Wow! Montana AG reads youtube the riot act, brilliantly.

The people who run Full30 already did.

YouTube exists because three regular guys created it. Google only bought it after it became popular. What is this enormous investment that came from taxpayer dollars you refer to? The internet itself? By that logic all internet speech is subject to government intrusion since the government invested in the backbone that carries it. Your argument about a functional monopoly doesn't hold water because there's no artificial force driving traffic to YouTube. YT became popular through natural competition, not artificial market manipulation. People were always free to visit whatever video sharing site they wanted and YT won that competition before Google ever started driving traffic to them.

Would you feel the same if the situation were reversed? What if the AG of some state was attempting to force them to air content you despise? Would you argue they have a duty to roll over and comply?

 

Never heard of Full 30. Proves my point.
Nope. The 2A is a right guaranteed in the constitution and is a fundamental freedom to ensure the integrity of the republic. There is a legitimate public purpose in requiring companies to treat that content in a reasonable fashion and I have no issue doing that.
Not all other content fits the above. So it would depend on the content. But no, I see no reason for this to be automatically granted to anything and everything.
"But that is not fair!", guess what, all kinds of laws and regulations in this country are not "fair" but they exist anyway. I don't care if its fair, I only care if it supports the 2A. The other side governs like this all the time, we need to learn to play the game.

 

Just because you've never heard of them doesn't mean anything. Just because you don't know a thing exists doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I'll bet there are all kinds of things that exist you don't know about.

What you're calling doublethink is just intellectual consistency. The ability to curate content is just a corollary of the First Amendment. Forcing a company to violate one Amendment at the expense of another isn't a sound policy.

 

No, it does mean something. It means that even someone who is very engaged with the internet, and into firearms has never heard of it. What that tells me is that no one but enthusiasts have heard of it.

There is a reason that YouTube is the majority of video content. There are ever growing synergies in size when it comes to social media networks. A site like Full 30 will never come close to reaching the same audience because it does not have the hundreds of billions of hours of other content that people are watching with a panel on the side to recommend them into similar interests. Only enthusiasts that search for it will ever find it. Oh, and if you forgot the #1 search engine owns YouTube, so at the flip of a switch Full 30 can disappear from all search results for 99% of people. But of course they are "not a monopoly", seriously, it stretches the bounds of incredulity to believe this line. "Monopoly is competition", Orwell would be proud.

If you want future generations to see 2A content, it needs to be on YouTube. Other sites are not going to reach critical mass and in 30 years those kids will vote your 2A rights away.

Its not "intellectual consistency", its a weak form of idealpolitik that foolishly thinks you need to treat everything and everyone the same while your adversaries shrewdly play you like a harp. No thanks.
The supreme court at one time ruled that the 1A did not apply to visual media, I am perfectly happy to state that it does not apply to YouTube. Problem solved.
Sound policy is whatever accomplishes the desired goals. Welcome to realpolitik.

 

Well, this thread went downhill fast.

Sometimes people -- even elected officials -- actually say things they believe.

I'll give 'em the benefit of the doubt until/unless it's clear the words were lies or simply stated to further an agenda that may not be in line with how we think...

Doesn't really need saying, but it's clear that we RKBA supporters are a suspicious lot. Still, some of us seem to way overthink everything. Sometimes if a critter quacks or walks funny, it really is a duck...

 

The people who run who?

More like a foolish consistency. Emerson said something about that.

 

I am so shocked this thread is still alive, just had to get that out there.

 

Realpolitik LOL.

Good luck forcing YT to carry 2A videos. Maybe you can force them to monetize them next.

What a feeble appeal to authority.

 

Lol. And with a Mod commenting on politics too....

But just to be clear ive shot with national competitors and get many magazines on guns....never heard of full30 either. I will check it out now, but never heard of it..

Meanwhile YouTube comes pre-installed on most every phone and is bumped to the top of any search engine. This very site has hundreds upon hundreds of links to YouTube. How many to the others?

 

This thread has done a good job of reconfirming something I've known for a while now. A lot of ostensibly conservative people are perfectly OK with an intrusive and overreaching government so long as that overreach is directed toward someone else and to their perceived benefit.

 

Try Rumble as well.

They have a few things on there that you don't find any place else. I don't want to ruin the thread so I will PM them to you.

 

That is because you are conflating conservative with what might be termed "classically liberal." Both generally support the 2A, but are philosophically pretty far apart. "Government overreach" is going to be far more concerning to classical liberals than conservatives.

 

I believe Rumble also does not censor firearms-related videos.

 

YT does carry Colion Noir, Guns & Gadgets, Langley Outdoors, and other gun sites.

 

I know. But apparently those aren’t the correct 2A videos.

 

You have no right for a private entity to amplify your speech. The First Amendment limits the government’s ability to censor you. It does not extend to a video hosting site.

Forcing people to do things against their will isn’t a pro-freedom position. The politicians who wanted those videos taken down were wrong, but the one who raised a fuss about it is also wrong. If YouTube can be forced to air videos they object to then why can’t Masterpiece Cake Shop be forced to bake cakes it objects to? Sauce for the gander…

 

It will probably turn out to be nothing more than what my uncle would call the fearsome roar of a paper tiger.

 

1. I see plenty of firearm content on You Tube some good, some very bad. Plenty of political stuff too.
2. As far as liability private property rights go if someone slips on your sidewalk and breaks their leg, they can sue you. Youtube is a company just like Walmart, they have a loss control department and they have to evaluate the risk tolerance level that fits their business plan and act accordingly. Yes you can get sued:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...kout-challenge-deaths-tiktok-sued/7829976001/

 

We already know this has happened. Even former Twitter executives have confirmed such in recent interviews.

 

I watch firearms content on YT. Recently, Taofladermaus was “demonetized “ by YT for some made up violation. This channel is about as inoffensive as can be, focusing on trying out weird designs for shotgun slugs, and filming the results in slow motion. So slow, that you can see the slug flying slowly through the air.

 

While Google is a private corporation, they're not necessarily free to act however they wish in many matters. There are innumerable laws on a variety of issues which restrict all kinds of business activities.

For example, a private individual can found a private corporation and buy up lots of other businesses in the process. Happens all the time. However, there are anti-trust laws out there which were specifically enacted to place some limitations on this.

The First and Second Amendments are specific proscriptions on the GOVERNMENT for the various rights described therein, true. However, there is no reason why the government cannot step in and place restrictions on private entities on such matters, as well. The FCC, however, DOES place limitations on broadcasters on a variety of topics. These topics include indecency, obscenity, sponsorship identification, how on-air contests are conducted, hoaxes, commercial content during children's TV programming, broadcast news distortion, and more.

The problem with various social media sites is that some have not only grown to huge proportions, they've also blurred, and even outright crossed, the line between "social media", "news", "entertainment", and more. This is part of the reason why the Zuckerberg Inquisition happened in Congress.

And if people still think that "privage business can do what they want" in this matter, I'd like to point out something that made my ears perk up during the Zuckerberg Inquisition, namely when a congressperson (can't remember who) plainly told Zuckerberg "IF YOU DON'T FIX THIS, WE WILL." (Caps mine for emphasis.)

If people think that didn't catch the attention of every major social media organization out there, they've got another thing coming. That was a DIRECT THREAT coming from the UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT to a HUGE social media site that "you will toe the line or we will MAKE you toe the line".

Don't think that's a threat that endangers the First Amendment? "Naive" is an apt descriptor, then.

Because if a private organization is acting to censure what people post on social media websites based on government threats, I submit that it very much IS a First Amendment issue. The private organizations are in effect acting as government agents.

And when it can be clearly demonstrated that censuring of media postings has a direct, and very significant, impact on political elections? Oh, H*LLS yes it's a First Amendment issue.


Well, what about the Second Amendment? How is what private businesses do a threat to that, since the Second Amendment is a proscription against the GOVERNMENT and not private entities?

I'm glad you ask.

How about threats to force credit card companies to assign merchant codes to all firearms and firearms related purchases? What's the purpose of this? Well, for one, the GOVERNMENT isn't allowed to maintain a firearms registry (let's not discuss whether one actually exists or not in this thread). However, if they can get private entities to do this FOR them, what's the difference? Are the credit card companies not then acting as agents of the government?


The fact is that business, BIG BUSINESS ESPECIALLY, has a deeply vested interest in government manipulation, for much the SAME reasons that the government itself exists in the first place: the accumulation of power (very closely tied to money...because power means wealth means power).

These matters CANNOT just be ignored "because the First Amendment only applies to the government".