Another thought I had is what if he was still writing it?

Very surprising. I have the same car and drive mostly on electricity from a trickle charger. I hate gasoline so I probably wouldn’t switch even if it was more expensive, especially since I only drive about once a week, but still. My garage is extra cold too due to my heat pump water heater, so that could make things worse.

Yeah discoverability is a huge issue. I feel like tech people often get stuck on the fact that most regular people don’t want to do a ton of work to browse the web, they just want content to come to them. I know people in the fediverse have negative feelings about algorithms (and most that exist today are harmful) but does a transparent, community-managed algorithm have to be a bad thing?

Seems like a lot of people prefer bluesky for whatever reason. I wouldn’t know since I’ve no interest in either.

The issue there is that admins are also overworked volunteers, so they have little incentive to step in an anger their mods who they depend on to manage local communities.

I’m not saying anyone involved here is a bad person, just that the system as it currently works creates bad outcomes. I’m not totally sure what would be better but I’d like to see more experimentation on this topic.

!pleasantpolitics@slrpnk.net has a limited form of automated moderation. I don’t think this particular method will solve the problem but I’d like to see more similar experiments.

I looked at the modlog and while OP seems snarky, sarcastic, and opinionated, their bans seem pretty unnecessary by my standards. The stated reasons seem fairly dubious, more mod finds your opinion disagreeable than any rule-breaking.

Moderation on Lemmy is a shit show honestly.

If you need some hairy male nipples to show off then let me know, I’ll contribute to the cause 😂

I was wondering but I guess I don’t understand why say it that way instead of the other way around.

Why ban male nipples? Fuck that all nipples should be allowed.

Is the behavior of one of the biggest tech companies in the world not relevant to technology? That seems a strange view to me.

Kinda cool. To be honest I’m mostly posting this to test it.

Edit: It works!

Is that how this technology works? I’m not the most knowledgeable about tech stuff honestly (at least by Lemmy standards).

Pirating isn’t stealing but yes the collective works of humanity should belong to humanity, not some slimy cabal of venture capitalists.

I think a big part of it is trauma from trump and his enablers. Honestly, a few years ago my sentiments might have been more similar to the people criticizing me but more thought made me realize how dangerous it is to leave this power in a small number of unaccountable people.

I agree, I was overly broad with this comment. But I think that even community management needs to be constrained from interfering with human expression when there is no harm being done. And non-sexual nudity is clearly not harmful.

I guess I need to say this again: I’m talking about the way things should work, not how they do currently. Sure, it’s totally legal for private companies to ban any content they want to. And in some societies, the king can legally murder people. The legality of those situations is not synonymous with their morality.

If you are arguing that legally, YouTube is permitted to remove this content, you’ve misunderstood what this thread is about. If you’re arguing they should be allowed to do this, then please focus your statements on that topic.

By the way, I think private malls are also pretty questionable. Community space should be managed by the community, and it should be managed with respect for individual freedoms. But this is not really a comparable situation unless there was a mall that hosted a huge proportion of the products being sold. Exclusion from this mall, even if there are minor alternatives, is not just a matter of personal preference. It’s harmful to be excluded if that’s where everyone is.

As far as rules in town squares: of course. But these rules are typically determined democratically and are limited so as to respect human freedom. That’s what I’m asking for in this case as well. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be rules at all.

I reject the premise that YouTube belongs to the executives or shareholders at Alphabet. It is a community platform at this point, and its management should reflect that.

If Alphabet happened to own an entire city I would also oppose their right to restrict expression there. Once a space, physical or digital, comes to be used in certain ways, it should no longer anyone’s personal property.

I think these mega-platforms are way too different from an individual’s website to make that equivalence. The dominant social media companies are, as Elon Musk eloquently put it before shitting all over his own moral principles, more akin to a town square than a back yard. The fact that they are privately owned is a corruption resulting from our authoritarian legal structure—it doesn’t make them morally equivalent to a website I use and produce by myself.

YouTube is a place that tolerates almost any viewpoint or type of content. No one thinks that they actively support or endorse this content. In fact, US law explicitly exempts them from being responsible for it. If that’s the case, why should we grant them the authority to decide what should or shouldn’t be posted there?

Now, there is certainly content, in contrast to non-sexual nudity, that does direct harm, and I support the removal of such content. But either way, I don’t think YouTube deserves the unilateral authority to decide what that looks like. I’d much rather see it managed communally and democratically.

Frankly, I was mostly mouthing off here, not trying to voice deep moral reasoning but I appreciate your thoughtful reply. I’m actually not sure that fundamental human rights do exist—at least not in all circumstances. As you point out, they sometimes conflict and we need to adjudicate whose rights are more fundamental in a given situation.

You have a good point and I generally agree that there does exist a tension here. I think where it breaks down is when a platform becomes so large and dominant that there isn’t really any significant alternative. I think morally, this shifts my reasoning away from just a collection of individuals deciding what they want on their platform towards an almost state-like entity. And with that power dynamic I am much more skeptical of their unilateral authority to control what is or isn’t posted on their platform. Given the size and structure of YouTube, it makes more sense to think of it as space that belongs to and should be managed by the community and with respect for individual rights of expression. And I feel strongly that non-sexual nudity is not only not harmful, but that it is very harmful to repress, as we see in this specific example.

I’m not talking about the US constitution here. I’m saying it is a fundamental human right regardless of the law. What clothing to wear (or not) is part of that freedom.

Private companies should also not restrict fundamental freedoms. I’m aware they’re allowed to currently.