> Of course it's partisan. Had Trump won, and Biden voters were publishing content like this with the same lack of evidence, do you believe that Democratic senators would still be urging YouTube to take it down in the interest of fairness to Trump? I think you know the answer to that.
The answer that it feels like I would have is, "No"; but it only feels that way because I can't even imagine them doing that in the first place. In order to even enter your thought experiment, I must put Biden and the Democrats in the shoes of Trump and the Republicans, and imagine that they have done something I don't believe they would do; and that is where the entire thing falls apart.
> The simple fact of the matter is that people are entitled to their opinions, and in the United States, they have a constitutional right to express those opinions in the same way and on the same platforms as those that disagree with them.
False. Everyone has the right to express whatever they want, but they don't have the right to do so using someone else's platform. For example, I have the right to express my criticisms of The Bible, but I don't have the right to walk into a church, walk up to the pulpit, and start a TED talk about the lack of evidence for Noah and the great flood, Moses and Hebrew slaves in Egypt, New Testament authorship, etc.
What keeps getting called "censorship" here is really "moderation". The reason it's such a big deal is that YouTube is a huge monolithic platform, so moderation on that platform is inherently a big deal.
If we want to remove the power YouTube has over public discourse, we need to create real competitors. The same goes for Facebook, Twitter, et al.
The answer that it feels like I would have is, "No"; but it only feels that way because I can't even imagine them doing that in the first place. In order to even enter your thought experiment, I must put Biden and the Democrats in the shoes of Trump and the Republicans, and imagine that they have done something I don't believe they would do; and that is where the entire thing falls apart.
> The simple fact of the matter is that people are entitled to their opinions, and in the United States, they have a constitutional right to express those opinions in the same way and on the same platforms as those that disagree with them.
False. Everyone has the right to express whatever they want, but they don't have the right to do so using someone else's platform. For example, I have the right to express my criticisms of The Bible, but I don't have the right to walk into a church, walk up to the pulpit, and start a TED talk about the lack of evidence for Noah and the great flood, Moses and Hebrew slaves in Egypt, New Testament authorship, etc.
What keeps getting called "censorship" here is really "moderation". The reason it's such a big deal is that YouTube is a huge monolithic platform, so moderation on that platform is inherently a big deal.
If we want to remove the power YouTube has over public discourse, we need to create real competitors. The same goes for Facebook, Twitter, et al.