*promote

Self promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Sunday, February 26th, 2012 6:25pm PST - promote requested by original submitter gwiz665.

So much for Google's "Do no evil" mantra

I'm really tired of youtube. This is why we need net-neutrality. So we can just leave youtube behind.

And this is happening more and more, literally 2 days ago, they took down a JFK conspiracy video. supposedly due to violent content (a certain gunshot)

really this is a huge problem.
It only takes a few takedowns... to shift the expectations of people. People will start editing what they say, just so there is no chance of being taken down.

This video has 14,326 likes and 229 dislikes right now.

Thanks gwiz and please keep us up to date on this problem.

(Note: My 3 year old grand niece can fake cry much better that this guy.)

here's a pop song about youtube takedowns

It would be simpler if Youtube was read-only for us users, and Google provided us all with exactly the content we're allowed to see.

8:55 ! hayzeus.

My mom did not pack me any sandwiches.

watch this when I have provisions.

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster demands blood from the YouTubes as Vengeance for it's insolence!!!

EDIT: I mean Meat Sauce!

>> ^marinara:

I'm really tired of youtube. This is why we need net-neutrality. So we can just leave youtube behind.
And this is happening more and more, literally 2 days ago, they took down a JFK conspiracy video. supposedly due to violent content (a certain gunshot)
really this is a huge problem.
It only takes a few takedowns... to shift the expectations of people. People will start editing what they say, just so there is no chance of being taken down.


FYI, governments have bad track records with keeping things open and free, ask Bradly Manning.

>> ^ChaosEngine:

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

FYI, governments have bad track records with keeping things open and free, ask Bradly Manning.

Yeah, we should entrust the web and free speech to corporations. Can't see any problems with that....


One you can hold directly accountable, one you have to hold accountable through a myriad of hoops and ladders...I choose the former. Look at what Oprah did to the meat industry back in the day...the consumer wand is a powerful thing. Neither way is perfect, but those looking for perfection need to deal with a different animal.

Allah and his prophet can suck my dick.

Disregarding that the takedowns of those videos might be an overreaction, the person making this video comes off as almost absurdly overly sensitive about having his stuff taken down.

>> ^Kreegath:

Disregarding that the takedowns of those videos might be an overreaction, the person making this video comes off as almost absurdly overly sensitive about having his stuff taken down.


You might want to look up the backstory first. This person has been harassed in a large variety of ways because of his anti-religion (especially anti-islam) stance on YT, the most recent wave of attacks coming from Dawahfilms mentioned. Also, the takedown of his videos "might be an overreaction"? They're not even an overreaction, they are a systematic (and long-lasting) attempt at censorship of criticism of religion. That a company based in the so-called "free world" bends itself over backwards for religious extremists is something worth being "sensitive" about.

>> ^Jinx:

Allah and his prophet can suck my dick.


DEATH to the infidel!!!

Youtube can do whatever it wants to its videos. It's their server, their connection.

I say we start up a movement of reporting every single piece of christian related material reported and banned as religious hate speech. Think people will notice that?

Who gets to decide what's offensive? I find Ray Comfort's videos offensive to my (lack of) religion, can I get his videos removed?

Note: I haven't watched the video yet (can't right now), so don't chew me out if it's in there.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

>> ^ChaosEngine:
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

FYI, governments have bad track records with keeping things open and free, ask Bradly Manning.

Yeah, we should entrust the web and free speech to corporations. Can't see any problems with that....

One you can hold directly accountable, one you have to hold accountable through a myriad of hoops and ladders...I choose the former. Look at what Oprah did to the meat industry back in the day...the consumer wand is a powerful thing. Neither way is perfect, but those looking for perfection need to deal with a different animal.


Right, because raising a popular movement against billion-dollar corporations any time they engage in censorship is much simpler than just maintaining a law on the books that says "communications companies can't limit people's free speech" and enforcing it...

Political capital is much harder to gain for smaller issues. Law maintenance is a much harder order than terms of service. You can quit youtube anytime you want, you can't quit the FCC, or alcohol prohibition. If you are looking for easy, I suggest a different planet. The only things you get in this life are the things you fight to preserve, no amount of laws or terms of service will keep you safe over time, only vigilance.

Large corporate powers and political capital work by the same basic rules, I am just against a monopoly on the control of that power...I don't think it gets us what we all want. Really, we are arguing about crumbs under the table. All the videos gone from youtube still exist somewhere else. If Google starts acting evil on a wide scale, people can abandon it for some other site (I can name 6 off the top of my head). I would argue the out cropping of lots of different video sites is a safer way to prevent censorship than the FCC, which has a legendary record of censorship in the US...in fact, they are the face of censorship for most everyday Americans.

Once again, I am not proposing perfection, just a good imperfection that has its own very troubling problems. We all choose what failures we are willing to deal with, and for me, the trouble of dealing with a corporate body which I can choose not to partake in is a more agreeable situation (do you have a life after google solution, I do, I have a life after windows as well). I do concede a great threat by those who own nearly everything, undermining that ability to have options, lucky for us, with the internet we don't have to worry about that as much (the internet becomes unfathomable larger everyday).

TL;DR It isn't the ends I am against, it is the means.


</rant>
>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
>> ^ChaosEngine:
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

FYI, governments have bad track records with keeping things open and free, ask Bradly Manning.

Yeah, we should entrust the web and free speech to corporations. Can't see any problems with that....

One you can hold directly accountable, one you have to hold accountable through a myriad of hoops and ladders...I choose the former. Look at what Oprah did to the meat industry back in the day...the consumer wand is a powerful thing. Neither way is perfect, but those looking for perfection need to deal with a different animal.

Right, because raising a popular movement against billion-dollar corporations any time they engage in censorship is much simpler than just maintaining a law on the books that says "communications companies can't limit people's free speech" and enforcing it...

@GeeSussFreeK and I'm saying the ends justify the means.

Or put less flippantly, that freedom of speech isn't something that should be left up to the free market to decide whether we have or don't have, depending on whether taking it away alienates enough customers to make the policy a net loss on the bottom line.

Sure, consumer activism can fix some small scale problems, but it's not really a substitute for a functional government that defends your rights as an individual.

And yeah, getting & maintaining that kind of government is hard, but it's easier than achieving equivalent results through boycotts and customer complaints.

The videos are all back up, folks.

Overreaction to a few anecdotes. Every system makes mistakes occasionally.

Do tell how I can hold google "accountable" in any meaningful sense. It's near impossible for me to avoid using their services. Hell, I don't even give them one cent directly and they still make billions.

As @NetRunner said, I don't want something as important as free speech left to the market to decide.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

>> ^ChaosEngine:

Yeah, we should entrust the web and free speech to corporations. Can't see any problems with that....

One you can hold directly accountable, one you have to hold accountable through a myriad of hoops and ladders...I choose the former. Look at what Oprah did to the meat industry back in the day...the consumer wand is a powerful thing. Neither way is perfect, but those looking for perfection need to deal with a different animal.

The 'impartial moderators' who came to the decision to remove the videos are the worrying bit. Thankfully someone in public relations or just further up the management chain knew who Thunderf00t is.

@ChaosEngine @NetRunner I think you are abusing the first amendment here. The first amendment says nothing about how independent businesses should conduct themselves, but how the government should conduct itself. Unless you are saying that businesses also must provide for " the right to trial by jury", which is of course just silly

Self censorship is a right, unless you are going to say that people selling ad space on TV must accept some kind of objectionable material. So, if one of the largest FREE video upload sites knocks off your video, to bad, so sad...and you might have a case that they violated the agreed upon terms of serves and have some sort of appeal...but in the end...you don't have a RIGHT to store video information on a server that you don't own...period. Now, to relent to your point, I think it is a shitty to boost that you are a open forum and start editing content away...but lets not overlook that youtube ALREADY censors all adult (pornographic) material. Youtube might start to shift away to a public forum of video information to more of galactic TV service...and they should be allowed to do so.

So the REAL question is will you still use them if this is the business model they adapt. Not that we get to force them (by law) into what we want youtube to be, the choice will be much more indirect. Anyway, I truly think you are abusing the words "free market" and "free speech" to advance a demagogically end. Youtube has ALWAYS filtered content, is fully in its rights to do so. And to carry your logic to its end...they should be forced to store pornographic information in the name of the first amendment, (which was never its intent) to wit @gwiz665 just gave 2 thumbs up. Then again, the FCC should also then be shut down for censorship of free speech by the same token, as the actively participate in the largest censorship regime, perhaps, in the world. Which would also be the same body responsible for not censoring the internet...fail.

@GeeSussFreeK "free speech" is a philosophical concept, not to be confused with the 1st Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

I also think you're getting tripped up with this whole libertarian mumbo jumbo about property being the only rights that actually exist. You're saying Youtube subscribers should have absolutely zero legal rights to free speech, beyond what Google decides to grant.

I don't think that's right, even if it probably is the status quo under the law.

And not to retread old ground, but this is the positive vs. negative liberty thing again. I think a "right to free speech" should mean something more than "the government can't pass laws criminalizing political speech," it should mean you actually have an inalienable right to free speech.

It should mean that you actually have the right to express yourself using modern communications networks without being censored by the network providers. It means content publishing services should have limits on what they're allowed to refuse to publish.

Google chooses to provide a publishing service to the public "for free" (though they make money off the content people are "giving" them "for free"). That shouldn't endow them with the unlimited right to censor content that's published on their service, anymore than "free speech" means there can be no limits on speech whatsoever.

The goal here is to have an open society where ideas aren't censored by either the government, or by the para-governmental corporations that own most of the telecommunication networks that our modern society relies on...

@NetRunner So videosift is violating free speech by its terms and agreements by not allowing pornography? People can't self regulate without Congregational approval? You think that will create MORE free speech and not less? I don't think there is a history of that being the case.

>> ^ChaosEngine:

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

FYI, governments have bad track records with keeping things open and free, ask Bradly Manning.

Yeah, we should entrust the web and free speech to corporations. Can't see any problems with that....


Since they are the same corporations that run the government, I don't see how it makes a whole lot of difference.

In the long run giving government more control over the internet is just giving corporations control over the internet plus legal muscle to enforce their chosen censorship. Where do you think SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, DMCA, etc came from?

I think you're mixing a few separate questions.

In particular, the idea that Videosift banning pornography is "self" regulation. If dag decides that he personally doesn't want to post pornography on the Internet, that's self-regulation. If dag wants to host a site that publishes user content, but wants to regulate what those users are allowed to publish, that's not him regulating "himself" that's him regulating others.

I'm also not taking an absolutist stance against private censorship -- I think it's perfectly kosher to say that private publishers are free to limit certain specifically enumerated types of speech (hate speech, incitement to violence, pornography, etc.), but that the general rule is that if it doesn't clearly fall inside one of those enumerated categories it's against the law for them to censor it.

As for the historical case, I'm not aware of any country where an attempt to ban censorship turned into a regime that chilled free speech. What I'm talking about here is really Net Neutrality stated as a general principle rather than as an Internet-specific legislation.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

@NetRunner So videosift is violating free speech by its terms and agreements by not allowing pornography? People can't self regulate without Congregational approval? You think that will create MORE free speech and not less? I don't think there is a history of that being the case.

Soooo...instead of trying to pass laws that limit corporate power, we should stop bothering and give corporations unlimited ability to do whatever they like with the internet they claim they own, and the intellectual property they claim to own?

>> ^xxovercastxx:

In the long run giving government more control over the internet is just giving corporations control over the internet plus legal muscle to enforce their chosen censorship. Where do you think SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, DMCA, etc came from?

This seems like a flawed argument to me, Netrunner. Almost none of the other one-to-many or many-to-many media have any such requirements. Google's dominant position influences the situation, but at the end of the day, there are other options/outlets. A LOT of other options. So, the only difference I can see is that you are asserting a right not to free speech but a big audience.

>> ^NetRunner:

It should mean that you actually have the right to express yourself using modern communications networks without being censored by the network providers. It means content publishing services should have limits on what they're allowed to refuse to publish.
Google chooses to provide a publishing service to the public "for free" (though they make money off the content people are "giving" them "for free"). That shouldn't endow them with the unlimited right to censor content that's published on their service, anymore than "free speech" means there can be no limits on speech whatsoever.

>> ^jonny:

This seems like a flawed argument to me, Netrunner. Almost none of the other one-to-many or many-to-many media have any such requirements. Google's dominant position influences the situation, but at the end of the day, there are other options/outlets. A LOT of other options. So, the only difference I can see is that you are asserting a right not to free speech but a big audience.
>> ^NetRunner:
It should mean that you actually have the right to express yourself using modern communications networks without being censored by the network providers. It means content publishing services should have limits on what they're allowed to refuse to publish.
Google chooses to provide a publishing service to the public "for free" (though they make money off the content people are "giving" them "for free"). That shouldn't endow them with the unlimited right to censor content that's published on their service, anymore than "free speech" means there can be no limits on speech whatsoever.


To generalize your argument, you're saying that China isn't an oppressive regime that has no guarantee of free speech, because there are lots of other countries you could live in that might let you have it.

People in who want a right to free speech in China don't really want free speech, they just want to live in a country with lots of people. After all, there are lots of other countries to live in...

My position is that if it's unconscionable for a state to do it, why is it unconscionable to suggest that corporations shouldn't be permitted to do it either?

Seriously? You're equating where and the laws under which one lives to where and the restrictions under which one posts videos or blogs? You're equating Google's non-monopolistic business position with the government's monopoly on violence? You're equating renouncing one's citizenship to changing one's video host?!

Global companies, for all the rights and power they hold in the U.S., do not come close to being in the same position vis-a-vis customers/citizens as a government does. Corporations don't get to decide whether you live or die. And that's the reason it generally doesn't make sense to hold them to the same standards of free speech.

I want to be clear that I'm referring only to content hosts and publishers. Clearly, the situation is different for ISPs. There's only one network, and for a given individual, likely only one (maybe two) viable access providers. Like the phone company(ies(y)), you want to guarantee universal access. Beyond that, though, I don't see what legal basis you can construct an argument to force a corporation to provide a platform for content which it believes to be detrimental to its business. By "legal basis", I don't mean strictly U.S. law and precedent, but more generally in a philosophical/historical legal sense. The only example I can think of that comes close is requiring cable companies to provide public access television.


>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^jonny:
This seems like a flawed argument to me, Netrunner. Almost none of the other one-to-many or many-to-many media have any such requirements. Google's dominant position influences the situation, but at the end of the day, there are other options/outlets. A LOT of other options. So, the only difference I can see is that you are asserting a right not to free speech but a big audience.
>> ^NetRunner:
It should mean that you actually have the right to express yourself using modern communications networks without being censored by the network providers. It means content publishing services should have limits on what they're allowed to refuse to publish.
Google chooses to provide a publishing service to the public "for free" (though they make money off the content people are "giving" them "for free"). That shouldn't endow them with the unlimited right to censor content that's published on their service, anymore than "free speech" means there can be no limits on speech whatsoever.

To generalize your argument, you're saying that China isn't an oppressive regime that has no guarantee of free speech, because there are lots of other countries you could live in that might let you have it.
People in who want a right to free speech in China don't really want free speech, they just want to live in a country with lots of people. After all, there are lots of other countries to live in...
My position is that if it's unconscionable for a state to do it, why is it unconscionable to suggest that corporations shouldn't be permitted to do it either?

>> ^jonny:

Seriously? You're equating where and the laws under which one lives to where and the restrictions under which one posts videos or blogs? You're equating Google's non-monopolistic business position with the government's monopoly on violence? You're equating renouncing one's citizenship to changing one's video host?!

Yes. If we agree that censorship is morally wrong, why does that suddenly become morally acceptable when the people doing the censoring only wield a lot of power, but not absolute power?

>> ^NetRunner:

Soooo...instead of trying to pass laws that limit corporate power, we should stop bothering and give corporations unlimited ability to do whatever they like with the internet they claim they own, and the intellectual property they claim to own?

Didn't mean to imply that, just that it doesn't matter how we try to regulate corporate power until we do something about the sway they hold over the government who would regulate them.

1) Censorship is not, in and of itself, morally wrong. There are plenty of situations where it is not only acceptable but morally preferable. 2) What makes censorship immoral is the nature and basis of the censorship and the means of its enforcement consequences for breaking it. 3) Google does not have the ability to effectively censor anything outside of its own domain, which means it doesn't have the ability to effectively censor anything, period.

Every time I start to expand on these points, I keep coming back to that first word. 'Yes.' Before I go any further, I want to make sure I understand you clearly. Is it the case that you believe a policy of repressive government censorship which would provoke someone to renounce their citizenship is morally equivalent to Google's censorship which would provoke someone to change their video host?

If you can sincerely answer yes to that question, there's probably not much point in continuing this conversation. I can't even conceive of, much less relate to, the kind of ideological absolutism that could produce that kind of conclusion. To be honest, that is the most generous characterization I could think of to describe what I understand your position to be. No offense.
>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^jonny:
Seriously? You're equating where and the laws under which one lives to where and the restrictions under which one posts videos or blogs? You're equating Google's non-monopolistic business position with the government's monopoly on violence? You're equating renouncing one's citizenship to changing one's video host?!
Yes. If we agree that censorship is morally wrong, why does that suddenly become morally acceptable when the people doing the censoring only wield a lot of power, but not absolute power?

>> ^xxovercastxx:

>> ^NetRunner:
Soooo...instead of trying to pass laws that limit corporate power, we should stop bothering and give corporations unlimited ability to do whatever they like with the internet they claim they own, and the intellectual property they claim to own?
Didn't mean to imply that, just that it doesn't matter how we try to regulate corporate power until we do something about the sway they hold over the government who would regulate them.


The two things are not mutually exclusive -- if we rally enough people to an anti-corporate cause, then we've laid the groundwork for a movement that might have the ability to de-corporatize our government in a more general way.

>> ^jonny:

1) Censorship is not, in and of itself, morally wrong. There are plenty of situations where it is not only acceptable but morally preferable.

Which situations? I can think of a few too, and as I said in earlier comments I think it's perfectly acceptable to have some narrow exceptions to the "free speech shall not be infringed" rule.

I'm just saying that we'd enumerate the exceptions in law, and if your speech doesn't clearly fall in one of those categories (like incitement to violence or hate speech), then private companies shouldn't be free to censor you.

The idea isn't to force Youtube to host hate speech, the idea is to give people a legal recourse if they're being censored for merely rendering an atheist critique of major religions.
>> ^jonny:
2) What makes censorship immoral is the nature and basis of the censorship and the means of its enforcement consequences for breaking it. 3) Google does not have the ability to effectively censor anything outside of its own domain, which means it doesn't have the ability to effectively censor anything, period.

We're back to my China example then. China doesn't have the ability to censor anything outside of its own domain either, which (according to you) means it doesn't have the ability to effectively censor anything, period.
>> ^jonny:
Every time I start to expand on these points, I keep coming back to that first word. 'Yes.' Before I go any further, I want to make sure I understand you clearly. Is it the case that you believe a policy of repressive government censorship which would provoke someone to renounce their citizenship is morally equivalent to Google's censorship which would provoke someone to change their video host?

I'm mostly just being flippant. China's form of censorship is clearly much worse than what Google did here. But there's usually a sliding scale with moral transgressions -- if a guy punches someone in the face over a misunderstanding, and then later apologizes, that's obviously less severe than a guy who unrepentantly commits genocide. But the underlying violation of moral principle is the same: violence against innocent people is wrong.

The larger point I'm trying to make is that China is only different in terms of how intensely they've violated the underlying moral principle. It's not a categorically different transgression.

And keep in mind, that in the hypothetical situation that Google stuck to their guns, and thunderf00t decided to keep breaking Google's policy to make a point, ultimately the U.S. government would be drawn into the fight, and would, if nobody backed down, arrest thunderf00t for trying to use Google's property in a way that they didn't consent to.

>> ^NetRunner:
China doesn't have the ability to censor anything outside of its own domain either

What are you talking about? The Chinese government controls or monitors most or all communication channels going in and out of the country (thanks in no small part to Google). Not only do they effectively prevent communication about certain topics between their own citizens, they prevent communication between their citizens and the outside world. When the censorship is circumvented, the consequences are dire, sometimes fatal.

>> ^NetRunner:
in the hypothetical situation that Google stuck to their guns, and thunderf00t decided to keep breaking Google's policy to make a point, ultimately the U.S. government would be drawn into the fight, and would, if nobody backed down, arrest thunderf00t for trying to use Google's property in a way that they didn't consent to.

lmahs! On what charges? Google wouldn't even have grounds for a civil suit unless they could demonstrate some real harm to their business. Short of thunderf00t actively hacking Google's servers to post his videos, he would face no consequences more severe than those set out in the terms of service:

1. YouTube will terminate a user's access to the Service if, under appropriate circumstances, the user is determined to be a repeat infringer.


2. YouTube reserves the right to decide whether Content violates these Terms of Service for reasons other than copyright infringement, such as, but not limited to, pornography, obscenity, or excessive length. YouTube may at any time, without prior notice and in its sole discretion, remove such Content and/or terminate a user's account for submitting such material in violation of these Terms of Service.

The videos have now been reinstated.

http://thunderf00tdotorg.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/re-youtube-starts-banning-religiously-offensive-videos/

Sorry about the slowness of my reply, been tied up more than usual at work.
>> ^jonny:

I think this comes down to two interrelated disagreements. First, I view censorship, like most tools, as morally neutral. It can be used morally (e.g., preventing the dissemination of information on how to design biological weapons) or immorally (e.g., preventing the dissemination of information on government corruption). The immorality of an act of censorship is based on what the information is, why its censored, who is censored, and the consequences for circumventing the censorship.

Ahh, a censorship consequentialist! My own moral reasoning on the subject is roughly similar -- I think in certain cases, the ends justify the means when it comes to censorship. But, I don't think the act of censorship starts as morally neutral. It's a really bad thing, and you better have a damn good case for why the benefits of doing it outweigh the harm of doing it in the first place.

>> ^jonny:
Second, in this case, I don't think Google is in a position to use censorship in an immoral way. This is what I mean by "effective" censorship. If circumventing the censorship requires little or no effort, and there are no real consequences for doing so, it can hardly be called "effective", can it?

And my point is that this is not some binary choice, but a sliding scale. China's power to censor isn't absolute, it's just very high. On the other hand, Google's power to censor its users is fairly mild, but not nonexistant.

In an earlier post, you said this:>> ^jonny:

The only difference I can see is that you are asserting a right not to free speech but a big audience.
Which I take to mean that you agree that being booted off Youtube is not 100% consequence-free -- it means your speech is likely to reach fewer people thanks to Google's actions.

Given that Google's reasoning here was ostensibly to just protect religious leaders from being offended, the ends here definitely don't justify the means: Google was doing something immoral.

Again, I don't see moral vs. immoral as being some sort of all-or-nothing binary choice -- China's actions are way, way worse, but they're only different by a matter of degree, not because it's categorically different from what Google was (allegedly) doing.