans ultimately succumb to the coronavirus because mUh fReEdUmB and abortion is banned in many U.S. states, because the Trump administration is pushing back hard against this online censorship on top of its support for HK, Taiwan, and Israel and its defense of men's rights and genuine racial equality. Trump's Executive Order targeting social media censorship is a good start.
Social media censorship, especially if it is enforced in an inconsistent and one-sided manner, breeds absolute contempt for the rule of law as a principle and sets an extremely dangerous precedent for freedom of expression online and around the world, especially in places like HK and China. These hypocritical, woke companies that have no qualms about doing business with China are really no better than Trump himself. They and their fellow Democrat travelers are really staring at their own dark reflection and they dislike it intensely.
As much of a failure as Trump has been in dealing with a global pandemic, it seems that this really is about freedom vs tyranny and equality vs discrimination, at least on the non-pandemic-related front.
Bear Stearns wrote:We are just going to take Reddit's ability to enforce its own rules objectively and impartially at face value...
It is increasingly odd to see nominally left-wing people suddenly become very laissez-faire on this issue.
"Let them eat cake", right? Defending neoliberalism? How very socialist of them. Just like the CCP in HK that is supported by wealthy oligarchs who have opposed democratic reforms in the territory for decades because real, left-leaning social democracy cuts into their bottomless wallets. These woke leftists really have more in common with the CCP than they care to admit.
Costa Fierro wrote:those views are detrimental to the cohesion of society and should rightfully be suppressed
This sounds EXACTLY like the kind of thing IM would say. A corporate, neoliberal dictatorship where Shinra literally governs Midgar is what you're defending. You could take it one step further and promulgate a National Security Law banning treason, secession, sedition, subversion, "theft of
state corporate secrets", and foreign interference and collusion. Absolutely horrifying.
The Remote Islands wrote:Purgatio wrote:None of the banned subreddits were engaging in "blatantly illegal activity", just expressing political opinions that some people nebulously find 'offensive'.
I was referring to subs that had been banned before this most recent wave like bomb-making and jailbait, I should have been clearer. But even still...are we really going to defend places like r/fascism_forever and r/holocaustfake? Inciting violence and racist hatred is a little more than just 'offensive', at least in some countries.
In Malaysia, criticizing (i.e. "insulting") Islam is punishable by upward of ten years in prison and this is strictly enforced against non-Malay and non-Muslim critics of the racist, theocratic, political and economic status quo, but the law is rarely applied against the Malay/Muslim majority for hateful, disgusting, threatening stuff that's constantly and openly written and said about non-Malays and non-Muslims who are the minority in this country. Its inconsistent application means that the rule of law is undermined and anything goes. I doubt Facebook or Reddit really gives a shit about this double standard. I once complained to FB about death threats made by Malay Muslims to Malaysian atheists but they did absolutely NOTHING.
Is this the kind of terrifying dystopia you want your country to sleepwalk into? Because my country has been there for decades. I was also born and raised in HK, where a National Security Law has just been passed banning treason, secession, sedition, subversion, "theft of state secrets", and foreign interference and collusion.
I am SICK and TIRED of being muzzled both online and offline by the CCP, radical Islamists, racist, Malay supremacists, and Western, woke, PC leftists. What these companies are doing is adding yet another layer of censorship on top of that as if their users haven't suffered enough. I just want to be able to speak my mind freely and publicly without being arrested by the police or censored by ideologically biased, intolerant mods for "hate speech".
Costa Fierro wrote:Greater vakolicci haven wrote:I find people who are against freedom of expression to be very offensive.
You can stop with the whole "I SUPPORT FREEZE PEACH" because it's not what you're advocating for.
What you and other freeze peach advocates are trying to force on everyone else is not freeze peach but the freedom from consequences from whatever it is you are saying.
(I can't speak for Purg or GVH. Honestly, I find some of their views related to the HK protests and the rich-poor divide to be downright disgusting and nakedly hypocritical, and I have them both on ignore, so forgive me if I'm not entirely aware of the full exchange, but I digress.)
There are consequences to free speech in North Korea. There are consequences to free speech in HK. There are consequences to free speech in Malaysia. None of those consequences are very pretty. You are free to say whatever comes to mind, just as the government is free to have you and your family disappeared for doing so or at the very least, imprisoned for 10+ years for "hate speech".