Social Media Censorship Poll

[vcczar]

One of my best friends is a Trump supporter. And, as you know, I'm quite the opposite. He was my roommate in college and for a bit after my time in NYC. He used to be more in line with Noam Chomsky than Donald Trump. Anyway, he's written 700+ songs on YouTube, spending about 5 years doing that. He's older than me (46ish) and lives with his parents. He's left his house 3x in 6 months. He's on all kind of medication. Music is basically all he has left.  YouTube removed all 700+ songs for violating "hate speech." 

He claims he didn't violate hate speech, even though when I sent him the definition he admits he could have reached a gray area of that definition. YouTube gave him no specifics as to which song or lyric violated. He makes about $200 a year (yes, less $1,000) so he knows he hasn't any shot at legal action to press rights or accuse YouTube of slander. 

I'm a little conflicted. I hate hate speech, but I also don't like overpunishment. For instance, should violation from one song warrant the removal of 700+ songs? I understand YouTube doesn't want to listen to 700 songs, so I understand why it was easier to remove them all. Yet, there's something unjust to me about that. 

I am assuming there's only 1 violation. It is possible my friend has occasional violations. He has been banned from Twitter and Facebook for reposting Alex Jones and the like. He was even banned from Trump's social media platform!!!!! But the hate speech charge seems a little out of order, considering I've known him since 2001 and he's never showed or expressed hatred towards people because of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or gender-orientation. He's more of a Trump supporter because he's ideologically anti-establishment than ideologically anything politcal. He'll support any bomb throwing candidate capable of 270 EVs. 

Anyway. I'm definitely conflicted here. 

 

[MrPotatoTed]

Impossible for me to say anything really about #2 without knowing what the "hate speech" was.  But generally speaking, Youtube is a company and if you want to post there you have to agree to their terms of service.  I have no idea whether your friend violated the terms of service or not.  My gut instinct is that if he's not even welcome on Trump's site, then he probably has a real hard time following basic rules and that's why he's finding that he's persona non grata everywhere he turns.  But that's just my take on what you've provided, I'd have to know what the actual hate speech was.

More broadly, I thought it was insane for people to call for Trump to be banned from Twitter -- not because I thought it was a free speech issue (it is not), and certainly not because I support Trump, but simply because Trump was using Twitter to give us endless evidence of his incompetencies and crimes.  Every single day, he fed us more rope to hang him (figuratively!) with.  I don't support helping Trump stop revealing all his crimes to us.

Generally speaking, while people posting insane shit to social media has made our country worse, I can't support calling on social media to continue/increase censorship because that's simply not their jobs.  I look at them the same way I look at a store that sells pens, notebooks, and envelopes.  It's not the store's fault if you use those materials to send death threats to people.  They shouldn't be in the business of requiring you to fill out a form listing your intentions with the pens and the envelopes, that's crazy.

 

Edited September 2, 2022 by MrPotatoTed

[MrPotatoTed]

My more general take on "censorship" is this:  Facebook, Youtube, whatever...they're allowed to decide what kind of content they want published to their sites and what they don't want published there, and I expect that most of their decision making in this field is based more on revenue than personal feelings, because at the  end of the day they all have shareholders to answer to.

If they make the wrong decisions, they'll find people stop using their sites and the revenue will go down.  If they make the right decisions, more people will use their sites and the revenue will go up.  And by right/wrong, I don't mean a moral judgment.  I mean choosing the option that meets their need: to make money.

Should they go too far in any direction, they'll find themselves replaced by new social media options that put themselves on the more financially beneficial side of the equation, just as the existing sites beat out their own predecessors.

[pilight]

The government should not be involved with censoring anything.

Private actors like YouTube and Twitter can set whatever standards they choose for what is carried on their platforms and enforce them appropriately.  The market will determine whether they've gone too far.  The notion of social media as a digital "town square" is ridiculous.

[10centjimmy]

The other: there's got to be a measurement of intent/motive when taking things into account. And how does one look at a given instance of hate speech with that in mind? 

Ignorance should not be met with punishment, maybe in the case of your friend. But if the intent is to cause harm or incite violence, you should face some sort of retribution. With free speech, you can say what you want, but don't be surprised if you get "canceled" by folks. 

With an overlord censor entity,  then we get into a "who watches the watchman" situation. Social media is not trustworthy since they're in it for the money, like Ted noted. Government has its own interests and sometimes ulterior motives like silencing whistle-blowers. 

Probably easier to just not get angry at people being different than you. 

[SilentLiberty]

This is pretty much inline with how I feel for 5, 6, and 7.

1 hour ago, pilight said:

The government should not be involved with censoring anything.

Private actors like YouTube and Twitter can set whatever standards they choose for what is carried on their platforms and enforce them appropriately.  The market will determine whether they've gone too far.  The notion of social media as a digital "town square" is ridiculous.

 

[SilentLiberty]

This is pretty much inline with how I feel for 5, 6, and 7.

1 hour ago, pilight said:

The government should not be involved with censoring anything.

Private actors like YouTube and Twitter can set whatever standards they choose for what is carried on their platforms and enforce them appropriately.  The market will determine whether they've gone too far.  The notion of social media as a digital "town square" is ridiculous.

 

[vcczar]

1 hour ago, 10centjimmy said:

Ignorance should not be met with punishment, maybe in the case of your friend. But if the intent is to cause harm or incite violence, you should face some sort of retribution.

His intent would never be to cause harm. I think his lyrics are sometimes designed to provoke or to be a non-politically correct joke or something, but he wouldn't endorse hatred. He's one of those guys that believes in uncensored, unedited, first draft is the best draft, sort of people. He had 700+ songs on there because he was producing one a day basically. 

[vcczar]

Just now, vcczar said:

His intent would never be to cause harm. I think his lyrics are sometimes designed to provoke or to be a non-politically correct joke or something, but he wouldn't endorse hatred. He's one of those guys that believes in uncensored, unedited, first draft is the best draft, sort of people. He had 700+ songs on there because he was producing one a day basically. 

@10centjimmy to add to my comment above. I think it's likely he said something and didn't even know he did.