YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views
I'm starting to think that comment sections on news sites are a really bad idea.  At first I thought NPR and the like were cowards for removing theirs.<p>It's bad enough that NYT can be pretty biased on its own, but the comment sections are always full of low-tier thinking that just push whatever narrative is currently in the Overton window.<p>What I find distressing is how people remark that a telecom and advertising giant acting as a de facto government over the public square isn't a violation of free speech principles because they're a "private business", as if that's an original thought that's profound.  Funny how people say "it's a private business" when it suits their own political interests.<p>We wouldn't blindly allow company-owned cities or states to pass laws, especially vague or undefined ones, that potentially violate our rights, so why do we allow "states" in <i>cyberspace</i> to be run in such a way?<p>Ban people promoting violence?  Sure, why not.  I'm as against hate and violence as the next person.  But not only is censoring "hate speech" becoming a slippery slope at the company level, it's bad for the public in general because it sets a greater precedent for what the big corporations that run our everyday lives can tell us what we can or cannot do, and with <i>no forgiveness</i>.  I don't find it hard to imagine a world where individuals can be <i>instantly</i> and <i>permanently</i> banned from doing everyday things, just like they are on YouTube, because they said or did something off the platform.