YouTube bans David Icke

[Heraclito]

@PeaceLove

Sad but unsurprised that no one on this thread seems to have any inkling that direct censorship of this sort is a threat to everyone’s free speech.

Freedom of speech in the United States means not being jailed for what one says. It does not mean freedom for one to publish wherever he or she wants, nor does it mean one is free from the consequences of what one says-- especially in walled gardens liked Facebook and Youtube (and BoingBoing).

@PeaceLove

effectively erased from the public commons (which are sadly in private hands),

He’s free to publish his holocaust denial on a website, proclaim his idiocy in the public parks, or yell about reptilians in any venue that will have him. I’m not shedding a tear because he can’t post a Youtube video.

[Brainspore]

@PeaceLove

Sad but unsurprised that no one on this thread seems to have any inkling that direct censorship of this sort is a threat to everyone’s free speech.

Nobody owes anyone else a platform.

Doubly so when the person in question is an antisemitic lunatic whose misinformation is likely to prompt others to acts of violence.

[PeaceLove]

“Censorship, like everything else in the West, has been privatized.” - Julian Assange

An argument can be made (and is being made) that YouTube, Facebook and Twitter have become something akin to common carriers. Private or not, they are the de facto way most of us communicate. to get erased from these platforms is, in major ways, to lose your free speech right.

But neither you nor Brainspore addressed my core argument: that censorship always starts with the least sympathetic among us, but never ends there. Facebook is currently censoring COVID information that departs from the conventional dogma, which includes not only the “5G causes COVID” set but also a number of qualified doctors and researchers who question aspects of the current treatment paradigm. Considering how quickly our knowledge and information about this virus keeps mutating this seems like a very bad and dangerous trend.

If censorship by massive non-state actors – even it they aren’t (yet) technically bound by the First Amendment – doesn’t seem dangerous to you on its face I guess we live in different realities.

[Heraclito]

@PeaceLove

An argument can be made (and is being made) that YouTube, Facebook and Twitter have become something akin to common carriers.

Youtube and Facebook are fundamentally websites. They are not common carriers. The fact that at the moment they are prevalent is irrelevant (see e.g. MySpace, Friendster, Yahoo Groups, etc. formerly ubiquitous media). David Icke does not have a right to propagate his deranged ideas on YouTube any more than he has a right to have an insane book published by Simon & Schuster or to have his rantings published on the op ed pages of the New York Times. If the monopoly ISP in his location refused to transmit data from him, I may take his side. If the government attempted to silence him I would take his side. The fact that social media websites have banned him, no, I’m not going to support him (even as someone who has served time in FB jail).

[Brainspore]

@PeaceLove

But neither you nor Brainspore addressed my core argument: that censorship always starts with the least sympathetic among us, but never ends there.

And where do antisemitic misinformation campaigns end when they are not kept in check?

[gracchus]

@PeaceLove

As Glen Greenwald has argued since the beginning of his career, whenever governments (and large corporate platforms with unambiguous and deep ties to the U.S. national security state) want to silence dissent they always start with the most heinous and unsympathetic voices first.

YouTube != the government.

@PeaceLove

An argument can be made (and is being made) that YouTube, Facebook and Twitter have become something akin to common carriers.

A spurious argument to anyone who understands what a common carrier actually is. YouTube != a common carrier any more than a phone sex service is.

But following along with your goalpost moving to non-state actors and non-common-carriers…

@PeaceLove

my core argument: that censorship always starts with the least sympathetic among us, but never ends there.

The first rule of conduct on this site is:

Don’t post or encourage insulting, bullying, victim-blaming, racist, sexist, violent, or homophobic remarks.

One can get permabanned for this behaviour as well as for spreading misinformation about COVID (all of which is typical of Icke). Is this a dangerous policy on the part of BoingBoing? Are you disappointed that they make and actively enforce such rules?