YouTube Under No Obligation To Host Anti-Vaccine Advocate's Videos, Court Says (arstechnica.com) 281
"12 people account for the lion's share of anti-vaccination propaganda posted to three of the leading social media outlets," NPR reported in 2021, citing a study from a London-based group opposed to online hate and disinformation."
But this week Ars Technica reports that one of those 12 "lost a lawsuit attempting to force YouTube to provide access to videos that were removed from the platform after YouTube banned his channels." Joseph Mercola had tried to argue that YouTube owed him more than $75,000 in damages for breaching its own user contract and denying him access to his videos. However, in an order dismissing Mercola's complaint, U.S. magistrate judge Laurel Beeler wrote that according to the contract Mercola signed, YouTube was "under no obligation to host" Mercola's content after terminating his channel in 2021 "for violating YouTube's Community Guidelines by posting medical misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccines."
"The court found no breach because 'there is no provision in the Terms of Service that requires YouTube to maintain particular content' or be a 'storage site for users' content,'" Beeler wrote. Because Mercola's contract with YouTube was found to be enforceable and "YouTube had the discretion to take down content that harmed its users," Beeler said that Mercola did not plausibly plead claims for breach of contract or unjust enrichment.
Mercola's complaint was dismissed without leave to amend.
Thanks to ArchieBunker (Slashdot reader #96,909) for sharing the article.
But this week Ars Technica reports that one of those 12 "lost a lawsuit attempting to force YouTube to provide access to videos that were removed from the platform after YouTube banned his channels." Joseph Mercola had tried to argue that YouTube owed him more than $75,000 in damages for breaching its own user contract and denying him access to his videos. However, in an order dismissing Mercola's complaint, U.S. magistrate judge Laurel Beeler wrote that according to the contract Mercola signed, YouTube was "under no obligation to host" Mercola's content after terminating his channel in 2021 "for violating YouTube's Community Guidelines by posting medical misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccines."
"The court found no breach because 'there is no provision in the Terms of Service that requires YouTube to maintain particular content' or be a 'storage site for users' content,'" Beeler wrote. Because Mercola's contract with YouTube was found to be enforceable and "YouTube had the discretion to take down content that harmed its users," Beeler said that Mercola did not plausibly plead claims for breach of contract or unjust enrichment.
Mercola's complaint was dismissed without leave to amend.
Thanks to ArchieBunker (Slashdot reader #96,909) for sharing the article.
Net neutrality (Score:2, Insightful)
I thought republicans say “let the market decide!”?
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Sorry but doesn't the US constitution prevent a candidate from winning 3 elections?
Trump would have to concede 2020 first.
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So he will be serving again. Just ... differently.
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It's a neat fairy tale that the anti-Trump left love to fap over, but given that our "justice" system is tiered and the severity of consequences for scofflaws is tied directly to their elite status, it is highly improbable that Trump will ever see a day in prison.
If our justice system was actually as the image of Lady Justice [wikipedia.org] portrays, we would have seen Nixon behind bars over Watergate. Reagan and his cohorts would have done time for the Iran Contra affair. Bill Clinton would have done a stretch for willfu
Re: Net neutrality (Score:2)
Re:Net neutrality (Score:4, Informative)
Sorry but doesn't the US constitution prevent a candidate from winning 3 elections?
I think it would be quite funny if that were true. He didn't win the popular vote and couldn't prove that he win the electoral vote, so it doesn't matter what he thinks. He was never elected for a second term.
"Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice"
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He lost the popular vote both in 2016 and 2020. Only got "elected" by our corrupt slave owner friendly constitution electoral college in 2016 but even that couldn't save him in 2020.
Loser.
Re: Net neutrality (Score:4, Informative)
Both of those guys won the popular vote, moron.
Re:Net neutrality (Score:5, Informative)
Obama and Biden each won the popular vote so didn't need the Electoral College to gain a legitimate win.
The worst presidents in recent memory (Bush and Trump) both lost the popular vote and were only "elected" by the Electoral College.
The electoral college is a vestige of the Continental Congress which put it in place to gain the support of the Southern slave states who were afraid that if slaves got to vote that they wouldn't be in charge anymore.
(Also... the "well regulated militia" gun provision was put in place to allow Southern slave states to put together militias to go after runaway slaves.
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Obama and Biden each won the popular vote so didn't need the Electoral College to gain a legitimate win.
Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. Looks like the popular vote doesn't mean jack to the Electoral College process.
The electoral college is a vestige of the Continental Congress which put it in place to gain the support of the Southern slave states who were afraid that if slaves got to vote that they wouldn't be in charge anymore.
No, the electoral college system was put into place to make it harder for wealthy, large population states to ramrod their will on smaller states. Southern slaveholders were less concerned about their slaves voting when they only got to count for 2/3rds of a freeman's vote and the manner whether slaves' vote was "relevant" was determined by the states, not the CotUS.
(Also... the "well regulated militia" gun provision was put in place to allow Southern slave states to put together militias to go after runaway slaves.
Not according to this sc [portside.org]
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Obama and Biden each won the popular vote so didn't need the Electoral College to gain a legitimate win.
The worst presidents in recent memory (Bush and Trump) both lost the popular vote and were only "elected" by the Electoral College.
The electoral college is a vestige of the Continental Congress which put it in place to gain the support of the Southern slave states who were afraid that if slaves got to vote that they wouldn't be in charge anymore.
(Also... the "well regulated militia" gun provision was put in place to allow Southern slave states to put together militias to go after runaway slaves.
The electoral college vote IS the legitimate win. No other vote matters. As it should be. Your dubious, revisionist views on the subject are irrelevant. The electoral college exists today so that all the states in the union get an equal voice. You clowns keep trotting out the popular vote like it means something when it's a useless data point. The people living in smaller states, the ones you sneer at and call flyover states, don't want to have their political lives decided by a handful of wealthy coastal c
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The Constitutional clause of the 14th amendment barring Trump from office is self-activating, and does not require a conviction.
Citation #1 [nytimes.com] - noting that it was written by two Federalist Society members, William Baude of the University of Chicago and Michael Stokes Paulsen of the University of St. Thomas, so you can't scream "waah that's liberal stuff."
Baude & Paulsen, 2023 [ssrn.com]: "First, Section Three remains an enforceable part of the Constitution, not limited to the Civil War, and not effectively repea
Re:Net neutrality (Score:4, Informative)
[ranting]...and no one is doing anything to stop him.
Incorrect. There are multiple lawsuits in multiple jurisdictions, asking the courts to step in and order state officials to do their duty under the constitution, and bar Trump from the ballot if and when the time comes that it is appropriate to do so.
Additionally, while Trump claims to be "running for office" as a participant in the Republican primary/caucus calendar, he is not yet a party nominee and has not yet qualified to be on the ballot in any state in that regard for the 2024 election. So it may well be that the courts place the suits on hold, claiming the issue is not yet "ripe" with an open case of someone being put on the ballot who is disqualified (or in the alternative, his being disqualified and then his own campaign filing a lawsuit).
It's also quite possible that many both within the Republican Party and the judiciary who might have to hear such a case are hoping that he is criminally convicted in upcoming court proceedings and that the party finally rethinks the idea of nominating a traitor to the USA as their candidate.
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Perhaps breaking the law has consequences?
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No, whats funny is that you think anything the Clintons or Biden did even approaches the significance of attempting to over throw our democracy.
Re:Net neutrality (Score:4, Informative)
As per the constitution. Though IMO he's not a traitor until he's had his day in court. Though OTOH I think they banned rebels w/o going through court after the ACW.
Also, FYI, in some states it's Republicans trying to keep him off the ballot.
Re:Net neutrality (Score:5, Informative)
The point of the amendment was to mass disqualify anyone who participated in the Civil War. Far too many people to require a trial for each. Everyone understood the point, and it mostly worked.
There were only 6 disputed cases from 1869-1872. One of them ended in a lawsuit. The key takeaway is that the rule is not a punishment, but rather an eligibility qualification. No convictions are necessary. (ruling [case.law])
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The point of the amendment was to mass disqualify anyone who participated in the Civil War. Far too many people to require a trial for each. Everyone understood the point, and it mostly worked.
There were only 6 disputed cases from 1869-1872. One of them ended in a lawsuit. The key takeaway is that the rule is not a punishment, but rather an eligibility qualification. No convictions are necessary. (ruling [case.law])
Agreed, it's a factual determination just like the over 35 or "native born American" requirements.
That doesn't mean a court doesn't come into play however. In 2012 a birther Secretary of State (I assume it's them?) could have refused to list Obama on the grounds he wasn't a native born American (or maybe they'd claim he was under 35). At which point the Obama campaign would promptly sue and the Secretary of State would be ordered to add his name to the ballot.
It someone tries to hold off the ballot, claimin
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It someone tries to hold off the ballot, claiming he participated in the insurrection, I expect the Trump campaign to sue and the court will likely order him to be put on the ballot.
The court wouldn't just order him to be put on the ballot, the court would first have to determine whether or not the disqualification applied, which would mean having to determine whether he participated in insurrection. Some version of this sequence of events will almost certainly happen because there are already several lawsuits requesting that he be formally disqualified. It will certainly be appealed to several state supreme courts and will very likely be appealed to the US Supreme Court.
It will be v
I'm no friend of Donald Trump (Score:4, Insightful)
I think at some point you need to prove the claim that he committed insurrection or rebellion. Otherwise out goes due process.
For someone who actually served in the southern armies it was painfully obvious but for Donald Trump he left himself at least some plausible deniability. Enough that no one felt comfortable charging him with sedition let alone insurrection or rebellion
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From what I've heard, people didn't use firearms in the J6 'insurrection'.
There were firearms on the scene, but more importantly, the people who planned to use firearms in the insurrection were identified ahead of time and arrested preemptively because they were loudmouthed idiots who telegraphed their intentions.
So exactly how were they going to overthrow the govt?
Besides the firearms that never arrived because their owners were arrested with them in the trunk of their car on the way to the event, the plan was just to delay the certification until mike pence could be coerced into refusing to certify the results, so that sympatheti
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Storming congress in an attempt to over throw an election is absolutely insurrection.
In regards to you trying to muddy the waters with a bizarre tangent about leftists and guns, well they certainly would have had a far greater chance of success if they had them and one can attempt anything without the right equipment.
Trump didn't do that (Score:4, Insightful)
If you're a Republican you want the latter, because you want Trump out of the way. He's a loser, and it's extremely unlikely he'll beat Biden once the election is under way.
But if you're a Dem? Well, some are scared of another Trump presidency. Honestly it doesn't matter who the next GOP president is, they're planning to install him as a dictator either way [apnews.com]. And Trump has a *ton* of baggage. He's more or less unelectable at this point.
Which is why so many Republicans are challenging him for ballot access.
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What's funny is that you think guns are some sort of necessity in attempting to overthrow the government. Sure, their chance of success was pretty low without them but that in no way means they werent trying.
Forget the front runner (Score:3)
Republicans have absolutely zero compunction about wielding power. Dems on the other hand do. I know. I'm a Democrat.
And on a side note, almost all of these challenges are being brought by Republicans.
They want Trump out of the way because he can't win in the general election. The he spooked the independents on Jan 6th. They don't trust him to "keep the trains running on time" as it were. What they want is to replace Trump with DeSantis (who can keep the MAGA voters exc
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Whether he is a traitor isn't determined by the courts, the fact of whether (or not) he is a traitor is reality .. it's a matter of will the court recognize the real thing or not. Someone who steals something doesn't become a thief after the court says he is, he's a thief from before. Same thing with someone falsely accused of something, if the court finds someone guilty it doesn't mean he actually did it .. it only means that the court's opinion is that he did it.
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Actually in the USA, that's not so far-fetched. The USA has, by far, the highest prison population in the world both by numbers (about 2 million) & by percentage of the general population. 98% of those convictions never went to trial. Defendants are routinely & systematically threatened with draconian sentences if they don't make a plea deal, whether they committed the crime or not. I
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It's nonsensical to assume I'm implying we shouldn't have trials or that I'm advocating pre-crime nonsense. I was saying the reality that exists is that a person is innocent (or guilty) of crime prior to their trial. A trial can try to assess someone's culpability and determine appropriate punishment, but it doesn't have control over whether someone actually is guilty and deserving of the meted out punishment. There's a difference between being found guilty and actually being guilty (or innocent). Is that a
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AFAIK, the argument in defence of Trump isn't that he's not guilty of the accusations but that he shouldn't be tried for them because previous presidents haven't been prosecuted for their crimes either. I definitely want him to be prosecuted but you can see the reasoning about selective application of the law.
This is why it's s
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I thought republicans say “let the market decide!”?
They say that all the time. Except when it is something they don't like.
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Market elements deciding not to host their propaganda? That is clearly a case for regulation!
Re:Net neutrality (Score:4, Insightful)
It's like abortion. they said "let the States decide", then as soon as Roe V Wade fell, they push to pass a national-level ban. Extreme right Reichwingers can't be reasoned with. They believe they are doing "gods work", and since they believe "god" is infallible, they're actions are infallible.
Re:Net neutrality (Score:5, Insightful)
Libertarians, both left and right wing say that.
Now authoritarians, both left and right wing want a massive power to control the narrative completely.
Even the most memetic of the political charts have the authoritarian-libertarian axis along the left-right one for a reason.
Without it, it just turns into senseless shitflinging, with a lot of people with insanely different opinions being glued together into two masses of incoherent rambling.
Just to exemplify, you can look at an extreme authoritarian left regime like the north korea, and an extreme authoritarian right regime like taliban, and you will see that while they disagree on what is being pushed on the people, they agree completely on what is the role of the government and how it has to be organized.
And before you come with something like "north korea is not true left" etc.. it is. but it is insanely authoritarian as well, which you're hopefully not, so your politics will disagree a lot with theirs, even if on the "left/right axis", you're on a similar position.
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N. Korea probably has "left" & "right" wing politicians/bureaucrats too.
Likewise, we can't say most countries are "capitalist", "socialist", "communist", etc., because the vast majority of countries have mixed economies. What we're arguing about is the
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Self declared political positions are often a massive lie.
Sadly you have to judge by yourself by the actual actions rather than words the real position of the individuals.
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What do republicans have to do with this?
Some of the loudest and earliest anti vaccine people are hard core extreme leftist Hollywood actors.
You knew that. Right?
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Oh yeah, these people forget that Jim Carrey and his insipid wife started the modern anti-vaxx movement. It festered and grew mainly in Hollywood until 2021 when the right (and blacks) took it up.
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So 12 evil scum (Score:2)
That are in part responsible for 1000's of deaths? Cool!
Seems pretty clear... (Score:5, Insightful)
He sued for breach of contract. The contract doesn't say what he claims it says. Suit denied. That was easy...
All else is noise here. The basis of his suit was faulty.
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You know, I know and likely he knows. But now he's the poor victim of big pharma and the media corporations.
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Such a suit would hold the threat that someone might actually get to see the damage done. No, it's better that he's the poor persecuted victim of pharma and media. And of course Fauci who personally persecutes him.
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He's not exactly a hero of truth, more like some sort of boogeyman for the alt-right morons.
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That he's pretty much now the same kind of boogeyman for the alt-right as Trump is for the left wing nutters. The source of ALL their problems, even though they mostly got nobody to blame but themselves, but admitting that? No fucking way. I can't be responsible for my own stupidity, what do we have politicians and experts for if suddenly I have to take care of my own problems?
Anti-Vaccine Advocate .. (Score:2)
Re:Because... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, you giant fucking idiot, they did. The effect can be seen in the excess death tolls when broken down by political leaning.
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Yes, you giant fucking idiot, they did. The effect can be seen in the excess death tolls when broken down by political leaning.
This is obviously true. The older you are the more likely you are to die from covid and it is well known republicans tend to skew older than democrats.
The only study I'm aware of that controlled for age used age buckets so large a single bucket accounted for more than half of the population and according to CDCs own data included a spread of 60x risk between the lowest and highest ages within that bucket.
Re:Because... (Score:5, Informative)
re: "...masks and vaccines made a big impact, right? /s"
From the last COVID deaths stats:
US: 329.48 million population, 1,021,276 COVID deaths
Canada: 38.01 million population, 42,219 COVID deaths
(Source: statista.com)
So the US has 8.668x Canada's population, but had 24.19x its COVID deaths. 24.19 / 8.668 is very close to 2.8. The US has had 2.8x as many COVID deaths per capita as Canada.
Canada had/has higher rates of vaccination, mask use (with or without mandates), lockdowns/isolation and other COVID measures. How else could we have only 0.35x the COVID death rate?
It certainly isn't some ethnic resistance as Canada is one of the most ethnically diverse countries on Earth.
It isn't that we're socially isolated through living far from each other either. Because Canada is so northerly/cold, most of our population lives close to the US border; Canada is even more urbanized than the US.
What, then?
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Canada has a "much lower" obesity rate? I don't think that's supportable.
U.S. 36.47%
Canada 30.47%
https://data.worldobesity.org/... [worldobesity.org]
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Canada has a much lower obesity rate and lower population density.
Yeah that one person living in a yurt in the emptiest half of the Northern Territories makes a real difference.
Nearly half of Canada's population live in the Quebec City-Windsor corridor.
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Also remember in the USA they called almost a year death during covid to be caused by covid even if it was a car accident. Of course the death numbers would be higher
I know, it was crazy. My grandmother was mauled to death by bigfoot and they said it was covid just because she had no trauma and died of "respiratory" issues. Lying liars.
You're a fucking moron.
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> What, then?
Considering how awful and debilitating COVID wasn't for me when I eventually caught it; I'd really like to see what happens to the numbers when you account for poor health choices prior to COVID. I was in good health at a proper weight when the pandemic started. Aside from mental health problems from going stir-crazy stuck at home, missing all of my friends and pastimes during it, and having most of my coping strategies taken away for years, and putting on some weight from, again, being fo
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Now compare Canada, Germany, and Sweden. And also do the same comparison broken out by US State, keeping in mind that a full 1/3rd of US covid deaths were nursing home patients deliberately murdered by state governors forcing them to accept covid patients... and then cooking the books to hide their actions afterwards.
If your hypothesis is true then Sweden should have suffered catastrophically worse death rates than Germany and Canada.
Oh and don't forget also that the US counts all deaths with covid as death
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I'm not convinced.
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In regards to the motorcycle accident. https://wpde.com/news/nation-w... [wpde.com]
Dr. Pino tells FOX 35 that one "could actually argue that it could have been the COVID-19 that caused him to crash."
Your gang knife fight gave me a good chuckle. Are the Sharks and Socs having a rumble? Or was it the Sharks and Greasers?
Re: Then... what? (Score:5, Insightful)
After some time, this led to the question of "died *from* covid, versus "died *with* covid", at which point the data was so muddled that the issue became a point of political debate.
When the total number of deaths per week is up _____30-40%_____ year over year for a month, not once, not because of lockdown measures or stress induced by mask wearing, but in waves. Waves exactly fitting each wave of COVID infections. And you see it everywhere, every US state, fitting that state's infection rates, or more broadly, the waves. They were in the news... we lived it.
There is literally no reason for you to believe the method of counting categories matters, it's clear as sunny day in the totals. It's only muddled and debated if you live in a right-wing echo chamber. This isn't some long term complex climate data you can what if and confuse, it's impossible for you to explain any other way. It's not .03% over twenty years, it's +40% for weeks, in fucking waves. Red states, blue states, you pick if you don't trust the NIH. Go pull Canada's data, anywhere. I'm sick of this shit man, get over it, your gut was wrong, you were lied to. Get out of the echo chamber please.
This chart is soooooooooo simple to comprehend, PLEASE look at it.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/... [cdc.gov]
"Corruption" ... dude, please. Pull Florida's numbers. Texas, I don't care, they don't count extra damned bodies. Their shockingly high death rate increases were not from the stress of lockdown measures in FL, or TX, please.
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When the total number of deaths per week is up _____30-40%_____ year over year for a month, not once, not because of lockdown measures or stress induced by mask wearing, but in waves. Waves exactly fitting each wave of COVID infections. And you see it everywhere, every US state, fitting that state's infection rates, or more broadly, the waves. They were in the news... we lived it.
No one here as I understand it is arguing covid didn't cause deaths. Later in the pandemic (Post omicron dominance) statistical data the media had been scaring us with grew increasingly problematic as incidents of hospitalization with incidental covid diagnosis exceeded hospitalizations with covid.
The with/from distinctions grew more important and increasingly a political issue as the pandemic progressed and previously acquired immunity coupled with inherently less pathogenic variants resulted in signals b
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No one here as I understand it is arguing covid didn't cause deaths.
They are arguing something just as dumb, that ignoring covid wouldn't have caused more deaths.
Post pandemic there remained a persistent unexplained statistically significant increase in excess deaths across most of the industrialized world not attributable to covid.
Why do you think they are not attributable to covid? It's well known that covid can cause long term health problems which can increase the risk of premature death.
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Why do you think they are not attributable to covid?
It's statisticians who compile this data that are disambiguating between covid and non-covid deaths.
It's well known that covid can cause long term health problems which can increase the risk of premature death.
There are many plausible explanations. I'm sure most of us could rattle off a dozen or so of our favorite plausible theories - any number of which could be contributory. There is very little data with which to draw conclusions of objective merit at this time.
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You've shown the /same/ plot that ToasterMonkey did. What in the world are you claiming "didn't happen"?
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Those stories are most likely misunderstandings.
You have COVID and die during that period, you get reported as "died WITH COVID"
You die by causes clearly caused by COVID, you get reported as "died by COVID"
Both numbers are counted seperately.
It is hard to believe that a coroner or a doctor in a hospital has any incentive to mix the cases up or mix them together. But there was many false press about this were people claim what you claim. Does not mean you are wrong, my point is that journalists keep mixing t
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After some time, this led to the question of "died *from* covid, versus "died *with* covid", at which point the data was so muddled that the issue became a point of political debate.
I completely agree. The lack of a single standard and the ridiculous nature of some of the criteria being used was indeed a completely avoidable self own that did nothing but unnecessarily erode public trust.
In hindsight the use of excess death criteria used to justify some of the more egregious classifications didn't age well at all given persistence of substantial statistically significant increases in excess deaths post pandemic.
Re: Then... what? (Score:2)
Re:Because... (Score:4, Informative)
The problem is that you are listening to DeSantis, a fucking liar
Snopes: [snopes.com]
Contrary to what DeSantis stated, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance doesn't direct caregivers to list all deaths as COVID-19 deaths simply because the disease was detected in the decedent. Instead, it instructs caregivers to list various factors contributing to death in appropriate sections of death certificates. In other words, it does not state that anyone who suffers an unnatural death such as a traffic accident should be listed as a COVID-19-caused death if they also happen to test positive, even if the disease didn't cause to their death.
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Gary Gary Gary... so busy you whooshed the point!
No one here at all ever said the CDC told hospitals to lie about Covid deaths.
They did however have incentive to do so because they got federal money for every Covid death and nothing extra for a notCovid death and we know doctors are magically pure people immune to corruption and would never tell an easy lie that won't ever be double checked to get some easy cash for their budget.
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is that why medical personel, nurses and doctors, were freaked out? To make the theater more believable?
Was this worldwide theatrical act improptu, or coordinated? I ask because it was the same in other countries, too.
If this was some kind of conspiracy, where not *one* hospital came up and said "Here at Saint SuchAndSuch Hospital, we're as baffled as you are, as to why all the other hospitals are so freaked out. It's the same as always, more or less, over here." , we're talking about hive-mind levels of co
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So one out of 300 US Americans died of COVID.
Umm... you DO know that this is about on par (per capita) with the death toll of US soldiers in WW2, yes?
Re:Because... (Score:5, Interesting)
They did. Obviously the usual morons (like you) are deep in denial. Anybody that today still does not understand what vaccines do and why they are a reason the world is much safer is a cave-man, no excuses. Incidentally, the source of the anti-vax idiot movement was not anti-vaxx at all. They completely misunderstood what was claimed and then they missed that the claim was fraud intended to push people towards a different (!) vaccine manufacturer. It really does not get more stupid than to be anti-vaxx.
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So you're saying Trump using Twitter as his main publication platform when he was president was kinda-sorta-illegal or what is your angle?
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Are you for net neutrality? If you aren't, then should ISPs be considered publishers if they throttle or make you pay extra to visit certain sites?
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They should be under no protection from section 230.
You forgot to explain why you believe that.
Is it because you actually don't know, and this is just what comes out when someone pulls your string?
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You really should read this. https://www.eff.org/issues/cda... [eff.org]
Re:YouTube is being spiteful about one thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe relying on "the cloud" to be your backup isn't a good idea.
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Backups? We don't need no stinkin backups, it's in the cloud!
Re:YouTube is being spiteful about one thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Typical rightwingers, always wanting free handouts.
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Private companies have no obligation to be anyone's free hosting service.
There is substantial broad precedent for imposing limitations on what private companies are allowed to do in exchange for the right to offer products and services to the public across a number of dimensions.
Typical rightwingers, always wanting free handouts.
What if a private company decided to discriminate in ways you disagreed with or found objectionable? What if YouTube was run by an anti-vaxxer and deleted all pro-vaxx content would your beliefs change?
Personally I believe if you bill yourself as public square and have a dominate market position the gov
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What if YouTube was run by an anti-vaxxer
Then I wouldn't use it. Wow, that was easy. You guys love to talk about free association, but you hate to see it.
Personally I believe if you bill yourself as public square and have a dominate market position the government should have a role in protecting the free speech interests of those inhabiting the square.
Youtube bills itself as a video hosting site which is part of Google, which bills itself as a publicly traded corporation whose purpose is to make money. You're just typically confused.
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Then I wouldn't use it. Wow, that was easy. You guys love to talk about free association, but you hate to see it.
Whether or not you would personally use it is irrelevant to the issue at hand and who is "you guys"?
Youtube bills itself as a video hosting site which is part of Google, which bills itself as a publicly traded corporation whose purpose is to make money. You're just typically confused.
Demonstrably false.
https://about.youtube/ [about.youtube]
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Typical anti free market rightwinger wanting handouts and rights to other's property.
It's all fun and games until typical anti free market leftwinger demand tiny mom-and-pop businesses bake cakes and provide services against their will.
Let the market decide. Someone would set up an alternative if there was market demand. All the attempts so far at reality denying right wing sites have not done well in the free market.
What part of "have a dominate market position" did you not understand? It would be nice if there was a vibrant functioning market but right now if you are not on YouTube you might as well not exist because nobody will see you given YouTube has well over 95% of the market. Free markets only work when there is a functioning marketplace. When there is not the
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Love people accusing me of being right wing when the truth is I strongly dislike both parties
What does right or left wing have to do with "both parties"? I'm sorry, when did Republicans and Democrats become the representative of the right or the left?
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What does right or left wing have to do with "both parties"? I'm sorry, when did Republicans and Democrats become the representative of the right or the left?
Going further what does left or right even mean? These are merely gross fictional caricatures whose interpretations are subject to the whims and sensibilities of the time.
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leftwinger demand tiny mom-and-pop businesses bake cakes and provide services against their will.
Don't deflect. Unlike with the cakes, Mercola isn't paying Youtube anything. So why does Youtube have to be forced to host his content FOR FREE?
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Don't deflect. Unlike with the cakes, Mercola isn't paying Youtube anything. So why does Youtube have to be forced to host his content FOR FREE?
What do you believe is the relevance of payment to the issue at hand? If YouTube had charged for a service and still included a clause "we can kick your ass to the curb whenever it suited us" would there be any difference? If one of the banned you-tubers had been paying would they have any more or less rights?
Come to think of it I don't pay any fees on any of my bank accounts. Is this a legal trap of some kind? Should I be concerned? What do you believe is the relevance of payment?
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It's all fun and games until typical anti free market leftwinger demand tiny mom-and-pop businesses bake cakes and provide services against their will.
They didn't succeed and it was cheered on by the right, right up until they point where they weren't getting the service they wanted at which point there was an about face, but not of course a change in position. Oh no, that's not the right wing way. The about face was only for things that affect right wingers.
What part of "have a dominate market position" di
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It's all fun and games until typical anti free market leftwinger demand tiny mom-and-pop businesses bake cakes and provide services against their will.
"It's all fun and games until typical leftwinger demand tiny mom-and-pop businesses dont discriminate against minorities."
There, fixed that for you. You're welcome.
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If he actually put the only copy of his works up on Youtube and thought, "This will last forever!", then he's a fool.
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It's quite possible he does not have a backup of it.
And his negligence is Youtube's fault in what way exactly?
How many of us have backups of all the (sometimes quite good) posts we made on Slashdot over the years.
Why make a backup of something that I can recreate faster than I could find and restore it from a backup?
I mean, if his videos are the same, well, ok, I haven't seen them, but I know some of those cellphone TikTok videos... yeah, I could see how creating them anew is faster than trying to dig them out of ancient backups...
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But give the creator one chance to download the thousands of hours od content he created over the years
You mean force them to work for him? Your kind loves that sort of thing.
- some potentially useful.
No, absolutely none of it is useful, as he's a quack.
It's quite possible he does not have a backup of it.
Good. It should be lost forever. We already knew the man was an idiot and a sleaze, if he didn't store those videos anywhere else he's an idiot of formerly unwitnessed proportions and he deserves to lose them even more.
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Please let me now the deaths related to belief in Big Foot, Aliens and Flat Earth
Here are the instances of Anti-Vaxers dying from covid, who would probably be lying about it today, if they were alive
Notable instances [wikipedia.org]
In August 2021, a number of conservative talk radio hosts who had discouraged COVID-19 vaccination, or expressed skepticism toward the COVID-19 vaccine, died from COVID-19 complications.These included 65-year-old Marc Bernier, self-nicknamed "Mr. Antivax", from Daytona, Florida; 65-year-old Dick
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Here are the instances of Anti-Vaxers dying from covid, who would probably be lying about it today, if they were alive
I would hope everyone would reject this line of anecdotal nonsense. When you normalize its invocation don't be surprised when someone compiles a list of pro-vaccine people who died of covid anyway or a list of athletes who died of heart problems shortly after vaccination.
No matter if you are using the device to justify something that happens to be true or happens to be false it is equally fallacious.
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Sure. Here [ourworldindata.org] you go.
Took me a total of 45 seconds to find. If you wanted to know, you could. But you just don't want to. You prefer living, and probably dying, in your pre-set fantasy world.
Not saying you shouldn't. Just belittling you, not trying to educate you, don't worry.
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Maybe, and hear me out, and if you're capable of doing so, ponder this: Because the first three don't threaten innocent people, only the idiots who believe that hogwash.
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Oh joy, who gets to rate? Because anything rooted in reality will be called "libtard nonsense" by the qanon dimwits and "alt-right hogwash" by the woke crowd.
Ever noticed how everyone, no matter how far off the deep end they may be, considers themselves a "moderate"?