Yes our freedoms are being eroded. It’s a slippery slope. All that bullshit.
Come on. A private company doesn’t want to contribute to people dying. Oh and by the way don’t they have the right to do what they want? You want what, regulation to prohibit this?
1. I think at the end of the day, the problem isn't "does YouTube have the right to do this?" it's "should YouTube be doing this, given their status?" For me even though they have the right to, I think it's just the wrong thing to do.
I personally am baffled by how the US as a society seems to be devaluing free speech principles in the private and public sphere due to some argument that it's needed to combat misinformation. This strategy never ends well, and it belies a lack of strength in promoting alternatives. The way to combat misinformation is with better information. Resorting to free speech restrictions is a sign of weakness in my opinion.
In the end I'd rather have YouTube (and other platforms) modeling a different approach.
2. I also think, regardless of how they got there, at some point a private business functions as a monopoly and should be treated as such. I'm not so sure how I feel about regulations along those lines, but I do think anti-monopoly legal response to this sort of behavior wouldn't be unreasonable. I'm not at all sympathetic to the GOP in general, but if they started coming down on YouTube for this kind of thing under anti-monopoly regulation umbrellas I think it wouldn't be irrational or unreasonable to me.
3. As a more immediate issue, I think this sort of thing always backfires. If you have a bunch of people thinking there's a conspiracy to shove untested vaccines down people's throats, and then you have a major media distributor like YouTube censoring all anti-vaccine discussion, what do you think they're going to conclude? I'm as pro-vaccine as someone can get, and think arguments against them are usually pretty absurd, but I have to say that this kind of thing starts to look like a conspiracy, even if it isn't one. Why give them ammunition? If you can't convince people the vaccine is a good thing, how do you think that shutting down discussion is somehow going to work better?
One thing this became extremely visible was Brexit to me. There are really good arguments why not leaving the union is the better choice. I am critical of the EU, but not to a degree that I want to abolish it as I think reforms are possible. I am not from GB and think their critical stance was very important within the EU since it institutionally lacks a real opposition. Without that it is an inefficient and bureaucratic technocracy (those actually don't really get results at all).
People asked questions about immigration, sovereignty, participation. These are completely valid topics and asking was basically decried as Russian propaganda. Meanwhile classical EU proponents never even argued that it isn't a compromise of sovereignty and participation! Denying that was denying reality.
The thing is, if that is the wide spread stance on how to deal with "misinformation", the whole thing suddenly isn't worth it anymore and it is not even close. People just basically argue that they want a technocracy that treats them like children. This was the image the pro-Brexit group crafted.
It is similar to what vaccination proponents do. I don't know how to tell them that they are part of what makes vaccination unattractive to many. I wouldn't advocate to ban them of course.
It's high time facebook, YouTube and Google get broken up like the Bell Corporation was (maybe even avoid some mistakes that were made with that company).
Regarding 3.:
I think it will radicalize some but it will also stop the misinformation of many more people. Overall I think it will lead to lives saved.
I didn't answer the question because it was a non-sequitur and it was obvious the question was being asked in bad faith to trip me up, like a cop who asks how many drinks you had after you just told him you hadn't had anything to drink.
I don't have a strong opinion on the matter. If someone were to do a good job regulating them and make the situation better I'd approve. If someone were to do a bad job and make things worse I'd disapprove.
So your solution is for someone else to come up with a solution which you would find satisfactory by criteria you are unwilling to provide?
Whether regulation should stop YT from doing this is a legitimate question. Nothing else will prevent it. Observe that the government telling a private company what they must host on their platform is potentially more dangerous than the government telling a private company to take down a piece of content (neither of these are happening here but if we entertain the notion of regulating YT then these are to be considered).
Why is this standard not applied to anti vax content? You find YouTube’s actions distasteful and you want them to stop. YouTube finds anti vax content distasteful and wants that to stop. YouTube either has the right to stop this type of content on their platform or they don’t.
Note that Google has billions of dollars and control of a huge amount of the world's data. Then note the reason the low standard is applied to anti-vax content is because they are about as close to being politically irrelevant as one can be.
They're struggling to even exercise basic human rights (freedom of movement, opinion, peaceful association, speech, etc, etc. There is probably a right for healthcare self-determination slipped in to the Universal Deceleration of Human Rights too it seems like the sort of thing they'd slip in). There is room to argue about whether the UDoHR applies here, but it is very notable that the anti-vaxers have nearly no power to have a quite reasonable interpretation stick.
Their opinions just don't matter. They appear to be on the verge of being confined to their homes while being widely condemned and socially ostracised. They are likely to be fired. Which is why it is so concerning that systematic oppression is being bought in to deal with them - this is Google crossing scary lines that didn't need to be crossed.
When a private company with a market share of information as large as Youtube acts as an arbitrer of truth, regulation to prevent this would be nice, yes.
There is no need for trusting anybody. The concept that we must trust the government or YouTube to determine truth is ridiculous. How about neither of them ban content they don’t like?
As individuals, we shouldn’t trust. We should verify.
OK great. So do you have a chemistry lab in your house to verify that the toothpaste you buy doesn’t contain heavy metals? Do you do your own testing of the meat you buy to ensure it doesn’t contain BGH, antibiotics, parasites? Do you manufacture your own water testing kits since you can’t trust sending samples to a lab? Do you manufacture your own computing devices since you can’t trust that others aren’t spying on you using your phone or laptop?
This is the kind of answer a 14 year old who hasn’t yet grasped the concept of not-absolutism would give. It’s absurd.
I am now incredibly interested in what the term “market share of information” is, because that’s a brand new nonsense term I’m sure will spread like wildfire.
Come on. A private company doesn’t want to contribute to people dying. Oh and by the way don’t they have the right to do what they want? You want what, regulation to prohibit this?