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Steven Crowder & Big Tech Influence on Free Speech | Bret We

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Pepe
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19 Jun 2019, 11:47 pm

Steven Crowder & Big Tech Influence on Free Speech | Bret Weinstein.

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Bret Weinstein discusses the controversy surrounding Steven Crowder's remarks on Carlos Maza and the deeper implications the fallout has on big tech's influence over censorship and free speech.


Length of video: 9 minutes.


https://youtu.be/RGvI0O82fF0



shlaifu
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24 Jun 2019, 7:55 pm

But it's not really an influence on 'free speech', as in: speech is still free. He's not being prosecuted. He just isn't granted access to certain platforms which shape public discourse, no?

Did people talk about free speech being endangered when it was books and TV and some books were rejected by publishers and people weren't asked to come on TV?

We definitely should be talking about private companies - and tv and news etc- shaping public opinion
- perception of reality, really.
(Manufacturing consent, anyone?)

But I don't get how this is actually a free speech issue, as in, a question of the state prohibiting opinions.
Am I getting this totally wrong?


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Pepe
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24 Jun 2019, 9:10 pm

It is censorship in this context.

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Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by a government, private institutions, and corporations. https://www.google.com/search?client=fi ... censorship



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24 Jun 2019, 9:31 pm

That's the whole issue....a publisher is a publisher, a platform is open to the public and not responsible for lawsuits for the content on their platform. It was also ruled in supreme court that these big platforms of public discourse are the digital town square. Steven crowder did not break any rules, even youtube stated so. If they are censoring public opinios that break no rules they are controlling the narritive in a digital town square. Also, them censoring public opinion is acting as a publisher while in courts they claim to be a platform.

In otherwords, no, it is no where near the same as a book publisher choosing to not publish particular opinions....platform, publisher, two completely different things.



shlaifu
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26 Jun 2019, 7:02 pm

Crimadella wrote:
That's the whole issue....a publisher is a publisher, a platform is open to the public and not responsible for lawsuits for the content on their platform. It was also ruled in supreme court that these big platforms of public discourse are the digital town square. Steven crowder did not break any rules, even youtube stated so. If they are censoring public opinios that break no rules they are controlling the narritive in a digital town square. Also, them censoring public opinion is acting as a publisher while in courts they claim to be a platform.

In otherwords, no, it is no where near the same as a book publisher choosing to not publish particular opinions....platform, publisher, two completely different things.


Fair enough. I never bought the 'platform' thing though. I always considered them publishers, simply because they have control over the thing, and it's not a utility. - a town square isn't privately owned.


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27 Jun 2019, 4:32 pm

Steven Crowder broke the rules surrounding YouTube's partnership programme (basically "don't homophobically abuse people in your videos"), so he is no longer allowed to make money from his YouTube videos.

He is still allowed to upload his videos.

Hard to argue that constitutes censorship. It would be deeply illiberal to force YouTube to pay him.