YouTube Disabled Comments On Livestreams Of A Congressional Hearing On White Nationalism Because They Were Too Hateful (buzzfeednews.com)

Tuesday's hearing was meant to examine the rise of white nationalism and white supremacy and the role social media plays in its spread. Then the comments got hijacked. From a report: YouTube moderators disabled comments on livestreams of the House Judiciary Committee's hearing about hate crimes the rise of white nationalism on Tuesday, deeming them too hateful for the platform. The comment sections quickly flooded with hate speech and white nationalist memes before the hearing had even started. The comments included derogatory remarks about women on camera, anti-Semitic slurs, far-right memes with references to "white genocide," and pro-Trump slogans. The channels' comments sections were deactivated within an hour. [...] YouTube's disabling of comments is ironic: House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat from New York, made special reference in his opening statement of the role social media platforms play in spreading hate speech and extremism in his opening statement.

Comments

There is only one kind of speech in America

[Anonymous Coward]

Free Speech. Guaranteed by the first (foremost) amendment to the supreme law of the land.

Anyone who would knowingly abridge it is an enemy of the United States of America.

Period. Full Stop.

Re:There is only one kind of speech in America

[Freischutz]

Free Speech. Guaranteed by the first (foremost) amendment to the supreme law of the land.

Anyone who would knowingly abridge it is an enemy of the United States of America.

Period. Full Stop.

You can exercise your free speech as much as you want and you can use the 1st amendment to spew as much racist hate as you want but I reserve the right to forbid you from doing that on my lawn and I will make use of the rights guaranteed to me under the second amendment to persuade you to comply if you refuse. Be glad that Google is a lot more diplomatic about shutting up hate spewing racist dummies than I am.

Re: There is only one kind of speech in America

[MightyMartian]

The ruling on Trump's twitter account was that he couldn't block it for certain people. Different argument. Comment forums, like newspaper editorial sections, have every right to not publish or edit any commentary letter. This is nothing new. If you don't like Youtube's rules, build your own forum, or, what the heck, use one of those nice accommodating ones like Stormfront.

Trump's latest government deform: #DWHS

[shanen]

I have a new theory for what's going on now. Among other real-world effects, it explains such extremist reactions on YouTube.

Actually it's not really Trump's idea, but must be coming from Stephen Miller and his associates. Trump is just the puppet. Again.

The Department of Homeland Security is under reconstruction.

Coming soon: The Department of WHITE Homeland Security. #DWHS

Don't think of it as the largest piece of the federal government running amok.

It's just color coordination. White House and White Homeland.

Not sure who coined the term "slow-moving coup". Perhaps Bill Maher? But they are shifting out of first gear now. I'm even beginning to think Trumpism has some of the potential of Stalinism. Depends on the depth of the purge. If the Trumpists start purging the "weaklings" among themselves, that would be an exceedingly bad sign. (I had to wrestle with that "If" for a while...)

Not likely as True wins over minorities

[SuperKendall]

Not sure why Trump would do anything like that with his approval numbers among minorities increasing steadily.

After a few years most minorities have started to realize that living is prosperity is far better than living on a Democratic plantation being mined for votes...

You want bitter white nationalism, look no further than the majority of Democrat presidential candidates. If Hillary had won for sure we'd see a DWHS, not a surprise from an elderly southern white woman.

Re:Oversight

[MightyMartian]

Google doesn't control the government so far as I know, so no, the point is not invalidated. Google is not bound by the First Amendment. It is not a branch of the government. It has no obligation to carry every message that someone attempts to post to its comments, any more than a newspaper has any obligation to publish every letter to the editor.

White Nationalists are picked on because they're idiotic and racist thugs. Like all pariahs, they will suffer considerable social censure. The Founding Fathers had no intention of protecting vile people from their neighbors' disapproval. The First Amendment is about not having the State interfere in their right to spew. The First Amendment does not apply to private corporations, no matter how cleverly (or in your case, how awkwardly) you try to reframe the statement.

Re:Why this one video

[drakaan]

...I would guess it's more a case of far too many accurate comments and questions...

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Seriously, I hope you were aiming for either +5 Funny or +5 Troll

Re:Yeah no fan of that

[AmiMoJo]

It depends how you slice it. In the West white guys are the biggest source of terrorism at the moment, always have been. This is especially true in the US. If you designate Islamic State as terrorists and consider everything they do as terrorism, you can make them the worst.

Who are these Marxists committing all these terrorist acts? Are we talking historically, before the internet existed?

Citations:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://fullfact.org/crime/eth...
https://ourworldindata.org/ter...