Translation: "We find promoting terrorism really profitable, please don't make us stop."
@ocdtrekkie I, for one, am thrilled at the prospect of replacing YouTube's authority to choose what ads to display and what ads to accept on the network with... *checks notes*... The government's authority.
(No seriously though, TV did fine under the FCC most of the time and this'd probably be an improvement. It will give First Amendment absolutists heartburn though).
@mtomczak I understand mistrusting the government, which has a lot of dysfunctional and corrupt elements, despite being conceptually accountable to the public. What baffles me is how many people prefer to trust corporations which never had any need for accountability and responsibility in the first place, and are run solely to make billionaires more money.
@ocdtrekkie Trusting corporations to make independent Freedom of the Press-type decisions is a lot closer to the intent if the First Amendment than trusting the government to make them. In this context, I can see the preference.
@ocdtrekkie Nothing in the phrase "freedom of the press" implies it's either or neither. "Poor Richard's Almanack" was created to promote Franklin's printing business ("Field of Advertising," 1918).
We give the government a very big stick when we give them the authority to constrain speech based on its intent. And while that is certainly a stick we hand the government from time to time for very specific purposes (restrictions against incitement to violence, for example)... How comfortable do we feel giving the government the authority to suppress advocacy because they classify it as "advertising?"
@mtomczak Bear in mind this exact stick is about promoting terrorism, or incitement of violence. ;)
@ocdtrekkie Generally imminent incitement. Someone watching a YouTube video and then 2 years later committing a terrorist act doesn't pass that bar.
@ocdtrekkie ... More importantly, the SCOTUS review *isn't* about that. Cert has been granted on the broader question of whether S230 protection encompasses recommendation algorithms or merely the authority to allow or reject third-party content.
(TBH, constraining that might be practically fine... There is a simple way to comply with the new legal ecosystem if recommendation algorithms aren't protected, which is to remove all recommendation boxes. On the other hand, if the boxes are valuable, the easiest way to comply is to reject all possibly-objectionable content, which is likely to have the opposite effect to the one many S230 critics might desire).
@mtomczak The journalistic press and paid promotional activities probably should not enjoy the same legal categorization.