Infowars may get shut down on YouTube (ethics, lawyer, FBI)

[jacqueg]

Originally Posted by thecoalman

I would not be happy with it but take a step back and look at the big picture. Prior to the internet most of the information Americans received was through newspapers and TV news. You had a very small handful of people disseminating news and information. With the internet that is now wide open which is an awesome thing, the downside of course it's also wide open for people like Jones, racists etc.

As more people gravitate to these single sources like Youtube, Google search and Facebook if they are controlling what is available through their services you are taking a step backwards. A big step backwards because the power to disseminate information is now in the hands of even smaller group of people.

It's bit of conundrum, while they are private companies that should be able to control how their services are used they are also in tremendous positions of power. Going back to the CEO of Cloudflare...

Publishers have always had this power. What's that cynical remark - "Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one"? But now almost anyone can own their own press, and can almost instantly literally let the world know about it.

Yes, YT is dominant in its field. But it is not impeding anyone's access to InfoWars. Anyone who can access YT can also access InfoWars' own site.

As for the CEO of CloudFlare, I take his point. But for the life of me, I can't think of a viable third alternative. Either YT, as a private business, can make its own decisions about what it publishes, or some more powerful entity - the government? - can force it to publish InfoWars whether it wants to or not. (BTW, at least from here, YT's decision does not look arbitrary nor capricious - they have a standard, and they give warnings). Both situations are imperfect, but one of them is WAAAAY worse than the other.

The real choke point is domain name management. As long as InfoWars can register its own domain, I can't see how YT's actions are a huge problem.

And we haven't even talked about the dark web.

[UrbanAdventurer]

Originally Posted by rstevens62

The children ARE NOT actors, many of them died that day, but the conspiracy comes into play as to who is responsible for orchestrating and carrying out this shooting, and why they are happening. To a person in the school or observing the event, they would not be able to tell if it was a false flag or just a lone wolf random shooting, they would just see a person shooting other people, first responders and LE would not even know the difference, again, they would just know a lone shooter was killing people at random, they would not have to all be 'in on it'.

I have no doubts our modern day govt would care about the lives of some of the public, if it meant their agenda was threatened in anyway.

Yep, very similar to what happened in Vegas. I've little doubt the victims were real and the people are dead. They were "collateral damage".

There are some interesting rumors floating around about the Parkland shooting they are trying to keep a tight lid on.

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by jacqueg

As for the CEO of CloudFlare, I take his point. But for the life of me, I can't think of a viable third alternative.

You need to understand what Cloudflare does to understand the issue with them. It's a proxy service that sits between your server and the user, they provide DDOS protection. Most sites by themselves are vulnerable to a DDOS attack, it's very expensive to stop it whether you are paying for the hardware or the hosting company is. Hosting providers may provide some protection but it won't be very long before many of them tell you to cough up some significant amounts of cash or hit the road if it's sustained continually.

Without protection from a service like Cloudflare most sites can be taken offline by anyone for a relatively small amount of money. When I say this you yourself could pay for something like this. If you were a PETA supporter for example and Joe Schmoe who is paying $5 a month for his hobby site about the joys of dog ownership you can take it offline. The length and breadth of such an attack is only limited by how deep your pockets are. Small and medium sized websites whether it's an environmental group, PETA, the ACLU, infowars, stormfront or... a site about using coal for home heating ... utilize Cloudflare to insure their content stays online. Because of the scope of their infrastructure Cloudflare can do this cheaply and a site fronted by Cloudflare is a deterrent in itself.

Just to note the specific groups I named may be using Cloudflare but if not it will be some other service. Google for example offers this for free to non profits. Without such services these non profits or low profit sites could never hope to stay online if someone decides they shouldn't be online.

Cloudflare(and similar services) is in the position of deciding who's content is online, with limited services like this there lies the problem.

The real choke point is domain name management. As long as InfoWars can register its own domain, I can't see how YT's actions are a huge problem.

There is a bigger issue than YT itself, where is the line drawn? It's a difficult question.

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by jacqueg

The real choke point is domain name management. As long as InfoWars can register its own domain, I can't see how YT's actions are a huge problem.

Just to add domain registrars are private companies accredited by ICANN, Network Solutions made an arbitrary decision to seize Stormfront's domain based on their own policies. This is something that should never happen, that is far too much control for a business to have.

Furthermore the real choke point is the ISP. Without NN it's not going to very long before pressure is being put on them to block sites.

[Phil75230]

Ahh, the free speech tangent again.

From the start, there's the question of the legal aspect or moral/ethical one. i.e., ought to be legal and ought to be accepted by our culture are two entirely different things. Even the legal aspect assumes the US Constitution is, philosophically speaking, the complete and final word on the matter for all times, places, cultures, etc. The US Constitution came into effect in 1789, and just like automobiles and computers of later times are often an improvement over older models in some relevant way, sometimes other nations' constitutions coming after 1789 are an improvement over the US constitution (but let's be careful of not confusing "newer" with "truer"). Nevertheless, there are three such constitutions, charters, etc. that we would do well to consider if they are an improvement over our First Amendment:

*1982 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
*The 1949 Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany
*The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa. Chapters 1 and 2.

Given the history of the latter two especially, I think they have a thing or a thousand to say about this - particularly the human dignity part (note well this is mentioned before they mention freedom).

German Basic Law

Article 1 [Human dignity – Human rights – Legally binding force of
basic rights]

(1) Human dignity shall be inviolable. To respect and protect
it shall be the duty of all state authority.
(2) The German people therefore acknowledge inviolable and
inalienable human rights as the basis of every community,
of peace and of justice in the world.
(3) The following basic rights shall bind the legislature, the
executive and the judiciary as directly applicable law.

Article 2 [Personal freedoms]

(1) Every person shall have the right to free development of his
personality insofar as he does not violate the rights
of others or offend against the constitutional order or the
moral law.
(2) Every person shall have the right to life and physical integrity.
Freedom of the person shall be inviolable. These rights
may be interfered with only pursuant to a law.

I'm no scholar, but it seems to me that Germany's Basic Law implies that the right to human dignity supercedes the right to personal freedom - meaning that individual liberty is important to the extent that it does not violate another human being's dignity.

South African Constitution
Freedom of expression
16. (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, which includes—
(a) freedom of the press and other media;
(b) freedom to receive or impart information or ideas;
(c) freedom of artistic creativity; and
(d) academic freedom and freedom of scientific research.
(2) The right in subsection (1) does not extend to—
(a) propaganda for war;
(b) incitement of imminent violence; or
(c) advocacy of hatred that is based on race, ethnicity, gender or religion, and that
constitutes incitement to cause harm.

Who knows? Maybe 160 years (for Germany) and 207 years (for South Africa) do not qualify for a more sophisticated understanding of the proper and/or improper limits of freedom. Nevertheless, it's difficult for me to grasp how committing acts plainly designed (even in part) to demean the core dignity of another person is a vital component of freedom of expression. Perhaps some free speech absolutists can help me out.

ADDED: https://www.thestar.com/opinion/comm...of-speech.html

“It is time for us to take our masculinity back and beat the living hell out of these [Muslims]. Pin them down on the ground, and beat them until they pass out. And when they’re passed out, you beat them further; and when they’re on the ground passed out, kick them, break a kneecap, break an elbow, press their hands backwards turn their wrists sideways, start breaking these guys down.”

This is a particularly egregious excerpt from one of Kevin J. Johnston’s Freedom Report videos, in which he angrily encourages Canadians to attack and injure Muslims. Johnston was recently charged under Section 319(2) of the Criminal Code because he is promoting hatred and advocating violence, not because he is criticizing Islam.

Inciting violence is where Canadian law draws the line on free expression. As Kevin Metcalf of Canadian Journalists for Free Expression points out, absolute free speech is an American concept. Metcalf’s suggestion is not merely his private opinion: it is a legal fact. According to Section 1 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, free expression in Canada, like all other Charter rights, is limited by “such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.” The question we should be asking is where those reasonable limits lie.

[sonnymarkjiz]

Originally Posted by Mattks

YouTube policies will always reflect what problems they are having. It’s no secret that fake news is a massive problem, which wasn’t true back in 2006.

PragerU got all upset because one of their video got deleted, but most of their content is fact based and they are not in the business of creating conspiracies and fake news like Infowars.

I have an account where I post mostly fish keeping related videos and I regularly see PragerU advertisements, and there is nothing wrong with them.

It’s not hard to keep to YouTubes policies, just don’t make yourself out to be a news company and make a bunch of blatantly false claims.

Infowars isn't an actual news channel though.


I'm far from defending them, but this is a very stupid and dangerous road you go down if you start blatantly censoring channels just because you don't agree with it or even if it's fake or not. If that's the case, why hasn't dumb stuff like The Onion been censored yet?


By censoring Infowars, you just let them gain more power and sympathy rather than just letting them be. It creates a bigger problem than one that actually does exist and sadly, you give Alex Jones more credibility by removing them because they'll just find new ways to attract fans. This isn't hard.

[Hightower72]

Originally Posted by Phil75230

I'm no scholar

A scholar would approach this question using normative ethics or meta-ethics.

What you say is interesting but not really cogent. Chronological snobbery doesn't work well with axiology in law, ethics and so on.

[Phil75230]

Originally Posted by Hightower72

A scholar would approach this question using normative ethics or meta-ethics.

What you say is interesting but not really cogent. Chronological snobbery doesn't work well with axiology in law, ethics and so on.

All you did was quote the "I'm no scholar" without showing how my post isn't cogent. By that standard, few, if anyone, on C-D would have any credibility in any argument (so, btw, would few to no people on this board debating things like, say, religion.)

Nor does your suggestion of chronological snobbery prove that the later constitutions fall short of the US First Amendment.

Me, I simply posted data that gives a different perspective on the free speech matter in particular, and even personal freedom in general.

ADDED: With that out of the way. I'll say my thing.

It's difficult to see how consciously and deliberately demeaning the dignity or safety or otherwise well-being of others does anything to deepen understanding of the pros and cons of any issue - at least beyond what respectful, rational speech can already contribute. All hurling indignities, disrespect, and abuse does is appeal to our reptilian brainstem's kneejerk distaste of "the other" - "otherhood" based on some petty distaste in a person or a group of people and nothing more. So I don't see how how such tones and attitudes are essential elements of freedom of speech and certainly not speech worthy of social acceptability.

[Hightower72]

Originally Posted by Phil75230

All you did was quote the "I'm no scholar" without showing how my post isn't cogent. By that standard, few, if anyone, on C-D would have any credibility in any argument (so, btw, would few to no people on this board debating things like, say, religion.)

Nor does your suggestion of chronological snobbery prove that the later constitutions fall short of the US First Amendment.

Me, I simply posted data that gives a different perspective on the free speech matter in particular, and even personal freedom in general.

I just did. Your post isn't cogent because it reduces to chronological snobbery.

Chronological snobbery doesn't work with axiology, in ethics, law or aesthetics, because, as CS Lewis would put it:

Our own age is also "a period," and certainly has, like all periods, its own characteristic illusions. They are likeliest to lurk in those widespread assumptions which are so ingrained in the age that no one dares to attack or feels it necessary to defend them.

You're the one making the assertion, the burden of proof is on you to argue why some constitutions are better than others. So far, temporal priority is the only criterion you've used in judging different ethical or legal standards. This is fallacious.

[Phil75230]

Originally Posted by Phil75230

All you did was quote the "I'm no scholar" without showing how my post isn't cogent. By that standard, few, if anyone, on C-D would have any credibility in any argument (so, btw, would few to no people on this board debating things like, say, religion.)

Nor does your suggestion of chronological snobbery prove that the later constitutions fall short of the US First Amendment.

Me, I simply posted data that gives a different perspective on the free speech matter in particular, and even personal freedom in general.

I will concede, for the sake of getting to my deeper point, that I did add the following to what I quoted before you made a response. That being the case, consider this part my response to your above post.

Originally Posted by Phil75230

ADDED: With that out of the way. I'll say my thing.

It's difficult to see how consciously and deliberately demeaning the dignity or safety or otherwise well-being of others does anything to deepen understanding of the pros and cons of any issue - at least beyond what respectful, rational speech can already contribute. All hurling indignities, disrespect, and abuse does is appeal to our reptilian brainstem's kneejerk distaste of "the other" - "otherhood" based on some petty distaste in a person or a group of people and nothing more. So I don't see how how such tones and attitudes are essential elements of freedom of speech and certainly not speech worthy of social acceptability.