I could definitely get behind your point if the subject were the government. It's not, though I understand the sentiment is the same.
At the end of the day YouTube is a private company. Yea, a very big one with huge reach, but private nonetheless. Taking a subjective moral position is something companies have been doing for a long time. If you disagree with them, don't give them your $ (don't use youtube).
Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U.S. 501 (1946), was a case decided by the United States Supreme Court, in which it ruled that a state trespassing statute could not be used to prevent the distribution of religious materials on a town's sidewalk, even though the sidewalk was part of a privately owned company town. The Court based its ruling on the provisions of the First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama
> "Ownership does not always mean absolute dominion. The more an owner, for his advantage, opens up his property for use by the public in general, the more do his rights become circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who use it."
I don’t see where one would have to move with their family. The case is about a private entity having a “space” with a reach to the public. I find it is a pretty appropriate comparison (in this case the company has a monopoly on the only boardwalk in the whole world, “moving” would mean convincing not only your family but millions (billions?) of people at the same time).
The digital town square is where the people are at. Moving to other streaming sites is more like having your expression relegated to some dusty back road.
If YouTube wants to be editor over the content they host, then they ought to be subject to the same liabilities as a publisher. If they want to be considered a platform then should be forced to remain neutral. The conflation of these mutually exclusive roles serves money at the expense of everyone else.
I agree, I feel like they should host pretty much anything. But they are absolutely responsible for what they promote, since their algorithms select what to recommend. This makes it impossible to remain "neutral". And they are also responsible for effects their algorithms have on society. At the very least will less people want to work for a company who caused the next civil war by spreading divisive content.
Freedom of Speech is not the Obligation to be Heard, nor is it the Freedom to Exploit Private Businesses to Promote Your Opinion.
The case cited was one where a piece of land was being used, passively, by individuals requiring no unique support or upkeep by owner in order for the plaintiffs to enjoy those freedoms. To make it relevant to YouTube, the court would have had to rule that the private business was required to provide shade, iced tea in sweet and unsweet varieties, as well as free megaphones.
Property is no less a social construct than law is. That decision draws a spectrum between individual property and public property that is modulated by use; if you allow public use of your property, it will be regulated by the public, proportional to the degree at which you open the property to public use.
Without doing this, the government only has the authority to guarantee your rights on government property, which would effectively be no different from granting complete sovereignty to private entities.
The US is weird in that a lot of commonly expected services aren't supplied by the government, if there was a wewillhostyourvideos.gov site out there then I'd definitely agree with you - I still _mostly_ agree with you since youtube now has semi-legitimate competition from vimeo - vimeo fails hard as a browsing platform but is fine as a place to host your video.
This sort of censorship by a private company is only acceptable if there is a legitimate other path to post videos (still within the realm of ethically decided censorship) - if the government has a presence in a market we demand that the government be the most lax player when it comes to issues of freedom of speech, but I think we're fine as long as there exist places in which to practice our free speech.
Is there any government in the world providing a wewillhostyourvideos.gov? More to the point, video is not the only form of speech, web pages exist, podcasts exist, I am not sure why freedom of speech now equals video and why people insist that the ability to post video to a privately owned platform is now a right just because that platform happens to be popular.
I am unaware of any governments that provide wewillhostyourvideos.gov, as to the question of mediums... it's a delicate balance. It is very logical that the government doesn't need to support everyone's ability to paint their opinions on a forty foot canvas with premium oil paints, but I think video based (and even more specifically that vlog/video essay form that has emerged recently) is a way that people feel naturally suites their self expression, if it isn't heinously expensive to support them expressing in that manner then I think we (as a society) benefit a lot from supporting their expression in that form.
I think with the power and influence these private companies wield and the huge effects they can have on society, the distinction between the standards we hold gov vs private to is arbitrary and only remain for historical reasons. It doesn't have to be that way just because it always was.
YouTube is a video sharing website, the only power it has is the power we willingly give it by voluntarily visiting their website. Society needs to have personal responsibility for it's own viewing habits.
When they have more influence and impact on citizens than governments, perhaps we should revisit our definition of what "public" means. They can close businesses, make disappear the reach of specific competitors and do all sorts of things that governments cannot do because they agreed with their respective societies to limit their own power after thousands of years of history.
Right now the only part in which are they private is that they were founded by private capital.
It is utterly absurd to suggest that YouTube has more influence and impact than the government. The government has the power to imprison and murder you with impunity, their level of impact and influence completely dwarfs every video sharing site on the internet combined.
> At the end of the day YouTube is a private company
I can’t argue that it isn’t, and I’m not sure I’d be comfortable with somebody saying “you have to host whatever is uploaded”… on the other hand, AT&T and Comcast are “private companies” that host the backbone of the internet and could at any time start refusing to route traffic for, say, a YouTube competitor. Some banks are already refusing to do business with vendors that also sell guns… there is a point where censorship become discriminatory.
Expect, YouTube is a monopoly in monetizing video content. It's like asking an app developer to not publish with [Apple, Google] if they disagree with their policies. Sure, they can choose to not publish, but with that choice goes away the ability to monetize their app in the real world
Big tech has gotten even more powerful and necessary at a practical level, with none of the guarantees of fair treatment the government is bound by. This needs to change, pronto.
Facebook is just as restrictive as Google. Vimeo doesn't compare to YouTube in any way. To follow the analogy of the parent comment, Vimeo is like only being able to publish on the Amazon app store.
If we accept this ownership of the digital space by corporations, our future is looking very bleak.
I'm more concerned that if a migration happened to Vimeo, you'd end up in the same spot. Speech doesn't presume an easy to reach audience. I'm fine with YouTube and its ilk not surfacing things organically if they don't want to or even de-monetizing- but I do object to total de-platforming based on non-illegal content. People have to have /somewhere/ to go.
At the end of the day YouTube is a private company. Yea, a very big one with huge reach, but private nonetheless. Taking a subjective moral position is something companies have been doing for a long time. If you disagree with them, don't give them your $ (don't use youtube).