>>> The solution is to realize "hate speech" is mostly subjective and revert back to the clear rules that we had last decade before the current political climate of gratuitous outrage.
>> What were those clear rules we apparently abandoned for no reason?
> The First Amendment of the US Constitution.
Ah yes, the good old days when every newspaper was obligated to publish every letter to the editor and every citizen was required to reproduce and distribute pamphlets put out by every nut job they ran into on the street.
> First Amendment maintains freedom. It does not state there's an obligation. You are free to ignore people as much as you want. You should not stop them from uttering those words in the first place though.
So you're fine if YouTube/Google chooses not to reproduce and distribute certain messages?
I think the point is that it depends on their reasons. The U.S. government imposes restrictions on broadcast content, but these restrictions are on extremely shaky ground, and they rely heavily on not venturing into viewpoint discrimination and focusing entirely on content discrimination (i.e. sexual nudity on ordinary daytime television).
1) There's an argument that deleting the comment disallows the expression in the first place.
2) Sure, private companies can do what they want. My point is that they just use the first amendment, because the current nebulous definitions aren't really working.
> 1) There's an argument that deleting the comment disallows the expression in the first place.
That argument doesn't hold water. If someone pins a message to my corkboard, I'm disallowing the expression if I express my disapproval by removing it?
> 2) Sure, private companies can do what they want. My point is that they just use the first amendment, because the current nebulous definitions aren't really working.
The First Amendment only works because non-governmental actors in society are allowed to decide what to publish, what to pass on, and what to throw away according to their own standards. It's not some blanket "everyone allow all" rule.
Most pamphlets are judged to be garbage and go into the trash, much to the consternation of their authors.
1) This is the platform vs publisher discussion. I'm just stating it as a potential case.
2) You agree with me. Again, my point is not that they shouldn't do that, but that the filter they use to do so is so highly subjective and opaque that it's no longer useful.
>> The First Amendment only works because non-governmental actors in society are allowed to decide what to publish, what to pass on, and what to throw away according to their own standards. It's not some blanket "everyone allow all" rule.
> 2) You agree with me. Again, my point is not that they shouldn't do that, but that the filter they use to do so is so highly subjective and opaque that it's no longer useful.
No, I don't. I think it's fine to have opaque, highly subjective standards; and such standards are can be very useful. My standards about what I publish, what I pass on, and what I throw away are like that. The costs of transparency can be extremely high, and subjectivity just can't be avoided. In some cases, my judgement may differ from theirs, and I may even say so, but ultimately subjective judgement can't be avoided.
1) That argument is false because the comment could be expressed on another platform or their own platform (e.g. a personal website).
2) That doesn't make sense in the context of a privately owned company, the 1st amendment doesn't define a standard for speech, it outlines explicit limitations of the government.
I see there’s a lot of court cases listed in that Wikipedia entry so it seems like it'll have to be decided by a judge on what is considered free speech or not, because language by nature is vague and can interpreted in many different ways.
So there is no such thing completely “free” speech if there are constraints.
Have you read any of the cases? They get pretty detailed about what is and isn’t allowed. This is not the first time we’ve been having this debate - far front it. Though, some seem unaware that there’s a substantial body of court history on the subject, both American and otherwise.
Newspaper has editorial control, while Google and YouTube pretend to be platforms. Phone company doesn't censor your conversation, but also doesn't take responsibility for their content. YouTube has much more in common with it than with a newspaper.
> You really don't see the difference between an editor selecting one person to speak, versus a forum where almost everyone gets to speak?
There is no difference. If I invite people to come to my place to talk in some kind of forum, I have no obligation to let people who I think are disruptive or offensive stay, nor do I have an obligation to preserve any record of their words.
> There's also an important difference between "your house" and a common open forum with tens of millions of people.
No, not really. The only difference that's important is between forums run by the government and forums that are not. In the case of the latter, the people who run it have an extremely free hand.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
What law did Congress pass that violates the first amendment to the Constitution? You of course acknowledge that that limitation of the first amendment is explicit - Google, not being an aspect of the government, can do whatever it pleases regarding speech.
I think you are misunderstand GP. It’s not that YouTube violates the law. It’s that the law makes a clear rule for the government.
What’s good is the clarity of the rule. Other attempts at rules become too subjective, perhaps.
So maybe it would be better if these companies actually followed the same rule as the government is required to, even if they aren’t currently legally obligated to.
Perhaps if they had to play by those rules, they would come up with a better solution than subjective moderation by a small group of employees.
> So maybe it would be better if these companies actually followed the same rule as the government is required to, even if they aren’t currently legally obligated to.
I disagree. The difference between private organizations enforcing a moral code, and the government, is strong.
Ostensibly, if racists wanted their own youtube, they could make one. I see nothing of value in the further existence of the racists' mindset, but I do think it's important that there aren't thought police, for many of the same reasons that your average alt-right racist would yell about "freeze peach."
Of course, perhaps it isn't such a bad thing to have thought police, if there were open stretches of ungoverned land where racists could go live and start their own government. Beyond Antarctica though, that isn't the case. So for now, I think it's important to allow that separation between private and public rule.
In many people’s view, adhering to the first amendment principles is the strong moral code.
So even if it shouldn’t be mandated that a private company do that, it’s reasonable to hold the position that this would be a preferable stance for the company to take.
I'm mostly on your side of this debate, but I don't think this quite works because of spammers (though perhaps that's the only reason). Are spammers protected by the first amendment? I bet Gab has anti-spam measures too.
