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YouTube under no obligation to host anti-vaccine advocate’s videos, court says::YouTube had the discretion to take down content that harmed users, judge said.
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Yeah, that’s the right decision here. I’m all for open forums but anti-vax stuff is likely against the terms of service (false medical advice from non-credentialed amateurs with a political agenda). YouTube is a publisher, there’s no such thing as an “open forum” as any such place would be quickly overrun with racists and fascists, etc. It’s simply a matter of how consistent and unimposing the rules for removal can be (like Lemmy) vs arbitrary removal for a political agenda (like a news station). And any effective rules set would remove anti-vax content.
Removed by mod
I don’t see how youtube or any private platform should have any obligation to host any kind of content legally.
The problem with free speech is that if you want to have it you have to give it to everyone. Even the morons. And my god are the morons vocal, closed minded and opinionated.
If you leave the videos up, it spreads misinformation. If you take them down, the morons cry censorship and spawn conspiracy theories gaining possibly even more traction. I personally think everyone is entitled to their opinion and should be able to speak freely, but the truth should drown out the lies.
While I don’t disagree with the decision, I do think big tech companies are getting to have their cake and eat it too. They can simultaneously decline to host content, while also not being responsible for the content they do host.
At the very least, I would like them to be responsible for content that was reported by users, reviewed by the company’s employees/contractors, and then allowed to stay up.
Good. Antivaxxers are a shitplague.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
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.
Over time, Mercola amassed 300,000 subscribers to a YouTube channel that “garnered 50 million views” by boosting professionally made videos that linked to his website, “which promotes natural health and provides health articles, optimal wellness products, medical news, and a free newsletter.”
Mercola claimed that he first became aware that YouTube was planning to ban his channel when The Washington Post published an article about it.
In his complaint, he said that within six minutes of the Post’s article publishing, he got a message that his channels were banned, effective immediately, for violating YouTube’s new policy on vaccine misinformation.
Beeler rejected all these arguments, agreeing with YouTube that there was no breach of contract, no damages should be awarded, and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act barred Mercola’s claims.
Commenting on Mercola’s case, legal expert Eric Goldman wrote: “Lawsuits over content removals never succeed.”
The original article contains 676 words, the summary contains 172 words. Saved 75%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
They’ll keep doing it though. Maybe not with this one creator, for the sake of proving that they get final say whenever they want, but all the other anti-vax content will stay up, because it’s profitable.
