I think this would make a nice secondary machine for those interested in an accessible Linux distro. Pop!_OS is intuitive and recognizable from a functionality standpoint for newbies and pros alike. I will keep my eye on it, and see where it goes. The price point seems to be at a good place.
I can't believe this is still a thing, from both sides. There is no stopping piracy or greed, maybe some speed bumps here and there. For the pirates its an access issue, that can range from "can't afford" to "can't see it" to simply just "I am cheap". For the companies, it's profits, pure and simple. I always wonder though how they quantify taking into consideration most pirates weren't going to purchase movie/music anyway.
I have to imagine that if your search and/or use of keywords is specific enough, you will find exactly what you are looking for regardless of the search engine you are currently using. In the end, everyone has an agenda, from both ends and everything in-between.
I disagree, if you don’t like it you can move to another platform. No one is forcing you to use it. For that matter “The Hill” can create their own. Always silly, the entitlement to someone else platform based on some misunderstanding of censorship and the 1st amendment.
The only silly argument I hear is when people think any discussion of censorship must involve the first amendment, or that complaining about censorship implies being forced to use a product.
If I go to a restaurant and eat some food and complain that food tasted awful, I am not saying that the restaurant should be forced by the government to make good food nor am I saying that everyone is forced to eat at that restaurant. I'm simply saying that the product served to me was not good.
Similarly when someone complains about Youtube engaging in censorship, you should not interpret that to mean that Youtube is infringing on first amendment rights, or that everyone is forced to use Youtube... rather it's an argument that the product Youtube provides is not as good as it could otherwise be. People are welcome to have an opinion and discuss whether Youtube's policies improve its service or are detrimental to its service without it devolving into a discussion about legal rights and government enforcement.
You can disagree with a position about censorship and make good arguments that Youtube censoring certain content or being the arbiter of truth makes for a better product, just as you can disagree with someone about whether a restaurant serves good food... but don't change someone's argument about the quality of a product into an argument about someone being forced into something or having their rights violated since no one ever made any such claim.
The restaurant isn't forced to make good food. But in this analogy isn't it more like the restaurant being forced to put up a poster of your bad review? The overall point being made is, why should a private entity be forced to do something they don't want to do?
No one is forcing Youtube to do anything, all we're doing is criticizing Youtube for its policies which we believe make Youtube a worse product than it would otherwise be. Criticizing a video game, or a movie, or a restaurant or a streaming service does not imply the use of force to do anything nor does it imply having to get the government involved. It just means we think a product could be improved upon.
I think Youtube would be a better product and better serve their viewers and content creators if they didn't suspend The Hill for playing a clip of Donald Trump. My belief in this does not imply any use of force whatsoever.
Okay, but the problem here is you're making a moral statement based on what YouTube is, making it an is-ought problem. Youtube ought to share the message of a president who incited a riot and tried to overthrow a democratic election, because it is blocking it.
You're not addressing why YouTube is blocking it or the state of it's own rights as a private platform, just making blanket moral statements about opinion.
No the point is whether YouTube is better if it allows us to evaluate. I want YouTube to show me darker news and also keep my kid entertained without worry. I don’t want to be treated like the child here though. If I click on a Ukraine war video or I want to find a quote from trump to pick apart there should not be filters preventing it.
The product is better if I am in control. YouTube ought to stay out of it. It does not know my intent. If it guesses wrong it should be criticized, just like a restaurant guessing at my food preferences and allergies.
> I want YouTube to show me darker news and also keep my kid entertained without worry.
This is a different argument.
You already have the agency of being in control, you can pick any platform to watch from. Youtube is exercising it's own right to censor, similar to how you want to censor for your kid, based on what you think is harmful.
Reality is any platform without moderation turns into a cesspool. Individually you want to be in control, but in aggregate the product rots. I can’t really think of any user generated content product without some form of control that hasn’t turned into complete shit. If you know of any please enlighten me.
But you are saying in this analogy that the restaurant should post negative reviews from its customers, say on its website. Why should they? It’s not like they’re taking down negative reviews (videos) from things they don’t own.
I have. Nobody is saying that YouTube should post negative reviews of itself. We're saying that a website which pretty much has a monopoly on hosting videos shouldn't abuse its position by trying to be the “ministry of truth”, and it's fair to criticize it even though it's legally allowed to do that.
Isn't the basic question, should youtube be forced to do something it doesn't want to? In this case, host videos it finds objectionable for whatever reason. Same way they don't allow porn for example. From the way I see it there are only a few options:
1) Youtube hosts everything that's legal, no filters at all
2) Youtube decides what it does and doesn't host
3) Somethings are ok (e.g. news / fake news), others are not (porn). Who decides what's ok and not ok if it's not the legal system or youtube itself?
> you should not interpret that to mean that Youtube is infringing on first amendment rights
It is much more like 14th Amendment rights and the 1964 CRA enhancement of that. There are prohibitions on private organizations denying equal service based upon certain characteristics.
As Twitter, Youtube, Facebook are not actually broadcasters in any sense (what are they broadcasting?), their refusal to conduct business with others can't be cloaked in 1st amendment grounds. No one is forcing anyone to watch anything on any of these platforms.
The crux of this issue is political affiliation is not a protected class, and therefore it can be discriminated against. (And we do have non-immutable, changeable characteristics as protected classes.)
Any of 1) section 230 clarifications or changes, 2) expansions of protected classes under the 14th, or 3) monopoly regulatory power will make these prohibitions invalid.
Political association is a choice and is thus not a protected class.
There is a certain U.S. political party who has a persecution fetish that makes bad faith statements about their opinions needing to be protected, but I'll let you figure out which one it is.
The Civil Rights Amendment has no protection for political speech. I wonder how Trump’s new “Truth” platform would feel about being forced to post information discrediting his claims?
The First Amendment is always relevant to cases of free expression in the United States. It is what gives YouTube the right to control what is on their platform.
No it's not always relevant, in fact it's mostly a distraction that does nothing to contribute to the substance of the discussion. There is almost nothing of value to be gained by pointing out that Youtube is a private company that has the right to censor or serve any content it so chooses anymore than it's relevant to point out that a restaurant has the right serve shitty food and if you don't like it you can go to another restaurant.
Everyone already knows this... so instead of constantly bringing it up to make ourselves sound smart, let's instead actually discuss something more meaningful, such as whether the food served by the restaurant really is shitty? What reasons might a restaurant have for serving shitty food, do they perhaps gain financially from it? Would it be more effective to work with the restaurant to get them to stop serving shitty food, or would it be more effective to open up a restaurant next door that doesn't serve shitty food? What are the trade-offs?
Those are more interesting topics rather than pointing out the fact that a restaurant has the right to serve shitty food and you can't force them not to.
It’s true that YouTube is a private entity and should be able to do whatever is in its profit maximizing interest.
But, the issue that people are starting to react to is - are some platforms a natural monopoly?
Is it useful to have all user-generated public video clips be aggregated by one central provider? The answer seems like it’s yes.
If there’s only gonna be one platform, or it’s socially optimal to have one platform - is it right to give control of that to one entity into perpetuity?
> But, the issue that people are starting to react to is - are some platforms a natural monopoly?
No.
> Is it useful to have all user-generated public video clips be aggregated by one central provider? The answer seems like it’s yes.
The answer is no.
Vimeo exists. Facebook and Twitter both feature user-generated video content. I hear TikTok is a thing. In addition to these platforms basically anyone can self-host in 2022. Plenty of news outlets self-host.
> If there’s only gonna be one platform, or it’s socially optimal to have one platform - is it right to give control of that to one entity into perpetuity?
You have not made the case that there should be only one platform so the second part of your statement is irrelevant.
> That a political question.
Only for people who want to say things without suffering the consequences.
Yep, popular != monopoly, especially given the number of easily accessible alternatives.
Given the state of cloud computing in 2022, there has never been a time that it has been easier to host your own video streaming, so it's not a natural monopoly either.
The answer is not yes or no. The answer is whatever a large enough portion of the electorate believe.
I’m not making a case for anything - I’m explaining the narrative behind a growing POV.
But I will say that YouTube is different than Facebook videos or TikTok. YouTube is meant to be a searchable video index across topics and time. It’s a video search engine and hosting service in one.
Natural Monopoly is a technical term. If the electorate wants to change the constitution we can do that with no justification. It only has to pass Congress and be ratified by the states.
At this point, major platforms function like public spaces in online discourse, even though they are legally considered private property. Because of their huge influence in society, Youtube shouldn't be permitted to censor political viewpoints in their platform.
And see, there's always a fine balance between private property rights and other rights. For example: you can't prevent people from a given ethnicity from shopping in your store, even though it is a private property and in many cases you can refuse service to a particular customer - just not for this reason. And this is perfectly okay, because private property rights aren't absolute.
Yeah they could create a video platform, but until it gained the prominence of YouTube it would be just a niche hosting platform. I'm putting forward a view that YouTube has a status so powerful in global society that it should be held at a higher standard.
But regarding your question, I actually think that there's a serious dysfunction here in the way Fox News can legally spread lies that are very damaging to society with little to no legal consequence. They even alleged in a slander case that the Tucker Carlson show is actually just entertainment, and reasonable people can't expect it to be truthful - even though millions of people get their news primarily from Fox News, including Carlson talk shows, fully believing they are telling the truth.
And I see that YouTube is cracking down on a lot of the same misinformation that Fox News propagates (and sometimes, worse stuff), but my point is that this shouldn't be up to Google to decide what political talking points are or aren't allowed. YouTube functions as a public space in our daily lives, we express ourselves there, I don't think it's good for society for a single company decide this policy unilaterally.
On the other hand, it's good that platforms offer some kind of curation and differentiate themselves based on that. There are YouTube alternatives like Lbry in which practically everything is allowed, and I think both models are necessary.
I must have missed the covenant to not enforce their patents that youtube extends to parties they've deplatformed and the indemnity they offer against the enforcement third party patent rights that they've obtained through cross licensing.
I think you missed the bit where the platform removed content for the mere mention of Trump.
So you agree YouTube is perfectly ok to remove content because it mentions 'the opinion of a man about election results.'?
And if Trump was to hypothetically win in 2024, would it be perfectly fine for YouTube to remove any content which is dissenting of Trump? I'm sure a dislike or negative comment would stop that...
And of course nothing from stopping Biden creating his own platform should the tables turn, right?
It's true the large social platforms are privately owned and so they can censor to their hearts content, but given the obliquity and integration these largest platforms have in the social fabric, is that reasonable?
Should they at least have clear moderation policies? It's an issue that needs some hefty discussion and evaluation especially, as we're seeing in this thread, the outsized influence on and control of public discourse they have.
The “government can fix it” mentality. A rule set and power grab for the sake of helping the little guy, that don’t really care about to begin with. It’s postering like this that clearly mark two rivals as the opposite side of the same coin.
As a concept this is fine, mainstream will never happen with the current set of societal priorities. It’s not flashy enough, it requires some tinkering, and my friends won’t think it’s cool enough. Unfortunate, because at least in my opinion this is the direction we should all be going.
