Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

The Commerce Clause is not a part of the Bill of Rights, so my statement stands.

That said, yeah, I totally get you. No right, and no liberty, are absolute. By way of due process, even the inalienable rights of life and liberty can be denied a person via the court system.

Fortunately, most such limitations / deprivations are less severe in nature.






I'm not entirely sure what argument you're making.

Censorship is a necessary part of editorial judgement. The media are guaranteed the freedom to exercise editorial judgement without interference. By way of this, it is intuitively obvious that different media outlets are going to apply different standards and biases with regard to the content which they choose to publish.

If I interpret your argument correctly, you're saying that "censorship is bad."

But "censorship" is inherent in the process of creating any media publication. The supply of [ink / bandwidth / data storage] is finite, and each publisher must decide what it will and will not publish, and how it will editorialize said content. If you consider censorship to be entirely analogous to editorial judgement, then you have to recognize that the First Amendment protects the media from censorship by the government, while simultaneously guaranteeing it the right to self-censor its own content. These two concepts are indivisible.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

inb4 bill of rights.



meanwhile:

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

This dovetails so beautifully on mgeoffriau's observations with regard to self-regulation of content that it nearly moves me to tears.

Basically, this is proof that a media outlet (Wikipedia) is acting responsibly, through the use of outsourced editorial research labor, with regard to the content which it chooses to publish.

I love this country.

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

The statement you quoted was in response to bahurd's post in which he provided the title of the original article, which contained the verb "censor". It was presented as if it were strong evidence that the original writer was indeed laboring under the assumption that 1st Amendment rights could be violated by a private party. Thus, my rebuttal that censoring is an action that can be done by both government and non-government regulators alike, and thus the original writers' claim of censorship does not mean he is also claiming (or suggesting, or hinting) that 1st Amendment rights have been violated.

So, no, my argument is not that censorship is bad, and I certainly believe that private companies have the right to censor or editorialize as they see fit.

On the other hand, when those companies censor in a manner that seems inconsistent with their stated policy, other private individuals have a right to complain about it.

In this case, YouTube does not claim to be a partisan, political entity, editorializing along certain political platform lines. Nor does their content policy state anything about political affiliation. So, it's entirely reasonable for content creators to assume that those on the political left should receive roughly the same treatment as those on the political right, with regard to YouTube's content policies (ie, an established standard of "fairness"). If the political right believes that using the SPLC as a "flagger" is likely to lead to (or has already led to) inconsistent application of the content policy, specifically unduly harsh or restrictive application of the policy with regard to politically conservative content, then it seems entirely reasonable to me that someone on the political right would complain about it.

As an aside, I am honestly kind of befuddled by this discussion. I often see individuals claiming 1st Amendment violations in cases where it does not apply, and it's important to rebut those claims. However, as I've read and re-read through our posts, it honestly feels like you (Joe) simply jumped the gun with your rebuttal, when the much simpler and more consistent explanation for the writer's motivation is what I outlined above -- he believes YouTube allowing SPLC as a flagger is inconsistent with the stated policy, and is complaining about it. If my reading of your argument is completely unjust or if I have simply lost the plot here, I'm certainly willing to reconsider it.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

I don't see why you would assume that the absence of a direct statement concerning political affiliation implies the absence of a political affiliation.


What are the expressed political affiliations of The Discovery Channel, MTV, Road & Track, MiataTurbo.net, Backyard Poultry Magazine, Pornhub, The National Enquirer, and AutoTrader? All of these publications contain user-generated content, and all of them apply their own standard for selection what they will and will not publish.

Seriously. I kinda want to see citations here.



If you're simply saying that "It's not fair for Youtube to apply a sociopolitical bias in selecting what content it will allow to be published, despite the fact that they have not expressly stated a political affiliation to which they conform," then I'm kinda stuck for a response. Life ain't fair. And even the Sarbanes–Oxley Act doesn't require corporations to publish a stated political platform, and if you genuinely believe that it's possible for any human to be 100% objectively neutral, then this conversation can serve little purpose.


I mean, can you imagine if Gene Roddenberry and Paramount Pictures had been required to publish a statement concerning their standpoint on miscegenation after Kirk kissed Uhura? Social disruption can be alarming to those with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.


EDIT: Sorry, I forgot that we'd already agreed to herd all of the brown folks into the camps. Disregard the Kirk analogy.

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

It's not the mere absence of an expressed political affiliation. It's that YouTube has an acceptable content policy which includes no mention of disparate treatment based on political content.

https://www.youtube.com/yt/about/pol...ity-guidelines

To borrow one of your examples, if AutoTrader started removing listings from all registered Democrats, I imagine the political left would complain rather loudly about the potential impact on the used Prius market. The point is not that AutoTrader doesn't retain the right to censor or filter content as they see fit, but that those actions would run counter to the expressed and implied content policy, and consumers will complain when they don't like how a business treats them.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Funny, I was just looking at that earlier.


You do realize that we live in a time in which a lot of people consider the wearing of a red hat which has "MAGA" embroidered on it in white thread violates all of those, right?

I'm not saying that it's an ideal situation, but I do try to be aware of the world around me.





Is YouTube removing all videos posted by registered members of a specific political party?

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

Oh, absolutely aware. But that wasn't your original argument, was it? Originally, your argument was that the writer was (implicitly) claiming that YouTube was violating 1st Amendment rights, and that those don't apply to private censorship.

If your argument is now simply that we should expect YouTube to enforce their content policy inequitably between politically left and politically right content, then you're no longer challenging the writer's presuppositions, and merely questioning his assessment.

If that's your response...okay, I guess? I don't really disagree with you on that point, and I probably wouldn't waste my own time trying to make YouTube give conservative content a fairer shake, but I don't have a problem if the article author wants to try.*

No, of course not. Again, if your argument is now whether YouTube's actions really constitute an unfair or inconsistent application of their own content policy, then it sounds like you're accepting the article author's presuppositions and are merely questioning whether his assessment is correct.



* For that matter, perhaps the author knows that he's unlikely to force YouTube's hand in the matter, but by publicizing the inequitable manner in which the content policy is applied, he can at least bring attention to the issue.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

No, that was not what I said. I think you may have missed the part where, when quoting you and responding directly to you in post #1535 yesterday afternoon, I wrote:

A lot of people seem to confuse the Constitutionally protected right to Free Speech as also applying to corporations and private companies, when in reality, the First Amendment was specifically intended to protect those very same corporations and private companies.

and

The Bill of Rights mostly limits the powers of the government, not those of individuals or businesses.

My argument, to restate, is that YouTube, like every other media outlet, has a constitutionally protected right to self-censor the content which it publishes, without interference from either the government or from disgruntled private citizens. Those disgruntled citizens, of course, have the same protected right to criticize YouTube's editorial practices.

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

So, if you'll oblige, can you restate what your issue with the original article is? Because my argument has been that the author never appealed to protected free speech rights, and is doing exactly what you just described -- criticizing YouTube's editorial practices, based on a standard of fairness as expressed in YouTube's content policy.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Sure, I'll just copy and paste what I wrote in post 1524, which was the first response made in this thread after Scott posted the article:

To me, that seems fairly obvious and straightforward. Media companies have a constitutionally protected right to decide for themselves what content they choose to publish, using whatever means they see fit to reach this decision.

Does this still seem ambiguous or unclear to you?

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

It's unclear how it is a response or rebuttal to the article, if we are both in agreement that (as you stated) disgruntled citizens have a right to criticize YouTube's editorial practices. Your response is a non sequitur.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

It is neither a response, nor a rebuttal. It is a summary, hence the use of the acronym TL;DR.

Does this help to clarify things?

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

Apologies if it seems like I'm belaboring the point here -- honestly trying to understand how I might have completely missed your intended point.

Having said that, it would strike me as an odd summary, since the author's point (to me) seemed centered not on whether YouTube had a legal or constitutional right to censor material, but whether YouTube's practice matched the standard of fairness expressed in their content policy. I described your post as a response or rebuttal to the article, because it seemed as if you were attempting to reframe the debate in terms of constitutionally-protected rights, which was something not mentioned in the original article.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

That may be the problem here- there was no point. Brainey posted his usual wall-of-text, and I replied with a TL;DR. It got dragged out into a lot more than that, and I appreciate a good debate, but I'm really not trying to obfuscate anything here.

This situation strikes me as analogous to when she asks what you want for dinner, and you reply that you don't care, and she interprets this as meaning that you have having an affair with a co-worker, have been hiding money in a secret bank account, and probably have a secret cell phone which you keep stashed somewhere in the house, and is agonizing about where things went wrong, what happened to the relationship, how she could have ever been so stupid, etc...

... when in reality it means that you really just don't have a specific craving for any one food at that exact time.

Monk

iTrader: (3)

The point is, this is a thread in which we bitch about a pussified, fascist generation which is primarily composed of people who wish to silence anyone Brian Stelter says is a bad guy.
YouTube actively censoring creators who didn't gnash their teeth and wail when Hillary lost the election is something to bitch about whether it's a constitutional matter or not.
Now shut up and say things that make me angry in agreement.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Everything that you perceive to be wrong in our country is, in fact, not a problem at all. Everything that I perceive to be wrong is easily attributable to members a specific racial or ethnic group with which you identify by way of your heritage, and yet find yourself unable to identify with as a matter of rational and objective thought.

Monk

iTrader: (3)

good2go

iTrader: (2)

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

Yeah I was just annoyed with the practice because I don't like people doing things I don't like. I was trying to come up with a more clever way to say that that would make you guys think I'm clever but I'm not.