RE: FREE SPEECH -- You've heard the term, but I doubt anyone knows how rare it is anymore.
Yes, anyone can have a website dangling in the wind.
Youtube is an aggregator of content, and has a bigger responsibility to seek fairness with that responsibility."
So there are different standards based on when the website is deemed to be "an aggregator of content"?
Do web forums in your view have no right to moderate?
Subjectively YouTube probably should have better policies, sure. But in principle they should be able to make whatever policies they please for their website, and people can share content elsewhere if they pick bad ones. And a different ubiquitous platform would emerge.
At the end of the day YouTube creating their exact set of policies is a form of speech and expression. So I don't think you can strip them of this in the name of free speech.
For the record I agree that YouTube's policies are generally bad and encourage a sort of watered down lack of expression. I just technically do not see it as a free speech violation.
You make a valid point @full-measure. Does Youtube or anyone else have the legitimate "right" to censor or moderate their own platform's content as they desire?
Seems like a double standard to say they don't but individuals do.
However, we must recognize the power massive collectives like youtube, spacebook and twitty have in directing individual's thinking and by induction the way society thinks. Those that control the narrative steer society as long as people refuse to think for themselves, which is most people these days.
The main problem is most people don't think for themselves and defer their personal responsibility to others. The problem is order followers. It is an understandable problem given the huge volumes of info and decisions people are faced with daily. Division of labor is a useful tool, as are hierarchies in some situations but not all.
The more individuals avoid taking responsibility for their own actions and accept without question what someone else says is true or wants them to do the closer we are to totalitarianism and the excuse, "I was just doing my job, following orders - I'm not to blame".
Free speech violation? Did I ever mention violations somewhere, if so, I apologize.
I never intended anyone to think I said youtube was violating free speech laws.