Comment by asadotzler

It's not that simple. For example, when libraries remove books for political reasons they often claim it isn't "censorship" because you could buy the book at a bookstore if you wanted. But if it really would have no effect on availability they wouldn't bother to remove the book, would they?

Not OP, but we did learn the US federal government was instructing social media sites like Twitter to remove content it found displeasing. This is known as jawboning and is against the law.

SCOTUS. Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan, holds that governments cannot coerce private entities into censoring speech they disfavor, even if they do not issue direct legal orders.

This was a publicly announced motivation for Elon Musk buying Twitter. Because of which we know the extent of this illegal behavior.

Mark Zuckerberg has also publicly stated Meta was asked to remove content by the US government.

I think the feeling of silencing comes from it being a blacklist and not a whitelist.

If you take proposals from whoever and then only approve ones you specifically like, for whatever reason, then I don’t think anyone would feel silenced by that.

If you take anything from anyone, and a huge volume of it, on any topic and you don’t care what, except for a few politically controversial areas, that feels more like silencing. Especially when there is no alternative service available due to network effects and subsidies from arguably monopolistic practices.

I'd certainly consider an ISP refusing to route my packets as silencing. is YouTube so different? legally, sure, but practically?

At some level these platforms are the public square and facilitate public discussion. In fact, Google has explicitly deprioritized public forum sites (e.g. PHPbb) in preference to forums like YouTube. Surely there is a difference between declining to host and distribute adult material and enforcing a preferred viewpoint on a current topic.

Sure, Google doesn't need to host anything they don't want to; make it all Nazi apologia if they thing it serves their shareholders. But doing so and silencing all other viewpoints in that particular medium is surely not a net benefit for society, independent of how it affects Google.

> My refusing to distribute your work is not "silencing."

That distinction is a relic of a world of truly public spaces used for communication— a literal town square. Then it became the malls and shopping centers, then the Internet— which runs on private pipes— and now it’s technological walled gardens. Being excluded from a walled garden now is effectively being “silenced” the same way being excluded from the town square was when whatever case law you’re thinking was decided.

> No one owes you distribution unless you have a contract saying otherwise.

The common carrier law says you have to for for some things, so it makes sense to institute such a law for some parts of social media as they are fundamental enough. It is insane that we give that much censorship power to private corporations. They shouldn't have the power to decide elections on a whim etc.

It's interesting how much "they are a private company, they can do what they want" was the talking point around that time. And then Musk bought Twitter and people accuse him of using it to swing the election or whatever.

Even today, I was listening to NPR talk about the potential TikTok deal and the commenter was wringing their hands about having a "rich guy" like Larry Ellison control the content.

I don't know exactly what the right answer is. But given their reach -- and the fact that a lot of these companies are near monopolies -- I think we should at least do more than just shrug and say, "they can do what they want."

If you refuse to distribute some information you are making editorial decision. Clearly you are reviewing all of the content. So you should be fully liable for all content that remains. Including things like libel or copyright violation.

To me that sounds only fair trade. You editorialize content. You are liable for all content. In every possible way.

Jimmy Kimmel wasn't being silenced. He doesn't have a right to a late night talk show. Disney is free to end that agreement within the bounds of their contract. Being fired for social media posts isn't being silenced. Employment is for the most part at will. Getting deported for protesting the Gaza war isn't being silenced. Visas come with limitations, and the US government has the authority to revoke your visa if you break those rules. /s

You seem to think there's a bright line of "silenced" vs "not silenced". In reality there's many ways of limiting and restricting people's expressions. Some are generally considered acceptable and some are not. When huge swaths of communication are controlled by a handful of companies, their decisions have a huge impact on what speech gets suppressed. We should interrogate whether that serves the public interest.

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So you're saying that YouTube is a publisher and should not have section 230 protections? They can't have it both ways. Sure remove content that violates policies but YouTube has long set itself up as an opinion police force, choosing which ideas can be published and monetized and which cannot.