Spotify signs ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’ to an exclusive multi-year deal(techcrunch.com)
techcrunch.com
Spotify signs ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’ to an exclusive multi-year deal
https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/19/spotify-signs-the-joe-rogan-experience-to-an-exclusive-multi-year-deal/
764 comments
Regarding point 1, the article has been updated to reflect that Spotify is holding Rogan to their content policy. This content policy prohibits "Hate Content" [1]. By any mainstream definition that would include Alex Jones and potentially other guests. Some people would even say that applies to Rogan himself for his comments about transgender people. Unless Rogan makes changes to his show or his booking, it is only a matter of time until this becomes a big issue for him and Spotify.
[1] - https://artists.spotify.com/faq/music#what-content-is-prohib...
[1] - https://artists.spotify.com/faq/music#what-content-is-prohib...
> By any mainstream definition...
Rogan has millions of downloads month and had at least one presidential candidate appear for an interview. Joe is one of the people who sets the mainstream definition.
Rogan has millions of downloads month and had at least one presidential candidate appear for an interview. Joe is one of the people who sets the mainstream definition.
Joe Rogan doesn't move culture by himself. It doesn't matter how many presidential candidates he talks to, he has had multiple guests on his show that have already been kicked off mainstream platforms like Twitter, Youtube, and Facebook. I guarantee there will be controversy for Spotify if Rogan continues to have on this type of guest in the future.
There will surely be controversy for Spotify now, given that Rogan has had such guests in the past. I could be overly optimistic, but I would guess that means that people at Spotify have considered the issue and decided they're okay with it.
(And I'm sure you know this, but I think we should be explicit about it in this context: Joe Rogan is extraordinarily popular, with JRE being one of the most followed podcasts in the country. He's not some niche voice that Spotify could have failed to do due diligence on or silence without expecting blowback.)
(And I'm sure you know this, but I think we should be explicit about it in this context: Joe Rogan is extraordinarily popular, with JRE being one of the most followed podcasts in the country. He's not some niche voice that Spotify could have failed to do due diligence on or silence without expecting blowback.)
Nonsense. Nobody cares about the fact that he is willing to have a conversation with just about anyone, except the whiny cancel culture twitter mob.
We need more conversations with people we don’t (think we) like.
We need more conversations with people we don’t (think we) like.
His conversations are like empty calories. No substance. No hard questions. 100% ego stroking. His podcast is basically an advertorial. It’s painful to watch.
I disagree. I've watched most of them and have learned a lot over the years, both from the high-profile experts sharing their knowledge on topics I would never otherwise think about to the BS conversations with friends.
Rogan is also not an interviewer and explicitly does not approach the podcast as an interview (outside of special guests). The free uninterrupted conversation is what gets the best out of people.
Rogan is also not an interviewer and explicitly does not approach the podcast as an interview (outside of special guests). The free uninterrupted conversation is what gets the best out of people.
His podcast is about getting to know the guests, it is not meant to be an adversarial interview.
Hard questions are how you get to know someone.
There many ways to do that, the format Rogan chose is to try and let each guest feel at ease and let them properly explain their stances. Rogan's role is then to play the audience role in the conversation, asking question/clarifications.
What rogan usually does not do for example is to bring up controversies about his guests.
What rogan usually does not do for example is to bring up controversies about his guests.
Letting them talk for hours also works.
And what of it? JRE has routinely had both sides of debates on -- equal opportunity ego stroking.
Uhh... no. The reality is YouTube, Twitter and Facebook's censorship do not actually line up with mainstream. People _know_ Alex Jokes is mental, but they still want to hear him talk.
>The poll showed 61 percent of registered voters surveyed believed Jones, who spreads unfounded conspiracy theories through his radio show Infowars, should be banned from the sites of tech companies
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/403772-majority-of-americ...
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/403772-majority-of-americ...
if they try and control who he can have on and what they talk about, i hope rogan gives them a good 'fuck you!'
Alex Jones has been on JRE multiple times in the past. Will he be allowed to return under the Spotify banner?
No reasonable person would accuse Joe Rogan of "Hate Content". He disagreed with an actual instance of a recently transitioned transgender woman fighting women in MMA. This is the definition of pragmatic. That person can fight men or not fight. This is not discrimination, it is protecting fighters as much as possible in a brutal and extreme sport.
mattcaldwell(1)
I listen to Rogans podcast all the time , when has he ever made hate comments about transgender people ???? No way I'd have missed him saying something hateful about anyone period, let alone transgenders
He explicitly referred to Fallon Fox, saying "You are a fucking man." Not a very tactful way to speak about a transgender woman. And yes, that's transphobic speech.
He said that in the context of the physicality of someone who was fully grown, recently transitioned and was actually brutalizing women in MMA fights.
So? "you are a fucking man" isn't some dispassionate analysis of how to develop a rule system that works for both trans and cis athletes. Just because the context isn't inherently transphobic doesn't mean that he gets a free pass.
He doesn't need a "free pass". The context and what he was saying was crystal clear and has nothing to do with disrespecting someone who is transgender.
This person was able to brutalize women because of attitudes like yours, where you are too afraid of using the incorrect pronoun even in the context of making a point about dangerous differences in physicality.
This person beat a woman until her skull cracked and you are hung up on someone saying she has the physiology of a man. What do you think sets the acceptance of transgender people back more?
This person was able to brutalize women because of attitudes like yours, where you are too afraid of using the incorrect pronoun even in the context of making a point about dangerous differences in physicality.
This person beat a woman until her skull cracked and you are hung up on someone saying she has the physiology of a man. What do you think sets the acceptance of transgender people back more?
That's why should verbally slap him around a bit, preventatively, just in case? Because as you admitted "the context isn't inherently transphobic".
UncleMeat(1)
He was probably using the word "man" in reference to Fox's biological sex rather than gender identity.
[deleted]
I agree not very tactful. But also not enough to be 'cancelled' over.
Why does he have to abide by your personal ultra-conservative moral compass as to what is deemed "appropriate" or "not tactful enough"?
[deleted]
Most people agree with Rogan that transgender women who have only recently started on female hormones should not hide that status from biologically female opponents in mixed martial arts. It isn't feminist for women's bodies to be brutalized by men's bodies.
> It isn't feminist for women's bodies to be brutalized by men's bodies.
If you broach the topic in this way—jumping straight to an inflammatory statement on one of the most divisive of all topics—you're guaranteeing a flamewar. That's vandalism, nay, trolling. It breaks the site guidelines, damages this place badly, and you've done it more than once before. You also committed to us that you wouldn't to do it again. Would you please stick to that and not actually do it again?
Your comment would be fine, from a site guidelines point of view, without that last sentence.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
If you broach the topic in this way—jumping straight to an inflammatory statement on one of the most divisive of all topics—you're guaranteeing a flamewar. That's vandalism, nay, trolling. It breaks the site guidelines, damages this place badly, and you've done it more than once before. You also committed to us that you wouldn't to do it again. Would you please stick to that and not actually do it again?
Your comment would be fine, from a site guidelines point of view, without that last sentence.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I apologize. I thought that statement was inoffensive, but clearly I was wrong. I would edit it out if I could. Fortunately it seems not to have ignited the flamewar you anticipated, since none of the 36 replies other than your own have referenced it.
The main complaint seems to be that I didn't portray the full variety of statements that Rogan has made on this issue. I had listened to a recent podcast in which he claimed to make his definitive and comprehensive statement about this, but perhaps I shouldn't have taken his word for it.
I'll have to think about this more than I have.
The main complaint seems to be that I didn't portray the full variety of statements that Rogan has made on this issue. I had listened to a recent podcast in which he claimed to make his definitive and comprehensive statement about this, but perhaps I shouldn't have taken his word for it.
I'll have to think about this more than I have.
They don't have to reference it in order to react to it or otherwise be affected.
I appreciate your reply though.
I appreciate your reply though.
[deleted]
How is that even remotely inflammatory? It’s the truth.
Those two things are compatible. Why wouldn't they be? If you know some truth that others don't, you have more responsibility, not less, to express it in a way that isn't inflammatory. Otherwise you just end up discrediting the truth, because you give the people who don't know it an excellent reason to resist and reject what you're saying. (I don't mean you personally, of course. We all do it.) Previous comments on this: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....
See also my reply in the current thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23243538.
Btw, if you read those links and still feel like there's some question that hasn't been addressed, I'd love to know what it is. I'm beginning to feel like years' worth of moderation comments (the ones I keep linking to with HN search URLS) are converging into a set of building blocks that can be articulated relatively clearly.
See also my reply in the current thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23243538.
Btw, if you read those links and still feel like there's some question that hasn't been addressed, I'd love to know what it is. I'm beginning to feel like years' worth of moderation comments (the ones I keep linking to with HN search URLS) are converging into a set of building blocks that can be articulated relatively clearly.
[deleted]
[deleted]
[deleted]
Did you also know that the government add hydroxyl acid (a chemical commonly found in cancer cells and many vaccines) in the water supplies of many cities? Sometimes it is even illegally used to accelerate vegetable growth for our own food.
[deleted]
Facts are inflammatory!
People frequently bring this up with a triumphant tone, as if they have the point that trumps all points and they can't wait to blow its horn, certain that all opposition will crumble before them. I'm not sure what's going on there, since there's no logic in this. Is it magic imputed to the word "facts"? Or an inability to think beyond one step? If it made sense, you could win any argument by shouting "1+1=2!" over and over. It's a fact!
Go one step beyond that magic word to see that nothing follows from this. There are infinitely many facts. They don't choose themselves. Humans do that, and they do that for complicated reasons that have nothing to do with "facts" being transparently pure and true. Previous comments on this: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu....
Errors of logic aside, the GP comment was not "facts". The word "brutalize" is an interpretation, not a fact—and let's not get started on "feminism".
Go one step beyond that magic word to see that nothing follows from this. There are infinitely many facts. They don't choose themselves. Humans do that, and they do that for complicated reasons that have nothing to do with "facts" being transparently pure and true. Previous comments on this: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu....
Errors of logic aside, the GP comment was not "facts". The word "brutalize" is an interpretation, not a fact—and let's not get started on "feminism".
8 hour old account, with a one liner about "facts", and using the right wing "cuck" as a pejorative.
How the fuck is this comment flagged? This is not controversial at all. To think otherwise is truly absurd.
It is flagged as flamebait, not specifically controversial.
Flamebait is about tone and formulation, not necessarily facts
Flamebait is about tone and formulation, not necessarily facts
The risk has never been that Rogan is holding reprehensible views.
It's that those masquerading as progressive have a penchant for misconstruing in the most creative ways: https://twitter.com/sadydoyle/status/1220513471995031554
It's that those masquerading as progressive have a penchant for misconstruing in the most creative ways: https://twitter.com/sadydoyle/status/1220513471995031554
I mean, this isn't quite a misconstrual. The author of this tweet just comes from a bizarre subculture where "puberty blockers for kids" is not only good policy but self-evidently right. I'm sure it's legitimately challenging for her to understand what Rogan is saying - such a large inferential gap is hard to cross.
You are not giving the full extent of his comments on transgender people. He is against women who transitioned as adults from competing against other women. He is also against people taking steps as a child to make transitioning easier as an adult such as taking completely reversible hormone blockers to delay puberty until they are old enough to transition. So he leaves no possible path for a transgender woman to compete in sports. It seems like he wants transgender people out of sports completely.
In my opinion, the whole discussion of transgender people in sports is a proxy war for their role in society as a whole. Transgender people have been allowed to compete in the Olympics and most American sports (at least at the college level) for roughly a decade if not longer. It is still extremely rare for a transgender woman to dominate other woman in any of these sporting events. It just doesn't seem like a possibility worth focusing on when compared to the downside of further marginalizing the transgender community at large by singling them out for harsher treatment.
In my opinion, the whole discussion of transgender people in sports is a proxy war for their role in society as a whole. Transgender people have been allowed to compete in the Olympics and most American sports (at least at the college level) for roughly a decade if not longer. It is still extremely rare for a transgender woman to dominate other woman in any of these sporting events. It just doesn't seem like a possibility worth focusing on when compared to the downside of further marginalizing the transgender community at large by singling them out for harsher treatment.
People born as men who transition to women, and I fully support them, have unfair advantages against people born as women. Would you agree with that statement?
A better solution would be to allow a gender-agnostic bracket alongside women and men, where anyone can compete.
To people downvoting me: Please use the upvote/downvote as marking my contribution relevant or irrelevant, not to mark disagreement.
PS: I fully support trans people in all their rights, should go without saying but that is far from the default these days.
A better solution would be to allow a gender-agnostic bracket alongside women and men, where anyone can compete.
To people downvoting me: Please use the upvote/downvote as marking my contribution relevant or irrelevant, not to mark disagreement.
PS: I fully support trans people in all their rights, should go without saying but that is far from the default these days.
The part of that first statement that I question is the "unfair" part. Almost all world class athletes are born with a natural gift that most of us don't have. Most of those athletes need to train and hone that gift over decades to be truly elite, but that natural gift is still present. No matter how many hours I train playing basketball and no matter how long Lebron James goes without touching a basketball, I am never going to beat him in a game of one-on-one. Is that "unfair" or is that just how sports work? I don't see birth gender as any different than that.
That said, I think it is reasonable to put certain restrictions on transgender athletes such as rules regarding hormone treatments. I am just not an expert enough in the field to say exactly what those restrictions should be.
Also we generally do have gender-agnostic brackets in sports. What we call men's sports are generally gender-agnostic. People of any gender are free to compete in them. The question for transgender athletes is almost always whether than can compete in women's sports.
That said, I think it is reasonable to put certain restrictions on transgender athletes such as rules regarding hormone treatments. I am just not an expert enough in the field to say exactly what those restrictions should be.
Also we generally do have gender-agnostic brackets in sports. What we call men's sports are generally gender-agnostic. People of any gender are free to compete in them. The question for transgender athletes is almost always whether than can compete in women's sports.
If you were born an average American male and you trained your whole youth (and I mean really trained) to be the best basketball player you could be, you wouldn't ever beat Lebron James but you'd beat a lot of elite women basketball players. The physical gifts bestowed upon you by your mom would give you the advantage
We just don't have any evidence of that. Like I said in a previous post, we are in the second decade of this being allowed. Where are all the world class transgender athletes that are dominating men on a routine basis? People always point to the same 2 or 3 examples while acting like this is a widespread epidemic of men deciding to switch genders just to win athletic competitions. I don't think this is as big of a problem as people pretend it is.
EDIT: Please keep my post in context. When I say there is no evidence for that, I am not referring to a basic physiological difference between men and women. I am referring specifically to this: "If you were born an average American male and you trained your whole youth... you'd beat a lot of elite women basketball players." There is no basis for a statement like that.
EDIT: Please keep my post in context. When I say there is no evidence for that, I am not referring to a basic physiological difference between men and women. I am referring specifically to this: "If you were born an average American male and you trained your whole youth... you'd beat a lot of elite women basketball players." There is no basis for a statement like that.
In track and field the 800m race is my favorite race because it's every bit training and determination as it is natural ability.
Here are the results of the women's Olympic 800m championship in Rio in 2016: https://www.olympic.org/rio-2016/athletics/800m-women
Here are the results of the 2016 Texas UIL 5A high school boys 800m championship in 2016: https://tx.milesplit.com/meets/224994/results/451208/formatt...
If those boys had competed in the same race as the Olympic women -- women athletes who have the benefits of the best sports science in the world at their disposal -- the boys would have taken the top 4 spots and it wouldn't have been close.
At the class 1A level, which means high schools with enrollments of less than ~100 kids, the top boys runner in 2016 would have beat the womens olympic gold medal winner.
Here is the satellite view of the dirt track he trained on.
https://goo.gl/maps/azHysT8zDYgVJwim9
Here are the results of the women's Olympic 800m championship in Rio in 2016: https://www.olympic.org/rio-2016/athletics/800m-women
Here are the results of the 2016 Texas UIL 5A high school boys 800m championship in 2016: https://tx.milesplit.com/meets/224994/results/451208/formatt...
If those boys had competed in the same race as the Olympic women -- women athletes who have the benefits of the best sports science in the world at their disposal -- the boys would have taken the top 4 spots and it wouldn't have been close.
At the class 1A level, which means high schools with enrollments of less than ~100 kids, the top boys runner in 2016 would have beat the womens olympic gold medal winner.
Here is the satellite view of the dirt track he trained on.
https://goo.gl/maps/azHysT8zDYgVJwim9
In the women's 800m in Rio, the top 3 all had XY chromosomes and lived with high testosterone levels through puberty.
- Caster Semenya[1] (1st place). Here is an interview with her.[2]
- Francine Niyonsaba[3] (2nd place). Here is an interview with her.[4]
- Margaret Wambui[5] (3rd place). Here's an interview with her.[6]
I see a lot of people saying things like, "Where are all the world class transgender athletes that are dominating men on a routine basis?" Well they've failed to notice the intersex XY people who are dominating women's events.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caster_Semenya
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeQYdyDsioY&t=1m03s
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francine_Niyonsaba
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTC3B2sgYf4
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Wambui
6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpCPnTBAWF4
- Caster Semenya[1] (1st place). Here is an interview with her.[2]
- Francine Niyonsaba[3] (2nd place). Here is an interview with her.[4]
- Margaret Wambui[5] (3rd place). Here's an interview with her.[6]
I see a lot of people saying things like, "Where are all the world class transgender athletes that are dominating men on a routine basis?" Well they've failed to notice the intersex XY people who are dominating women's events.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caster_Semenya
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeQYdyDsioY&t=1m03s
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francine_Niyonsaba
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTC3B2sgYf4
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Wambui
6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpCPnTBAWF4
> “Where are all the world class transgender athletes that are dominating men on a routine basis?"
Who says this? Most people I think naturally assume that’s not going to ever happen.
Who says this? Most people I think naturally assume that’s not going to ever happen.
I was quoting verbatim from this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23242020
You are moving the goalposts by switching from a highly skilled game like basketball to one that is mostly dictated by physiology. There are certainly athletic competitions in which the gap between men and women differs.
I also notice you chose a race in which Caster Semenya won. I don't know it that was intentional, but that specific race highlights the ridiculousness and arbitrary nature of a ban on transgender athletes. By seemingly all credible accounts she was born, raised, and identifies as a women however she has a genetic condition that gives her some characteristics of a man. Should she be banned from competing against women? If so, what precedent does that set? Do we need to test the chromosomes of all athletes to see if they have rare genetic conditions? Are XX males allowed to compete against women even if they identify as men? What if they are on testosterone therapy?
I also notice you chose a race in which Caster Semenya won. I don't know it that was intentional, but that specific race highlights the ridiculousness and arbitrary nature of a ban on transgender athletes. By seemingly all credible accounts she was born, raised, and identifies as a women however she has a genetic condition that gives her some characteristics of a man. Should she be banned from competing against women? If so, what precedent does that set? Do we need to test the chromosomes of all athletes to see if they have rare genetic conditions? Are XX males allowed to compete against women even if they identify as men? What if they are on testosterone therapy?
> You are moving the goalposts by switching from a highly skilled game like basketball to one that is mostly dictated by physiology. There are certainly athletic competitions in which the gap between men and women differs
There are no goalposts, but this is just an internet argument for you so I can see why you'd think that.
As for Semenya I don't know what the right answer is. Intersex is hard. It's also rare. So I don't know. Despite being easily the most elite 800m female runner in the world she wouldn't have even touched the top 150 high school boys times that year, so it's hard to know what to do. Forced downregulation of natural T levels just to compete seems immoral.
There are no goalposts, but this is just an internet argument for you so I can see why you'd think that.
As for Semenya I don't know what the right answer is. Intersex is hard. It's also rare. So I don't know. Despite being easily the most elite 800m female runner in the world she wouldn't have even touched the top 150 high school boys times that year, so it's hard to know what to do. Forced downregulation of natural T levels just to compete seems immoral.
Let me leave this moving video here about a "right answer" -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP6eZAfO0Yg
> We just don't have any evidence of that.
Are you aware that high school boys soccer and hockey teams are competitive with elite, world class women's teams? Do you think the advantages that men appear to have are anywhere near fully erased by transitioning genders?
> I don't think this is as big of a problem as people pretend it is.
This is not really about the specific issue to anyone on either side. To you, it's about acceptance of transgender people. To your opponents, it's about not accepting the denial of what seems like blindingly obvious reality.
Are you aware that high school boys soccer and hockey teams are competitive with elite, world class women's teams? Do you think the advantages that men appear to have are anywhere near fully erased by transitioning genders?
> I don't think this is as big of a problem as people pretend it is.
This is not really about the specific issue to anyone on either side. To you, it's about acceptance of transgender people. To your opponents, it's about not accepting the denial of what seems like blindingly obvious reality.
>Are you aware that high school boys soccer and hockey teams are competitive with elite, world class women's teams? Do you think the advantages that men appear to have are anywhere near fully erased by transitioning genders?
You are exaggerating with that first claim. It is in no way common for high school male athletes to be competitive against world class female athletes. Secondly, the advantage that men have is certainly decreased when transitioning. I don't believe it is "fully erased", I simply don't think we need to have the goal of fully erasing any advantage. I won't agree with you on that until there is an NBA for men under 6 feet for me fairly compete in against my peers who were similarly disadvantaged at birth.
>This is not really about the specific issue to anyone on either side. To you, it's about acceptance of transgender people. To your opponents, it's about not accepting the denial of what seems like blindingly obvious reality.
I am perfectly willing to admit that my primary motivation here is the acceptance of transgender people. I don't know what to tell you if you don't prioritize that over the sanctity of the outcome of some high school girls soccer game.
You are exaggerating with that first claim. It is in no way common for high school male athletes to be competitive against world class female athletes. Secondly, the advantage that men have is certainly decreased when transitioning. I don't believe it is "fully erased", I simply don't think we need to have the goal of fully erasing any advantage. I won't agree with you on that until there is an NBA for men under 6 feet for me fairly compete in against my peers who were similarly disadvantaged at birth.
>This is not really about the specific issue to anyone on either side. To you, it's about acceptance of transgender people. To your opponents, it's about not accepting the denial of what seems like blindingly obvious reality.
I am perfectly willing to admit that my primary motivation here is the acceptance of transgender people. I don't know what to tell you if you don't prioritize that over the sanctity of the outcome of some high school girls soccer game.
> I am perfectly willing to admit that my primary motivation here is the acceptance of transgender people. I don't know what to tell you if you don't prioritize that over the sanctity of the outcome of some high school girls soccer game.
Here's the problem (aside from deriding something a lot of average people care deeply about): you are forcing these two things to be in conflict, when they simply aren't to most people, including Joe Rogan (and myself). By forcing them into conflict, you are hurting the cause of transgender rights far more than helping it.
Here's the problem (aside from deriding something a lot of average people care deeply about): you are forcing these two things to be in conflict, when they simply aren't to most people, including Joe Rogan (and myself). By forcing them into conflict, you are hurting the cause of transgender rights far more than helping it.
Banning trans women from competing in sports it telling them they aren't "real" women. The societal repercussions of that are much larger than the outcome of high school athletics (and this issue is almost always about high school athletics and below). I fundamentally don't understand arguments to the contrary.
For the record, I care deeply about sports. I think it is fundamental part of both our culture at large and the education of a lot of people. You can dig deep into my comment history on HN and see I regularly defend the importance of sports to the usually derogatory "sportsball" comments that are common in intellectual and technological communities like HN. I just don't think the outcome of specific games is important enough to justify further ostracizing a group of people who are already incredibly marginalized.
For the record, I care deeply about sports. I think it is fundamental part of both our culture at large and the education of a lot of people. You can dig deep into my comment history on HN and see I regularly defend the importance of sports to the usually derogatory "sportsball" comments that are common in intellectual and technological communities like HN. I just don't think the outcome of specific games is important enough to justify further ostracizing a group of people who are already incredibly marginalized.
> You are exaggerating with that first claim. It is in no way common for high school male athletes to be competitive against world class female athletes.
They're not though.
https://www.reddit.com/r/sports/comments/3ceeih/the_us_mens_...
They're not though.
https://www.reddit.com/r/sports/comments/3ceeih/the_us_mens_...
That's the best under 17 soccer players. It's essentially people who will be pro soccer players in 1-2 years. That's not the same as common hs male athletes.
The US Men's U-17 team is not a high school team. It is a team made up of world class athletes who are high school aged. That is a huge distinction. You are saying a team a world class men can beat a team of slightly older world class women. That isn't surprising.
I know you don't care about the high school girls soccer game, but the girls do, and their parents do.
And yes, having women's sports not be dominated by former men is a priority for people.
And yes, having women's sports not be dominated by former men is a priority for people.
I'll leave the epidemic of "men deciding to switch genders" to one side.
Let's dig in where you wrote: "If you were born an average American male and you trained your whole youth... you'd beat a lot of elite women basketball players. There is no basis for a statement like that."
No. That is incorrect.
If I took some of the top 1000 male tennis players and pitted them against the top 50 female players you think the women would dominate?
Perhaps serving speed is more specific? Benchmark that. There's just one basis of discussion.
I'm surprised you think there's no basis.
Let's dig in where you wrote: "If you were born an average American male and you trained your whole youth... you'd beat a lot of elite women basketball players. There is no basis for a statement like that."
No. That is incorrect.
If I took some of the top 1000 male tennis players and pitted them against the top 50 female players you think the women would dominate?
Perhaps serving speed is more specific? Benchmark that. There's just one basis of discussion.
I'm surprised you think there's no basis.
>We just don't have any evidence of that.
Unfortunately delusional statements like this only end up hurting the cause you are trying to promote. Biological males are physically stronger than biological females - full stop. If biological reality doesn't line up with your ideology then you should consider the flaws in your ideology rather than ignoring reality (and insisting that everyone else ignore reality too, or be guilty of "hate speech").
Unfortunately delusional statements like this only end up hurting the cause you are trying to promote. Biological males are physically stronger than biological females - full stop. If biological reality doesn't line up with your ideology then you should consider the flaws in your ideology rather than ignoring reality (and insisting that everyone else ignore reality too, or be guilty of "hate speech").
American males are an average of 5½ inches taller [1], which is an extreme advantage in Basketball [2]:
> Empirically, the over-representation of extremely tall athletes in basketball lends credence to the theory that the sport provides tall players with a very significant advantage. The average American male is 5 ft 9.3 in (1.76 m).[18] Yet, in a 2007-08 player survey, the average player in the National Basketball Association (NBA) is listed at 6 ft 7 in (2.01 m) in shoes.
The average male is either taller or within a couple of inches of the top female Basketball players [3].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average_human_height_by_countr...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Height_in_sports#Basketball
[3] https://www.ncsasports.org/womens-basketball/recruiting-guid...
> Empirically, the over-representation of extremely tall athletes in basketball lends credence to the theory that the sport provides tall players with a very significant advantage. The average American male is 5 ft 9.3 in (1.76 m).[18] Yet, in a 2007-08 player survey, the average player in the National Basketball Association (NBA) is listed at 6 ft 7 in (2.01 m) in shoes.
The average male is either taller or within a couple of inches of the top female Basketball players [3].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average_human_height_by_countr...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Height_in_sports#Basketball
[3] https://www.ncsasports.org/womens-basketball/recruiting-guid...
Imagine this conversation:
"Hey, remember that 'basketball' game we invented?"
"Yeah, what about it?"
"Well, lots of people are playing it, but some of them are unhappy."
"Oh no! What's wrong?"
"Well, they say they're not winning."
"Hm. Well, by the rules of the game, only one team can win, so... maybe we should split the sport up into different divisions, based on skill? We can use the Elo-like algorithms to determine which teams should play each other so that each team has a good chance to win."
"Well, we don't want to do that- it sounds a bit complicated to implement in practice. And, see, there's another thing."
"What is it?"
"Taller people tend to win more. From the stats, they have a big advantage, and it just makes sense if you think about what playing basketball well requires- being taller really does make you better at the game. A lot of the players who aren't having fun are shorter- they feel like they don't really have a fair shot at winning, just because of their height, which is something they can't really change."
"Ah! So you want to split the players up based on their height. Well, we might have some unwanted second-order effects from that - since we aren't accounting for things like muscle mass or aerobic capacity, anybody who is disadvantaged in those attributes might still not feel like they're getting a fair shot. But if the main effect really is height, then I guess-"
"No, no, no, we don't want to do that, either. We want to do it based on genes."
"Oh! Well, that's a bit tricky- loads of genes might affect height, and even more probably affect how good somebody can be at basketball- but maybe with enough data we can build a model to roughly determine somebody's 'innate' basketball ability, and split players up based on that, instead. Now, we need to be careful, because this won't take into account things besides genetics- say, early childhood environment- that folks could reasonably argue are outside of their control- but I guess it could be a clever solution to the pr-"
"Well, that sounds hard. So we want to do it based on whether somebody has two X chromosomes or only one. It's correlated with height, and height is correlated with innate basketball ability."
"But if you care about height, why not just split players up based on height?"
"Well, there are other factors related to basketball ability, too. Not just height, that's a straw man. And many of them are correlated with how many X chromosomes players have."
"But you brought height up... Well, okay, maybe a weighted combination of different metrics that affect basketball ability? Seems like that might be easier than doing genetic testing on everybody."
"No, we're not going to actually do genetic testing on everybody- honestly, that just sounds invasive and creepy. We're going to look at other attributes that correlate with how many X chromosomes players have, and we can usually guess how many X chromosomes they have that way, without having to test. If a player wants to do genetic testing to prove how many X chromosomes they have, maybe we'll let them do that, too. But mostly, we'll guess based on things like their facial structure, voice pitch, whether they have breasts or not, and their genitals."
"But none of those things directly affect height, much less basketball ability, to any meaningful degree! You're measuring a proxy of a proxy."
"... Well, that's what we're going to do."
If what you care about is basketball ability, try to split the sport up based on that, based on actual wins and losses. If that's too hard in practice, and what you care about is height, then split the sport up based on height. Don't segment based on some second-order proxy measure- that's just sloppy. And, honestly, it makes it a bit hard to believe this is actually some high-minded concern for fairness- it starts to seem like it's being motivated by something else.
"Hey, remember that 'basketball' game we invented?"
"Yeah, what about it?"
"Well, lots of people are playing it, but some of them are unhappy."
"Oh no! What's wrong?"
"Well, they say they're not winning."
"Hm. Well, by the rules of the game, only one team can win, so... maybe we should split the sport up into different divisions, based on skill? We can use the Elo-like algorithms to determine which teams should play each other so that each team has a good chance to win."
"Well, we don't want to do that- it sounds a bit complicated to implement in practice. And, see, there's another thing."
"What is it?"
"Taller people tend to win more. From the stats, they have a big advantage, and it just makes sense if you think about what playing basketball well requires- being taller really does make you better at the game. A lot of the players who aren't having fun are shorter- they feel like they don't really have a fair shot at winning, just because of their height, which is something they can't really change."
"Ah! So you want to split the players up based on their height. Well, we might have some unwanted second-order effects from that - since we aren't accounting for things like muscle mass or aerobic capacity, anybody who is disadvantaged in those attributes might still not feel like they're getting a fair shot. But if the main effect really is height, then I guess-"
"No, no, no, we don't want to do that, either. We want to do it based on genes."
"Oh! Well, that's a bit tricky- loads of genes might affect height, and even more probably affect how good somebody can be at basketball- but maybe with enough data we can build a model to roughly determine somebody's 'innate' basketball ability, and split players up based on that, instead. Now, we need to be careful, because this won't take into account things besides genetics- say, early childhood environment- that folks could reasonably argue are outside of their control- but I guess it could be a clever solution to the pr-"
"Well, that sounds hard. So we want to do it based on whether somebody has two X chromosomes or only one. It's correlated with height, and height is correlated with innate basketball ability."
"But if you care about height, why not just split players up based on height?"
"Well, there are other factors related to basketball ability, too. Not just height, that's a straw man. And many of them are correlated with how many X chromosomes players have."
"But you brought height up... Well, okay, maybe a weighted combination of different metrics that affect basketball ability? Seems like that might be easier than doing genetic testing on everybody."
"No, we're not going to actually do genetic testing on everybody- honestly, that just sounds invasive and creepy. We're going to look at other attributes that correlate with how many X chromosomes players have, and we can usually guess how many X chromosomes they have that way, without having to test. If a player wants to do genetic testing to prove how many X chromosomes they have, maybe we'll let them do that, too. But mostly, we'll guess based on things like their facial structure, voice pitch, whether they have breasts or not, and their genitals."
"But none of those things directly affect height, much less basketball ability, to any meaningful degree! You're measuring a proxy of a proxy."
"... Well, that's what we're going to do."
If what you care about is basketball ability, try to split the sport up based on that, based on actual wins and losses. If that's too hard in practice, and what you care about is height, then split the sport up based on height. Don't segment based on some second-order proxy measure- that's just sloppy. And, honestly, it makes it a bit hard to believe this is actually some high-minded concern for fairness- it starts to seem like it's being motivated by something else.
Rogan is happy for people born female to complete in male sports just not the other way around.
You can't discount how unfair it would be for women to compete against people who have lived for years with high testosterone levels.
Maybe we need a new non gendered sports category where athletes are free to take any hormones they wish. That might be fair. But may cost the athletes their health.
You can't discount how unfair it would be for women to compete against people who have lived for years with high testosterone levels.
Maybe we need a new non gendered sports category where athletes are free to take any hormones they wish. That might be fair. But may cost the athletes their health.
> You can't discount how unfair it would be for women to compete against people who have lived for years with high testosterone levels.
If a man has had naturally low testosterone all his life, should he be allowed to compete against women?
If a woman has had naturally high testosterone all her life, should she only be allowed to compete against men?
If a man has had naturally low testosterone all his life, should he be allowed to compete against women?
If a woman has had naturally high testosterone all her life, should she only be allowed to compete against men?
Perhaps, I think that would be worth investigating.
You'll find that most athletes at the top are genetic outliers. There is already some unfairness towards those with low testosterone. However if you allow people that have lived long periods of time with high testosterone to complete against women who have not I suspect you'll find very few of those women ever make it to the top.
You'll find that most athletes at the top are genetic outliers. There is already some unfairness towards those with low testosterone. However if you allow people that have lived long periods of time with high testosterone to complete against women who have not I suspect you'll find very few of those women ever make it to the top.
Maybe, but why is fairness on this one particular axis the only one I ever hear about?
Look at the 100m sprint. Of the top 25 (regardless of gender), as far as I can tell, none of them have two X chromosomes.
But none of them are Caucasian, either.
Why isn't there a large movement arguing that sprinters should only be allowed to compete against those of the same race? If I (as a white man) took up sprinting (ha!), it would kind of suck knowing that I don't seem to stand a chance of setting the world record just because of my genes. But it seems like white sprinters manage to deal with it.
And, well, if there were separate races for people of different races... that wouldn't really change anything, would it? The world's fastest sprinter would still probably be non-white, the only real difference would be that the world's fastest white sprinter would get to say "I'm the world's fastest white sprinter (but still not the world's fastest sprinter)". You're just giving out an extra trophy- everybody knows who's actually the fastest.
Why isn't this argument valid for sex separation in sports, too?
Look at the 100m sprint. Of the top 25 (regardless of gender), as far as I can tell, none of them have two X chromosomes.
But none of them are Caucasian, either.
Why isn't there a large movement arguing that sprinters should only be allowed to compete against those of the same race? If I (as a white man) took up sprinting (ha!), it would kind of suck knowing that I don't seem to stand a chance of setting the world record just because of my genes. But it seems like white sprinters manage to deal with it.
And, well, if there were separate races for people of different races... that wouldn't really change anything, would it? The world's fastest sprinter would still probably be non-white, the only real difference would be that the world's fastest white sprinter would get to say "I'm the world's fastest white sprinter (but still not the world's fastest sprinter)". You're just giving out an extra trophy- everybody knows who's actually the fastest.
Why isn't this argument valid for sex separation in sports, too?
Perhaps it's the historical significance of womens sports as part of the feminist movement?
I don't really know?
I don't really know?
In many sports there is actually no rule that forbid women to joining the other championship.
The reason a separate women sport exist is the same as why there are weight brackets in boxing, to allow athletes that score lower in brute-metrics to compete reasonably. Trans women would be less of an issue if women sports did not exist.
(Trans men are a different issue if they take hormones, as that often fall under doping technically)
The reason a separate women sport exist is the same as why there are weight brackets in boxing, to allow athletes that score lower in brute-metrics to compete reasonably. Trans women would be less of an issue if women sports did not exist.
(Trans men are a different issue if they take hormones, as that often fall under doping technically)
> It seems like he wants transgender people out of sports completely
I think this is something you're reading that's not quite there. He isn't sensitive to the topic, but I don't think he hates trans people.
I think this is something you're reading that's not quite there. He isn't sensitive to the topic, but I don't think he hates trans people.
It is the "if you aren't with us you are against us" mentality. Any opposing opinion (even when based on valid arguments) is labeled as hate speech.
[deleted]
Can you help me understand how it's fair for transitioned women to compete against men? I would expect this to be unfair in many sports because of natural biological differences. Not a troll, just looking for relevant facts to inform my world view.
His comment was specifically aimed at martial arts and I think could be extended to any contact sport.
The on average smaller stature, different bone structure etc are giant disadvantages and would most likely lead to a higher potential of harm and damages.
I think nobody cares if differently gendered people run a race, you would see who is the fastest and people can draw their own conclusions if that is fair or not. I think this is very different if people start punching or run into each other at full speed.
I think nobody cares if differently gendered people run a race, you would see who is the fastest and people can draw their own conclusions if that is fair or not. I think this is very different if people start punching or run into each other at full speed.
[deleted]
He can't actually be leaving over censorship because if he was there is no way phrases like "exclusive multi-year" would be thrown around. Once burned twice shy.
There might have been some tea-leaf reading involved that YouTube isn't a supportive platform these days but this move is probably linked to obscene amounts of money changing hands.
There might have been some tea-leaf reading involved that YouTube isn't a supportive platform these days but this move is probably linked to obscene amounts of money changing hands.
You have to keep in mind that Joe is a comedian first and foremost. Comedians have had the rug pulled out from under them with COVID-19. He's doing what's right for his family at the moment. I fully expect this to come up in one of his next episodes and since he's up front about this stuff it'll probably be summed up as "Sorry you fucks, a man's gotta eat!"
He made over $30 million last year on just his podcast. HE still gets checks every month for News Radio since it syndicated. He has several investments in several businesses. He works for the UFC. He has Netflix specials.
Some guess he is pulling in over 100 million a year. I'm sure he and his family are going to be ok.
I figure Jamie probably makes 1 million a year...
Some guess he is pulling in over 100 million a year. I'm sure he and his family are going to be ok.
I figure Jamie probably makes 1 million a year...
Of all the places on the internet I visit, HN is the only place I regularly see comments like the one you’re responding to, suggesting that people with literally tens of millions of dollars are making some decision so they can “provide for their family”, as if they couldn’t do that already with a fraction of the interest they can make on their wealth.
I can’t put my finger on why it’s used so much. To frame the super rich 0.1% as merely responsible fathers and mothers?
I can’t put my finger on why it’s used so much. To frame the super rich 0.1% as merely responsible fathers and mothers?
1 million you say? I dunno... Jamie, pull that up!
Rogan makes tens of millions a year with the podcast ad revenue alone. I’ll make an educated guess his family is eating fine.
He has a $5M house in the LA Hills.. I think "doing the right thing for his family" means "buying a vacation home in Jackson Hole" or something by now..
https://www.thetravel.com/joe-rogan-house-bell-canyon-califo...
https://www.thetravel.com/joe-rogan-house-bell-canyon-califo...
What the heck. That's quite modest.
Hmm.. maybe by certain definitions of the word.. 9,000sq ft. 6 bed/9 bath..
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/47-Dapplegray-Rd-Bell-Can...
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/47-Dapplegray-Rd-Bell-Can...
Lifestyle inflation is a bitch.
I'm fairly sure he makes a lot more money from having the most popular 'pod in the world than doing a couple of comedy gigs here and there.
Both your reply and another assumes that Joe Rogan should just be happy with not making any money from other sources of revenue that have disappeared.
Why is that?
Why is that?
I don't think anyone is explicitly faulting Joe for trying to make money. The initial assumption in this comment chain was Joe NEEDS money, which is unlikely. The man can be enterprising without us having to pretend his family will starve otherwise.
Y'all are taking this way too literally. "a man's gotta eat" is a figure of speech, I meant he needs to maintain his current income. YouTube has probably been jerking him around for years now so moving to a signed multi-year deal is a smart choice in uncertain times.
Sure it's a figure of speech, but especially in a time with record unemployment, food insecurity surrounding remote schooling, and fiscal uncertainty, it's not exactly the best choice of words.
Also, the reference to "doing what's best for his family" is often used to describe making ends meat, not making sure 30M a year doesn't become only 10M a year.
I think having both phrases in one comment made people rightfully see it as a bit strange (hence the response) given he's a multimillionaire.
Also, the reference to "doing what's best for his family" is often used to describe making ends meat, not making sure 30M a year doesn't become only 10M a year.
I think having both phrases in one comment made people rightfully see it as a bit strange (hence the response) given he's a multimillionaire.
> the reference to "doing what's best for his family" is often used to describe making ends meat, not making sure 30M a year doesn't become only 10M a year
Actually I think that's entirely appropriate. Seeing a loss of earnings that large would be devastating to any individual or business.
Actually I think that's entirely appropriate. Seeing a loss of earnings that large would be devastating to any individual or business.
I don't see how 1 is an issue when Alex Jones et al were deliberately spreading hateful misinformation.
Aiming to CYA by booting someone off of a private platform and others following suit is not the same thing as "conspiring to censor" someone
Aiming to CYA by booting someone off of a private platform and others following suit is not the same thing as "conspiring to censor" someone
It's not an issue if you happen to agree this time.
Next time you might not. And then it's too late, you've made your bed.
Next time you might not. And then it's too late, you've made your bed.
That only makes sense if you consider someone like Alex Jones to be “just another person who happens to have different opinions about some things than some other people”. He never got shit from anyone for merely offering unpopular opinions, his history (and present) is much more complicated and fucked up than that. He’s definitely on a short list of people for whom humanity in general is worse off overall for having him in it. Like a negative contributor on a team who just makes work for other people, he’s a negative contributor in many, many ways for all of humanity, and not just from spreading transparent lies and obvious disinformation. He never got in trouble for simply saying something someone else disagreed with, he got in trouble for directly fucking with the lives of victims of horrible tragedies, over and over again.
What does this even mean? Are you suggesting a private company should be forced to host content they don't want to? Should Fox News be forced to host Rachael Maddow and a Huffpost show? Is Fox News "censoring" Huffpost by not hosting a show on their network?
No, none of that. This is different.
Imagine a public town square. Would you want any company acting as the gatekeeper, deciding what speech is allowed or not in that setting?
YouTube, Twitter and a few others are effectively the new town square. I don't think we want to end up in a position where a few corporations are dictating acceptable speech and open debate.
Imagine a public town square. Would you want any company acting as the gatekeeper, deciding what speech is allowed or not in that setting?
YouTube, Twitter and a few others are effectively the new town square. I don't think we want to end up in a position where a few corporations are dictating acceptable speech and open debate.
What about a private business is "public town square" and why doesn't it apply to Rachel Maddow being hosted by Fox News?
[deleted]
Even the Supreme Court has called social media "the modern public square".
> what for many are the principal sources for knowing current events, checking ads for employment, speaking and listening in the modern public square.
The power to ban someone from social media is the power to cut them off from society. That's too much power for any private corporation to hold.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packingham_v._North_Carolina
> what for many are the principal sources for knowing current events, checking ads for employment, speaking and listening in the modern public square.
The power to ban someone from social media is the power to cut them off from society. That's too much power for any private corporation to hold.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packingham_v._North_Carolina
Just because you can apply a rule with one set of nouns and achieve an unjust outcome doesn't mean the rule is bad.
There's no daylight between "we can't restrict shitty speech because one day we might restrict non-shitty speech" and "we can't have laws against bad things because one day we might have laws against non-bad things". It's an obviously stupid argument and it's not any less stupid because the operating verb is speech.
There's no daylight between "we can't restrict shitty speech because one day we might restrict non-shitty speech" and "we can't have laws against bad things because one day we might have laws against non-bad things". It's an obviously stupid argument and it's not any less stupid because the operating verb is speech.
First they came for Alex Jones, but I said nothing, because screw that guy.
Let's see if this goes any further. If it doesn't, there's no problem.
Let's see if this goes any further. If it doesn't, there's no problem.
Nothing is set in stone. Everything is a spectrum, and fights for where to draw lines on a spectrum will continue in society in perpetuity.
You are absolutely right. Right now, it isn't an issue, because Alex Jones is a legitimately awful, possibly insane human being who contributes nothing to actual political discourse, and directs hatred at parents of murdered children for his schtick. It's Youtube, not the federal government.
And while I do believe "The Internet" is the public square, I don't think Youtube is /quite/ that protected yet, and I don't think Alex Jones deserves that protection.
Other people may get shut down like AJ did, and I may not like it, and I'll argue against it.
https://wannabewonk.com/gab-and-free-speech-on-the-internet/
tldr - AJ can set up a server at home or on AWS. He may have to do compressed audio only.
You are absolutely right. Right now, it isn't an issue, because Alex Jones is a legitimately awful, possibly insane human being who contributes nothing to actual political discourse, and directs hatred at parents of murdered children for his schtick. It's Youtube, not the federal government.
And while I do believe "The Internet" is the public square, I don't think Youtube is /quite/ that protected yet, and I don't think Alex Jones deserves that protection.
Other people may get shut down like AJ did, and I may not like it, and I'll argue against it.
https://wannabewonk.com/gab-and-free-speech-on-the-internet/
tldr - AJ can set up a server at home or on AWS. He may have to do compressed audio only.
Conspire - To join or act together; combine
Censor - prohibit or restrict the use of something
Yeah, they conspired to censor.
Censor - prohibit or restrict the use of something
Yeah, they conspired to censor.
Come on.
Verb (with object) > to agree together, especially secretly, to do something wrong, evil, or illegal.
verb (without object) > to plot (something wrong, evil, or illegal).
We all know that "conspire" has connotations beyond just to "join or act together", otherwise there would be no difference between "coporate" and "conspire".
Verb (with object) > to agree together, especially secretly, to do something wrong, evil, or illegal.
verb (without object) > to plot (something wrong, evil, or illegal).
We all know that "conspire" has connotations beyond just to "join or act together", otherwise there would be no difference between "coporate" and "conspire".
The main difference between my definition and yours is the emotion underlying the interpretation. The base definition is the same.
symlinkk(1)
We only burn the bad books!
Nobody burned anything. You can head over to his website and watch his videos if you want.
Not giving someone a platform isn't taking their free speech away, any more than me telling religious people attempting to convert me to get off my property is violating their religious rights.
Not giving someone a platform isn't taking their free speech away, any more than me telling religious people attempting to convert me to get off my property is violating their religious rights.
if you had many videos up, and they were all taken down, it is like book burning. they were published, then destroyed.
Alex Jones said trans people murder babies with democrats for their blood...
one can be against censorship and against the message being censored.
in other words : don't assume those that defend people like Alex Jones are defending his opinions.
Many are defending his ability to transmit his message, regardless of the quality of that message, in the interest of preserving that ability for themselves and causes that they support.
in other words : don't assume those that defend people like Alex Jones are defending his opinions.
Many are defending his ability to transmit his message, regardless of the quality of that message, in the interest of preserving that ability for themselves and causes that they support.
Nah, they are using that as a front to push their agenda, because otherwise they'd be super in favor of google and youtube's free speech too, which they are not.
Alex Jones isn't legally prohibited from saying lies about Sandy Hook, and the people up in arms defending those hateful lies and saying we should be careful to preserve hateful lies on private platforms are either idiot patsies or purposefully misleading liars(like Alex Jones himself actually.)
Alex Jones isn't legally prohibited from saying lies about Sandy Hook, and the people up in arms defending those hateful lies and saying we should be careful to preserve hateful lies on private platforms are either idiot patsies or purposefully misleading liars(like Alex Jones himself actually.)
I think you're confusing YouTube's "free speech" with YouTube's ability to censor anything they want. I have no issue with Google uploading YouTube videos or blog posts spreading essentially whatever message the company wants to spread.
Spotify actually has supported video for a while (https://support.spotify.com/us/using_spotify/features/videos...). However, the feature itself is horribly hidden. I have in the past accidentally come across music videos, but right now can't intentionally find any video content to cite as an example.
Edit: Another article discussing Spotify testing video content https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/6/21249389/spotify-video-pod...
Edit: Another article discussing Spotify testing video content https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/6/21249389/spotify-video-pod...
I don't agree entirely with all these, but I think 3 is the most compelling. It was kind of magical to younger me discovering the interoperability of podcasts and the freedom that granted listeners (and creators too). I've been a big fan of Spotify, but I don't like this recent push to fracture the podcast market with exclusive deals.
That being said it does allow some podcasts to exist that might not otherwise. The only examples I can think of is The Besties.
That being said it does allow some podcasts to exist that might not otherwise. The only examples I can think of is The Besties.
I remember podcasts. Exclusively streamed audio isn't a podcast.
Alex Jones being kicked off those services isn't the same thing. He was spreading major misinformation and targeted harassment at innocent people that were involved in a tragedy. He wasn't "conspired" against. They just told him to go host his hate somewhere else.
And stop with these "censorship" BS. Alex Jones has every right to start his own network if he wants and put anything on it. There's nothing stopping him from doing it. But there is also zero reason why another private company has to be forced to carry something they don't want to. Free speech doesn't mean everyone is forced to listen to that speech. Why not say that CBS/NBC/ABC/PBS are also "conspiring" against him too because they don't carry his show? OMG, Nickelodeon doesn't carry Alex Jones! They're censoring him!
Come on.
And stop with these "censorship" BS. Alex Jones has every right to start his own network if he wants and put anything on it. There's nothing stopping him from doing it. But there is also zero reason why another private company has to be forced to carry something they don't want to. Free speech doesn't mean everyone is forced to listen to that speech. Why not say that CBS/NBC/ABC/PBS are also "conspiring" against him too because they don't carry his show? OMG, Nickelodeon doesn't carry Alex Jones! They're censoring him!
Come on.
You are conflating two forms of free speech: The right to freedom of speech enshrined in the constitution and the norm of free speech that we all tend to grant each other. Of course YouTube is a private company and can ban and delete whatever they want. But they are breaking a norm and the consequences of that may be worse than the consequences of letting us watch videos of crazy people.
I've said it before and I'll keep on saying it: The original formulations of freedom of speech weren't about protecting the rights of the speaker or writer. They were about protecting the rights of those who wanted to listen or read. Every time you ban a document or silence a speaker, you are also preventing people from reading what they want to read or hearing what they want to hear. That harm is far greater than whatever happens to the author.
Again, YouTube is a private company and they can do whatever they want when it comes to curating the information they store. I would be against any law that compelled them to host information that they didn't want to host. But in the long run, I think their current policy is extremely counterproductive. Imagine if YouTube existed 30 years ago. Would they have banned atheist views? Would they have banned videos critical of Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal? What about videos endorsing transgender ideas? Many views that were considered crazy at that time are now acceptable today. Suppressing heterodox views means that fewer are exposed to them and moral progress is impeded. Yes, most fringe ideas are bullshit, but every once in a while we stumble onto a diamond: Slavery is wrong. Men and women should have the same rights. Homosexuals should have the same rights as heterosexuals. Etc. These were all extremely controversial ideas when they first came into the public sphere. Earlier versions of our society suppressed them as dangerous misinformation.
So far, we haven't figured out a way to separate good ideas from bad ones besides exposing people to them and seeing which memes reproduce in the population. In other words: If you ban people like Alex Jones, you also ban people who are activists for causes that society will adopt in the future. And we all end up worse off.
There are certainly views that we hold today that future generations will condemn us for. Better that we discover them sooner rather than later.
I've said it before and I'll keep on saying it: The original formulations of freedom of speech weren't about protecting the rights of the speaker or writer. They were about protecting the rights of those who wanted to listen or read. Every time you ban a document or silence a speaker, you are also preventing people from reading what they want to read or hearing what they want to hear. That harm is far greater than whatever happens to the author.
Again, YouTube is a private company and they can do whatever they want when it comes to curating the information they store. I would be against any law that compelled them to host information that they didn't want to host. But in the long run, I think their current policy is extremely counterproductive. Imagine if YouTube existed 30 years ago. Would they have banned atheist views? Would they have banned videos critical of Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal? What about videos endorsing transgender ideas? Many views that were considered crazy at that time are now acceptable today. Suppressing heterodox views means that fewer are exposed to them and moral progress is impeded. Yes, most fringe ideas are bullshit, but every once in a while we stumble onto a diamond: Slavery is wrong. Men and women should have the same rights. Homosexuals should have the same rights as heterosexuals. Etc. These were all extremely controversial ideas when they first came into the public sphere. Earlier versions of our society suppressed them as dangerous misinformation.
So far, we haven't figured out a way to separate good ideas from bad ones besides exposing people to them and seeing which memes reproduce in the population. In other words: If you ban people like Alex Jones, you also ban people who are activists for causes that society will adopt in the future. And we all end up worse off.
There are certainly views that we hold today that future generations will condemn us for. Better that we discover them sooner rather than later.
You know who else breaks norms? Alex Jones when he peddles lies and threatens lives for profit. He needs to play by society’s rules if he wants to play by society’s rules. You can’t just pick and choose which norms you’re entitled to. That’s called being an asshole and 10 times out of 10 you will be shown the door. There’s a reason no one cried over him getting the boot. It isn’t an indication of some chilling dystopia. It’s society operating as it should.
Nobody wants to be in the position of defending Alex Jones. He's totally indefensible. But that is always how these things start. Once you start regulating content on the basis of factual accuracy, you put these companies in the position of making decisions about political truth, and that is an extremely dangerous thing.
These are really hard ethical questions, and I think both views are reasonable and understandable. But ultimately I think it's more dangerous to put Google in charge of regulating truth. It feels like a win in the short term to ban Alex Jones, and it is a win in the short term. But the long term consequences of things like this are really really important, and the fact that they're obscured by distance doesn't make them any less so.
These are really hard ethical questions, and I think both views are reasonable and understandable. But ultimately I think it's more dangerous to put Google in charge of regulating truth. It feels like a win in the short term to ban Alex Jones, and it is a win in the short term. But the long term consequences of things like this are really really important, and the fact that they're obscured by distance doesn't make them any less so.
This is not how it starts, it’s how it ends. Thousands, maybe millions, of accounts were banned by YouTube in the decade and a half preceding with this for harassing people, selling scams and spreading lies. It’s like the bare minimum a network can do to keep things civil.
The simple fact is that for almost no investment Alex Jones could have his own site serving just as many users per month. My guess is he probably does, and did, so the only thing he’s really missing out on is YouTube‘s free hosting, discovery and traffic and their generous ad revenue split.
The simple fact is that for almost no investment Alex Jones could have his own site serving just as many users per month. My guess is he probably does, and did, so the only thing he’s really missing out on is YouTube‘s free hosting, discovery and traffic and their generous ad revenue split.
> But that is always how these things start.
There is no automatism. In many countries hate speech is forbidden, without them devolving into a dictatorship.
There is no automatism. In many countries hate speech is forbidden, without them devolving into a dictatorship.
I think that's pretty arguable. Hate speech laws in the UK have been used in pretty questionable ways:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/stephen-birrell-s-convic...
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-19883828
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/03/satanic-isla...
This is just a small selection. Obviously the UK has not "devolved into a dictatorship", but it is clearly censoring non-violent political speech.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/stephen-birrell-s-convic...
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-19883828
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/03/satanic-isla...
This is just a small selection. Obviously the UK has not "devolved into a dictatorship", but it is clearly censoring non-violent political speech.
Birrell and Ahmed's convictions seems to go too far, they didn't actual incite violence or criminal activity and I think that's an important line. Is 'I hope they die' reasonably interpretable as incitement to kill? I'd say no, but is it hate speech? I'd have to say yes so from a legalistic point of view the prosecutions may have been legitimate. The concept of hate speech is a slippery slope though.
On the Satanic Islam case, the guy was acquitted on all charges so I don't think that supports your argument.
Anyway thank you for your last comment. I agree some of these cases went too far, but that doesn't mean we're some kind of oppressive police state. Neither of the two people convicted in these cases deserve any sympathy, in a broader moral sense they deserved everything they got, but at the cost of an erosion of our civil liberty protections at the margins that I hope we don't come to regret.
On the Satanic Islam case, the guy was acquitted on all charges so I don't think that supports your argument.
Anyway thank you for your last comment. I agree some of these cases went too far, but that doesn't mean we're some kind of oppressive police state. Neither of the two people convicted in these cases deserve any sympathy, in a broader moral sense they deserved everything they got, but at the cost of an erosion of our civil liberty protections at the margins that I hope we don't come to regret.
Ya I don't want to make it out to be more than it is. It's certainly not an oppressive police state. But is it chilling speech a bit at the margin? I'm not sure that the answer is yes, but i'm also not sure that the answer is no, and that is concerning to me.
Count Dankula was a big case as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Meechan#Arrest
He was arrested and convicted for literally saying "gas the jews". That is inciting violence, and a very clear case of hate speech.
"My GF thinks this pug is the cutest thing ever, so I'm going to make it the least cute thing in history - a Nazi"
And then trained it to react to things like "Gas the Jews" and "Sieg Heil". This is not at all a central example of speech inciting violence.
Funnily enough, Nazi Germany also tried to prosecute someone for training a dog to salute when Hitler was mentioned [0] - apparently that was disrespectful.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_(dog)
And then trained it to react to things like "Gas the Jews" and "Sieg Heil". This is not at all a central example of speech inciting violence.
Funnily enough, Nazi Germany also tried to prosecute someone for training a dog to salute when Hitler was mentioned [0] - apparently that was disrespectful.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_(dog)
How was he inciting violence? He trained a pug to do a nazi salute as a way to make it less likeable to his girlfriend(or at least, that is the set-up to the video). A prerequisite for the joke is that "gas the Jews" is an abominable thing to say, and that the Nazi salute is as far away from "cute pug" as you can come.
Hate speech involves intent. Here he used "gas the jews" as a means to project intent on a pug to make a cute pug Nazi. The joke is that a cute pug is a Nazi, and the joke would not work if that wasn't considered that a bad thing. The point of the video is "Nazi = bad".
Jesus, what a brain dead ruling.
Hate speech involves intent. Here he used "gas the jews" as a means to project intent on a pug to make a cute pug Nazi. The joke is that a cute pug is a Nazi, and the joke would not work if that wasn't considered that a bad thing. The point of the video is "Nazi = bad".
Jesus, what a brain dead ruling.
It was clearly a joke. Are we also going to ban stand-up comedians for making Holocaust jokes?
He was arrested and convicted for making a pug react when he said "Gas the Jews" to make the puppy appear less cute.
I don't think there was any intent for a Pug to start a new holocaust.
I don't think there was any intent for a Pug to start a new holocaust.
That's not incitement to violence unless he actually has the means to do it. If you tell a joke in bad taste, it's not incitement.
> "Hope they [ie, Celtic supporters] all die. Simple. Catholic scumbags ha ha."
This is non-violent political speech?
This is non-violent political speech?
Robert Watts said this about the draft during the Vietnam war:
> They always holler at us to get an education. And now I have already received my draft classification as 1—A and I have got to report for my physical this Monday coming. I am not going. If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is L.B.J.
L.B.J. meaning president Lyndon B. Johnson. Watts did this in front of a crowd while miming aiming with a rifle. The crowd applauded him.
SCOTUS ruled it legal under the first amendment.[1] I agree with their decision and I wish more countries had such stringent protections for freedom of expression.
1. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/394/705
> They always holler at us to get an education. And now I have already received my draft classification as 1—A and I have got to report for my physical this Monday coming. I am not going. If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is L.B.J.
L.B.J. meaning president Lyndon B. Johnson. Watts did this in front of a crowd while miming aiming with a rifle. The crowd applauded him.
SCOTUS ruled it legal under the first amendment.[1] I agree with their decision and I wish more countries had such stringent protections for freedom of expression.
1. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/394/705
> Nobody wants to be in the position of defending Alex Jones.
"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." - H.L. Mencken
"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." - H.L. Mencken
I agree that's how these things start. Now doctors in the field and epidemiologists are being censored on YouTube for having unorthodox views on COVID-19.
I don't think you understand the point I'm trying to make. I don't care about Alex Jones. I care about collateral damage: Deleting "communist bandits" comments.[1] Banning the Podcast Addict app.[2] Banning other apps.[3][4] I didn't have to look very hard to find these examples. There are certainly dozens more if one cares to delve into the issue.
There are people who we don't know about who are currently having their views suppressed. A few of them probably hold views that future societies will endorse. But because they don't have a voice, it will take longer to make moral progress. Compared to that, Alex Jones is a rounding error.
1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23223219
2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23219427
3. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23221447
4. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23229073
There are people who we don't know about who are currently having their views suppressed. A few of them probably hold views that future societies will endorse. But because they don't have a voice, it will take longer to make moral progress. Compared to that, Alex Jones is a rounding error.
1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23223219
2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23219427
3. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23221447
4. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23229073
> Alex Jones is a rounding error
I will not support any legislation that needlessly endangers individuals. Society needs to protect people. You don’t need everyone to go through a tragedy before a society is illegitimate, just anyone.
I can’t speak for the latter three threads, but I was active in the first one, arguing the same position.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23223990
I will not support any legislation that needlessly endangers individuals. Society needs to protect people. You don’t need everyone to go through a tragedy before a society is illegitimate, just anyone.
I can’t speak for the latter three threads, but I was active in the first one, arguing the same position.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23223990
You are so wrong and you dont see it.
You just identified society as corporation and corporation is dictatorship.
He didn't got booted by society and collective ostracism but by a business decision. That's a corporation making decision for the peoole which information the society should be exposed to.
If the society is not resistant to stupid ideas and need to rely on corporations and politicians to police information, that's a malfunctioning society.
Also, ToS are not society rules.
You just identified society as corporation and corporation is dictatorship.
He didn't got booted by society and collective ostracism but by a business decision. That's a corporation making decision for the peoole which information the society should be exposed to.
If the society is not resistant to stupid ideas and need to rely on corporations and politicians to police information, that's a malfunctioning society.
Also, ToS are not society rules.
raverbashing(1)
quantummkv(1)
Whose lives did Alex Jones threaten?
> Whose lives did Alex Jones threaten?
Is this a genuine question? This is HN, so it should be. However, I’m not sure how you can be this far down into this chain and not know about Sandy Hook, since it is the very incident that pushed him over the line.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Hook_Elementary_School_s...
Is this a genuine question? This is HN, so it should be. However, I’m not sure how you can be this far down into this chain and not know about Sandy Hook, since it is the very incident that pushed him over the line.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Hook_Elementary_School_s...
At the risk of sounding like a troll, I don't see anything in that link about Alex Jones threatening lives.
I think they are saying Alex Jones is responsible because his followers ended up stalking and harassing the victims parents. One could argue he never directly said to do that so it isn't his responsibility, but he also has a big platform.
So do you now expect content creators to be in direct responsibility for any stupid action that any of their self-identified fans do? That's just crazy, how do you even consider this a defensible view?
Sorry, are you trying to convince me of something? I just translated what I think is a fair view of a different comment...
When you tell your fans to do it, yes. There’s a lawsuit about it. Look it up before grandstanding on false premises.
Can you post a quote in which Alex Jones told his followers to threaten the lives of these people? Looks like the lawsuit was only about defamation, not Alex Jones directing people who listen to him to make death threats.
I’m not trying to make some gotcha argument that you can cause your followers to make death threats and therefore you had no part. I’m making the case that Alex Jones is an idiot who says things about water turning the frogs gay, and under no reasonable interpretation of his actions or beliefs can I see that he intended to cause death threats to occur.
I’m not trying to make some gotcha argument that you can cause your followers to make death threats and therefore you had no part. I’m making the case that Alex Jones is an idiot who says things about water turning the frogs gay, and under no reasonable interpretation of his actions or beliefs can I see that he intended to cause death threats to occur.
By this logic Bernie Sanders endangered lives because one of his supporters shot Steve Scalise. To my knowledge Jones just said something like Sandy Hook was fake, which is clearly a bad thing to say, but it doesn't threaten people.
Alex hammered his Sandy Hook conspiracy theory to the point of being sued for defamation, and losing (https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=alex+jones+sandy+hook+lawsu...). Families were forced to move multiple times, unable to visit graves. When the families faced hardship, Alex doubled down on his claims. He never took a moment to ask his supporters to back off or seek a calmer resolution.
Whereas Bernie immediately denounced the shooter and reached out to Steve Scalise. Steve does not blame Bernie for having a deranged fan (https://www.newsweek.com/steve-scalise-shooting-bernie-sande...). Bernie did not imply Steve deserved to be harassed or shot. He has, in fact, asked his supporters to back off (https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/bernie-s...).
These two things are obviously not equivalent.
Whereas Bernie immediately denounced the shooter and reached out to Steve Scalise. Steve does not blame Bernie for having a deranged fan (https://www.newsweek.com/steve-scalise-shooting-bernie-sande...). Bernie did not imply Steve deserved to be harassed or shot. He has, in fact, asked his supporters to back off (https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/bernie-s...).
These two things are obviously not equivalent.
Not quite "never". You may not be aware because the Joe Rogan podcast was the only outlet that covered his apologies and regret for his behavior. For years since the incident he's been telling his followers in his own show that he was wrong about it and to not harass the families.
It's still the case that he changed his attitude too late, only after some of his listeners acted and the escalation became real.
It's still the case that he changed his attitude too late, only after some of his listeners acted and the escalation became real.
> He never took a moment to ask his supporters to back off or seek a calmer resolution.
This is an interesting point, because had he done that it could be used against him as an admission of guilt.
This is an interesting point, because had he done that it could be used against him as an admission of guilt.
Similar arguments have been for Trump as well
> Is this a genuine question?
Incredulity is not an argument, nor does the link you provided have any information on Alex Jones threatening anyone's life.
Incredulity is not an argument, nor does the link you provided have any information on Alex Jones threatening anyone's life.
> Whose lives did Alex Jones threaten?
Well he recently threatened to eat his neighbours!
"I'm ready to hang them up and gut em and skin em and chop them up"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrD1M-OcVts
Well he recently threatened to eat his neighbours!
"I'm ready to hang them up and gut em and skin em and chop them up"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrD1M-OcVts
> He needs to play by society’s rules if he wants to play by society’s rules. You can’t just pick and choose which norms you’re entitled to.
This is "a murderer has not granted others the right to not be killed, so why should we not just hang him right here and now?", make no mistake.
This is "a murderer has not granted others the right to not be killed, so why should we not just hang him right here and now?", make no mistake.
> Alex Jones when he peddles lies and threatens lives for profit. He needs to play by society’s rules if he wants to play by society’s rules.
Do you think Alex Jones should not have been talking about Epstein having a pedophile island, or promote a study by MIT about the effect of groundwater pollution on animals?
Do you think Alex Jones should not have been talking about Epstein having a pedophile island, or promote a study by MIT about the effect of groundwater pollution on animals?
> But they are breaking a norm
Media companies selectively choosing what to publish has been the norm since forever.
My local paper won't publish libellous comments I may write against a particular person whom I hold grudge against. And my local TV station wouldn't show a pornographic commercial that I thought would be hilarious to see.
Private media companies ultimately answer to their advertisers and most of them simply don't want to be associated with inflammatory or socially unacceptable content.
Media companies selectively choosing what to publish has been the norm since forever.
My local paper won't publish libellous comments I may write against a particular person whom I hold grudge against. And my local TV station wouldn't show a pornographic commercial that I thought would be hilarious to see.
Private media companies ultimately answer to their advertisers and most of them simply don't want to be associated with inflammatory or socially unacceptable content.
It would be more in line with your local library refusing to catalog your book. Youtube is a content host, not a publisher.
TV stations almost entirely host content.
So my point still stands that the norm is for media companies to be able to curate their content as they see fit.
So my point still stands that the norm is for media companies to be able to curate their content as they see fit.
YouTube looks a lot like a content publisher to me. It's a monitisation platform. It transcodes for devices. It indexes the content and makes search & discovery available.
Even the terminology is consistent with publisher - channel, subscriber, and so on.
If the content is explicitly uploaded to YT, then how is it not a publisher?
Even the terminology is consistent with publisher - channel, subscriber, and so on.
If the content is explicitly uploaded to YT, then how is it not a publisher?
> YouTube looks a lot like a content publisher to me. It's a monitisation platform. It transcodes for devices. It indexes the content and makes search & discovery available.
The monetization aspect seems to be the only differentiation between what would consist a virtual library and a publisher.
And we know how difficult it is to get monetized on YouTube and make it a viable source of income.
The monetization aspect seems to be the only differentiation between what would consist a virtual library and a publisher.
And we know how difficult it is to get monetized on YouTube and make it a viable source of income.
Public libraries are required by law to catalog books. Very different. Private libraries can and will often deny to catalog your random book.
> My local paper won't publish libelous comments
would your paper do that it would become a likely target of defamation. Youtube claims to be a platform and is exempt from that risk.
would your paper do that it would become a likely target of defamation. Youtube claims to be a platform and is exempt from that risk.
> you are also preventing people from reading what they want to read or hearing what they want to hear. That harm is far greater than whatever happens to the author.
When long-term under-informed people mumble over insane issues on a macro scale, sometimes a barrier should be summoned to simply get their point of view on record. Once you get to see their insanity, you can begin to sanitize back to common sense. imho
When long-term under-informed people mumble over insane issues on a macro scale, sometimes a barrier should be summoned to simply get their point of view on record. Once you get to see their insanity, you can begin to sanitize back to common sense. imho
OK, but that raises another question: Who decides? Censorship requires a censor. Who are you willing to let decide for you what you're allowed to read and hear?
I don't know about you, but I'd like to decide for myself what media I can consume.
I don't know about you, but I'd like to decide for myself what media I can consume.
You can, but much like you can’t hear someone whispering 5 miles away you can’t consume anyone’s content who does not have a vehicle to get it to you.
> Again, YouTube is a private company and they can do whatever they want when it comes to curating the information they store. I would be against any law that compelled them to host information that they didn't want to host.
Not necessarily related to Alex Jones (I am not informed about what happened with him), but I would like to mention that YouTube in the US need not to be politically biased toward content curation, otherwise it becomes possible to sue them directly for defamation based on videos the users upload.
That to say that they can do whatever they want, but currently they are promising not to act with political motivations in mind, so a possible venue of criticism is claiming that they are not upholding this promise.
(again, I have no idea of how this relates to Alex Jones, this is only to mention that it is not only about a freedom of speech issue when it comes to online platforms)
Not necessarily related to Alex Jones (I am not informed about what happened with him), but I would like to mention that YouTube in the US need not to be politically biased toward content curation, otherwise it becomes possible to sue them directly for defamation based on videos the users upload.
That to say that they can do whatever they want, but currently they are promising not to act with political motivations in mind, so a possible venue of criticism is claiming that they are not upholding this promise.
(again, I have no idea of how this relates to Alex Jones, this is only to mention that it is not only about a freedom of speech issue when it comes to online platforms)
What original formulations of freedom of speech do you refer to?
edit: also, not sure if you lived through the 90s. But none of the examples you gave were off-limits for TV or radio.
edit: also, not sure if you lived through the 90s. But none of the examples you gave were off-limits for TV or radio.
John Milton in Areopagitica[1]:
> Bad meats will scarce breed good nourishment in the healthiest concoction; but herein the difference is of bad books, that they to a discreet and judicious Reader serve in many respects to discover, to confute, to forewarn, and to illustrate.
Thomas Paine's introduction to The Age of Reason[2]:
> You will do me the justice to remember, that I have always strenuously supported the Right of every Man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.
Chapter 2 of Mill's On Liberty[3]:
> But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.
None of these argue from the rights of the speaker or writer. They're focused on the ideas and the reader. They point out that even bad ideas have good uses. These are the arguments that moved us away from a censorious society.
1. https://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/areopagitica/...
2. https://www.ushistory.org/paine/reason/intro.htm
3. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_Liberty/Chapter_2
> Bad meats will scarce breed good nourishment in the healthiest concoction; but herein the difference is of bad books, that they to a discreet and judicious Reader serve in many respects to discover, to confute, to forewarn, and to illustrate.
Thomas Paine's introduction to The Age of Reason[2]:
> You will do me the justice to remember, that I have always strenuously supported the Right of every Man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.
Chapter 2 of Mill's On Liberty[3]:
> But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.
None of these argue from the rights of the speaker or writer. They're focused on the ideas and the reader. They point out that even bad ideas have good uses. These are the arguments that moved us away from a censorious society.
1. https://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/areopagitica/...
2. https://www.ushistory.org/paine/reason/intro.htm
3. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_Liberty/Chapter_2
Thanks for the reply and the specifics. I don't know much about free speech as it was conceptualized in the U.S. Constitution, so I'm cribbing from the Wikipedia page [0]. With respect to Milton and Mill, the Wikipedia entry actually cites each in arguing for free speech and for limits to rights, respectively:
- "[Milton] Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties" (Areopagitica)
- "[Wikipedia] Freedom of speech and expression, therefore, may not be recognized as being absolute...Justifications for such include the harm principle, proposed by John Stuart Mill in On Liberty, which suggests that: 'the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.'"
I'm happy to defer to your knowledge of Milton and Mill if you think Wikipedia misquotes/decontextualizes the latter. That said, the reason why I prefer the U.S. Constitution as a starting point isn't just because of YouTube's location or because – as an American – that it's my default frame of reference. I prefer the First Amendment because unlike writings from Mill and Milton, it has actually been implemented as law in a successful government and society. You can dismiss the Constitution as a flawed document written by a bunch of connected white guys, but the fact is that – through original intent and living interpretation by the Supreme Court – it has weathered a far, far greater scope of human communication and freedom than Milton or Mill could ever imagine.
Putting aside personal preference, what's the justification for giving pre-Constitution philosophers greater or equal weight to the Constitution? Because they thought about things decades/centuries earlier? How were their thoughts proven in implementation, not just in their own time, but in all the epochs of societal and technological change since then?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech
- "[Milton] Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties" (Areopagitica)
- "[Wikipedia] Freedom of speech and expression, therefore, may not be recognized as being absolute...Justifications for such include the harm principle, proposed by John Stuart Mill in On Liberty, which suggests that: 'the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.'"
I'm happy to defer to your knowledge of Milton and Mill if you think Wikipedia misquotes/decontextualizes the latter. That said, the reason why I prefer the U.S. Constitution as a starting point isn't just because of YouTube's location or because – as an American – that it's my default frame of reference. I prefer the First Amendment because unlike writings from Mill and Milton, it has actually been implemented as law in a successful government and society. You can dismiss the Constitution as a flawed document written by a bunch of connected white guys, but the fact is that – through original intent and living interpretation by the Supreme Court – it has weathered a far, far greater scope of human communication and freedom than Milton or Mill could ever imagine.
Putting aside personal preference, what's the justification for giving pre-Constitution philosophers greater or equal weight to the Constitution? Because they thought about things decades/centuries earlier? How were their thoughts proven in implementation, not just in their own time, but in all the epochs of societal and technological change since then?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech
I think there are philosophical arguments for free speech that can be evaluated on their own merits:
1) If some idea is true, I'd like to be able to learn that it's true.
2) If a system silences a dissenter, then other dissenters (who could have better arguments) will know that there's no principled protection for them, and won't speak.
3) If some idea has been silenced, then most people don't know the best arguments for it, so they can't in good conscience support the silencing.
4) Clearly false ideas don't need silencing. Historically, an alarming proportion of silenced ideas have been true, but dangerous to the prevailing power of the day.
1) If some idea is true, I'd like to be able to learn that it's true.
2) If a system silences a dissenter, then other dissenters (who could have better arguments) will know that there's no principled protection for them, and won't speak.
3) If some idea has been silenced, then most people don't know the best arguments for it, so they can't in good conscience support the silencing.
4) Clearly false ideas don't need silencing. Historically, an alarming proportion of silenced ideas have been true, but dangerous to the prevailing power of the day.
Just to remember this later:
5) Stopping a political idea from being heard by people is removing political agency from these people, which is undemocratic.
5) Stopping a political idea from being heard by people is removing political agency from these people, which is undemocratic.
> And we all end up worse off.
That's a bold and simple claim about complex interactions. Can you support this position at all or is it more like a conviction you have?
That's a bold and simple claim about complex interactions. Can you support this position at all or is it more like a conviction you have?
Sorry, that's not a great analogy.
Are you saying that Alex Jones's views are just ahead of their time and the culture is not ready for it?
I understand that there is one perspective on free speech that says any restriction means that in the future people will abuse it to suppress ANY ideas they disagree with, and I find that this is only true with a very specific type of religious, authoritarian, American, republican voice.
The entire western world bans holocaust denial, and it hasn't led to a chilling effect on other expressions.
Truth is truth. No matter how much some people try to redefine it to be meaningless today, there are still some essential facts. Humanity did go to the moon. The earth is not flat.
Are you saying that Alex Jones's views are just ahead of their time and the culture is not ready for it?
I understand that there is one perspective on free speech that says any restriction means that in the future people will abuse it to suppress ANY ideas they disagree with, and I find that this is only true with a very specific type of religious, authoritarian, American, republican voice.
The entire western world bans holocaust denial, and it hasn't led to a chilling effect on other expressions.
Truth is truth. No matter how much some people try to redefine it to be meaningless today, there are still some essential facts. Humanity did go to the moon. The earth is not flat.
> The entire western world bans holocaust denial, and it hasn't led to a chilling effect on other expressions.
Debatable. Banning holocaust denial is one of the greatest travesties in Western free speech. You just gave anti-Semites one more reason to believe there’s a global Jewish conspiracy going on and another recruitment tool.
Debatable. Banning holocaust denial is one of the greatest travesties in Western free speech. You just gave anti-Semites one more reason to believe there’s a global Jewish conspiracy going on and another recruitment tool.
You'll have to explain why it's such a great travesty because it's not obvious.
Because the types of people that would believe in Holocaust-denial in 2020, are the same types of people that are fed by conspiracy theories when things are banned.
So what's the problem?
The existance of such ban. It feeds the conspiracy theorists, and it's just weird - why only this genocide, and not the communist one, which is increasingly denied thanks to Russian online presence? Why saying "Heil Hitler" and the gesture is criminal offense, but "Cest praci, soudruhu" (a Czech communist greeting) is not, and why the Hakenkreuz is forbidden, but the star, hammer and sickle is not? Why do statues of Stalin and Lenin and other communist leaders remain standing around the world? Surely you can imagine the outrage if it was Hitler's statue.
The laws shouldn't have such weirds corner cases of completely banning references to one thing and ignoring another, arguably worse thing.
The laws shouldn't have such weirds corner cases of completely banning references to one thing and ignoring another, arguably worse thing.
[deleted]
Why is banning speech a great travesty?
Because it hides the truth. Perhaps someone will discover people you wouldn't expect involved doing things we wouldn't expect which may cause some aspects from being denied to cease to be true. Silencing one groups end up silencing another.
Why don't we have a law banning denial of other genocides like the Armenian genocide. There should be an equal concern for all genocides being denied.
Because it hides the truth. Perhaps someone will discover people you wouldn't expect involved doing things we wouldn't expect which may cause some aspects from being denied to cease to be true. Silencing one groups end up silencing another.
Why don't we have a law banning denial of other genocides like the Armenian genocide. There should be an equal concern for all genocides being denied.
> Are you saying that Alex Jones's views are just ahead of their time and the culture is not ready for it?
No. In fact I thought I explained that pretty clearly. I said, "So far, we haven't figured out a way to separate good ideas from bad ones besides exposing people to them and seeing which memes reproduce in the population. In other words: If you ban people like Alex Jones, you also ban people who are activists for causes that society will adopt in the future. And we all end up worse off." I don't know how you can interpret that to mean that I am somehow in favor of Jones.
> The entire western world bans holocaust denial, and it hasn't led to a chilling effect on other expressions.
That's not true. For example: David Irving's version of the Goebbels diaries is considered by many (including the late Christopher Hitchens) to be an important work. Irving was imprisoned in Austria for holocaust denial because of something he said 17 years earlier.[1] Apparently the statue of limitations is a long time when it comes to words. There are quite a few other examples, not to mention the chilling effect such laws have. There are also tiny annoyances such as Germany banning the swastika in Wolfenstein games and on models of Zeppelins. Is Germany's society so fragile that a symbol can topple it? They seem to think so.
These laws have a cost. Maybe they're worth it. Maybe they're not. But don't pretend they're pure upside. Many countries have no laws about holocaust denial and get along just fine. Personally, I prefer places and platforms where I can decide for myself what I'm allowed to read and hear.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_trial
No. In fact I thought I explained that pretty clearly. I said, "So far, we haven't figured out a way to separate good ideas from bad ones besides exposing people to them and seeing which memes reproduce in the population. In other words: If you ban people like Alex Jones, you also ban people who are activists for causes that society will adopt in the future. And we all end up worse off." I don't know how you can interpret that to mean that I am somehow in favor of Jones.
> The entire western world bans holocaust denial, and it hasn't led to a chilling effect on other expressions.
That's not true. For example: David Irving's version of the Goebbels diaries is considered by many (including the late Christopher Hitchens) to be an important work. Irving was imprisoned in Austria for holocaust denial because of something he said 17 years earlier.[1] Apparently the statue of limitations is a long time when it comes to words. There are quite a few other examples, not to mention the chilling effect such laws have. There are also tiny annoyances such as Germany banning the swastika in Wolfenstein games and on models of Zeppelins. Is Germany's society so fragile that a symbol can topple it? They seem to think so.
These laws have a cost. Maybe they're worth it. Maybe they're not. But don't pretend they're pure upside. Many countries have no laws about holocaust denial and get along just fine. Personally, I prefer places and platforms where I can decide for myself what I'm allowed to read and hear.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_trial
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_trial
So someone got convicted for holocaust denial because they denied the existence of the holocaust? The system works!
Not being facetious, this is not a problem.
> If you ban people like Alex Jones, you also ban people who are activists for causes that society will adopt in the future. And we all end up worse off." I don't know how you can interpret that to mean that I am somehow in favor of Jones.
Easily because that's the implication of your statement. That there is no way to differentiate between Alex Jones's ideology and the ideology of human rights activists.
Which is a ridiculous premise.
So someone got convicted for holocaust denial because they denied the existence of the holocaust? The system works!
Not being facetious, this is not a problem.
> If you ban people like Alex Jones, you also ban people who are activists for causes that society will adopt in the future. And we all end up worse off." I don't know how you can interpret that to mean that I am somehow in favor of Jones.
Easily because that's the implication of your statement. That there is no way to differentiate between Alex Jones's ideology and the ideology of human rights activists.
Which is a ridiculous premise.
I've been making this point for a while on hackernews, but never so eloquently. Very well put.
Some part of the heterodox ideas of today will invariably be Orthodox in the future. A small fraction of them, mind you, but you impede progress if you enforce the orthodoxy. That's what the church used to do when it had sufficient power.
I noticed that one of the videos removed by YouTube is medcram #71. Which discusses, logically and with citations, treatment results using zinc and hydroxychloroquinine. Surely because the media are quick to paint it as Trump's widely discredited treatment that he was pushing. However, if you dig into the actual studies, they don't support that conclusion, in my opinion. The media jumped on one Veterans study where the treatment was given too late in the disease to make a difference. They never reevaluated their conclusion when other studies contradicted that result, possibly because they badly want Trump to be wrong. So here is one heterodox idea being suppressed potentially to the detriment of all mankind, in our hour of need. Even if you ascribe a very small probability that I'm right on this, you have to admit censorship could be doing us a great harm.
My prediction is this gets down voted to hell because the hn voting system itself not only is a way of suppressing heterodox ideas by moving them down the page and greying them out, but it leans left as well, and I had the gall to defend a thing Trump said. I can't stand Trump for the record, but even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Some part of the heterodox ideas of today will invariably be Orthodox in the future. A small fraction of them, mind you, but you impede progress if you enforce the orthodoxy. That's what the church used to do when it had sufficient power.
I noticed that one of the videos removed by YouTube is medcram #71. Which discusses, logically and with citations, treatment results using zinc and hydroxychloroquinine. Surely because the media are quick to paint it as Trump's widely discredited treatment that he was pushing. However, if you dig into the actual studies, they don't support that conclusion, in my opinion. The media jumped on one Veterans study where the treatment was given too late in the disease to make a difference. They never reevaluated their conclusion when other studies contradicted that result, possibly because they badly want Trump to be wrong. So here is one heterodox idea being suppressed potentially to the detriment of all mankind, in our hour of need. Even if you ascribe a very small probability that I'm right on this, you have to admit censorship could be doing us a great harm.
My prediction is this gets down voted to hell because the hn voting system itself not only is a way of suppressing heterodox ideas by moving them down the page and greying them out, but it leans left as well, and I had the gall to defend a thing Trump said. I can't stand Trump for the record, but even a broken clock is right twice a day.
It is still a grey area as to whether Youtube is legally responsible for the content it shows.
So given that HCQ kills people in certain situations you can understand why they might be reluctant to allow non-experts to promote its use.
So given that HCQ kills people in certain situations you can understand why they might be reluctant to allow non-experts to promote its use.
They would have to ban most medical advice and a lot of health advice in that case. Not to mention videos of people doing or talking about risky things. That's a shallow excuse that I don't buy.
Here's the banned video, make up your own mind if you think censorship of it is justified: https://fast.wistia.net/embed/medias/td0v8taipc
And when upstream service providers cut him off, he can start his own one of those.
When payment processors close all his accounts, he can start one of those.
Remember, kids, censorship refers to the government and only the government. Stray far enough onto the wrong side of history, and society may voluntarily decide you're an asshole and show you the door. And that'll be on you.
When payment processors close all his accounts, he can start one of those.
Remember, kids, censorship refers to the government and only the government. Stray far enough onto the wrong side of history, and society may voluntarily decide you're an asshole and show you the door. And that'll be on you.
I hate Alex Jones, but I have to agree. There's a difference between being kicked out of a restaurant for being an ass, vs being kicked out of EVERY restaurant on Earth for the rest of your life - without due process.
These online services aren't small mom/pop shops that you can just replace and patronize another. They are global near-monopolies that you cannot function without.
Google isn't just my search provider - they run my email, my internet connection, my cell service, my company's cloud repository, etc... They could destroy me at the drop of a hat.
These online services aren't small mom/pop shops that you can just replace and patronize another. They are global near-monopolies that you cannot function without.
Google isn't just my search provider - they run my email, my internet connection, my cell service, my company's cloud repository, etc... They could destroy me at the drop of a hat.
> I hate Alex Jones, but I have to agree. There's a difference between being kicked out of a restaurant for being an ass, vs being kicked out of EVERY restaurant on Earth for the rest of your life - without due process.
That's a bit of a straw man, no? Jones still has plenty of perfectly-functioning restaurants to visit, with quite extensive menus. If one of the biggest assholes on the internet still has a platform to spew his hate, I don't think we're in any danger of this dystopian society existing where people can be completely silenced based on the will of a few corporations.
> Google isn't just my search provider - they run my email, my internet connection, my cell service, my company's cloud repository, etc... They could destroy me at the drop of a hat.
That's a choice you've made, not a required state of being. There are plenty of other companies that provide search, email, internet service, cell service, cloud repos, etc. that are just as (if not more) functional and featureful.
That's a bit of a straw man, no? Jones still has plenty of perfectly-functioning restaurants to visit, with quite extensive menus. If one of the biggest assholes on the internet still has a platform to spew his hate, I don't think we're in any danger of this dystopian society existing where people can be completely silenced based on the will of a few corporations.
> Google isn't just my search provider - they run my email, my internet connection, my cell service, my company's cloud repository, etc... They could destroy me at the drop of a hat.
That's a choice you've made, not a required state of being. There are plenty of other companies that provide search, email, internet service, cell service, cloud repos, etc. that are just as (if not more) functional and featureful.
I don't see how this is a straw man. He's been banned from all major social media platforms, for life, without due process.
> That's a choice you've made...
No, not really. Because my argument (perhaps wrongly) focused on Google, but it's still true that I have to choose a major near-monopoly corporation to do email, mobile, social media, telephone service, cloud, etc...
There are no alternatives. Have you ever tried to stand up your own email server? You can't. Google won't even relay the emails.
> That's a choice you've made...
No, not really. Because my argument (perhaps wrongly) focused on Google, but it's still true that I have to choose a major near-monopoly corporation to do email, mobile, social media, telephone service, cloud, etc...
There are no alternatives. Have you ever tried to stand up your own email server? You can't. Google won't even relay the emails.
> Google isn't just my search provider - they run my email, my internet connection, my cell service, my company's cloud repository, etc... They could destroy me at the drop of a hat.
More fool you. Maybe you should diversify a bit.
More fool you. Maybe you should diversify a bit.
Aye, a bit part of my push this year has been de-googling my life. Along with de-facebooking and de-microsofting.
A more apt comparison is being banned from every bar/pub in town for causing issues, without due process and without having set foot in some of them.
Which is perfectly fine and acceptable
Which is perfectly fine and acceptable
Being banned from every bar and restaurant in the world for something he said? Have you ever heard of such a thing? It would be ludicrous.
> Google isn't just my search provider - they run my email, my internet connection, my cell service, my company's cloud repository,
You have no alternative to any of those services?
You have no alternative to any of those services?
I'm skeptical of "kicked out of EVERY restaurant on Earth"
The Daily Stormer is fairly bad as sites go "Jews Howl as Portuguese Move to Shut Down Their Citizenship Scam" typical story - and after various attempts to get rid of them all you have to do to go to the site is google them and click on the link in the wikipedia page.
About the only sites that are really kicked out of all restaurants are paedophila ones and they deserve that and more IMO.
The Daily Stormer is fairly bad as sites go "Jews Howl as Portuguese Move to Shut Down Their Citizenship Scam" typical story - and after various attempts to get rid of them all you have to do to go to the site is google them and click on the link in the wikipedia page.
About the only sites that are really kicked out of all restaurants are paedophila ones and they deserve that and more IMO.
Twitter has actually vowed to support pedos, as long as they don't talk about plans to hurt actual, particular children.
But the community of "MAPs" is protected by social media these days. Repeat the 13-50 statistic, though, and you're out (though the likes of "kill all white people" appears to be ok).
But the community of "MAPs" is protected by social media these days. Repeat the 13-50 statistic, though, and you're out (though the likes of "kill all white people" appears to be ok).
So where were you when the Isis videos were taken off YouTube and ISIS twitter accounts were deleted? The thing is the outcry always only comes when companies don't want to be associated with some right-wing nutjobs hate speech, while I never hear the same people shouting that ISIS promo videos should not be taken down because of censorship. If all censorship is always bad, why not complain about those cases? Call me sceptical, but to me this sounds very much like, "hey they remove content that I sympathise with, instead of content that I don't like" and almost always aimed at propagating the myth of right-wing victimhood.
You really cannot differentiate between content that should criminal murder in progress versus Alex Jones's conspiracy theories?
That's a pretty soft shell you have.
That's a pretty soft shell you have.
If I advocate for criminal activity and my advocacy is likely to produce said criminal activity, that speech is not protected.
I think you missed the parent's point. I read it as, "if you get kicked out of every restaurant on the planet, it might be your fault."
Of course there are protections for certain classes of people based on their attributes or fundamentals, but society can call your bullshit out.
Of course there are protections for certain classes of people based on their attributes or fundamentals, but society can call your bullshit out.
koheripbal(1)
You're arguing this as if the censorship you're talking about has actually happened to anyone ever. We're literally talking about Alex Jones because he's the most extreme example, but actually the opposite is true. We have Alex Jones as a great demonstration of the most objectionable person on the internet. Is he censored?
I don't know, I suggest you ask him here: www.infowars.com or listen to one of his 6 podcasts a week, or subscribe to his newsletter, or buy his Tubo Force tablets in his shop, or download his app, or his soundcloud, or his reddit account, or his Gab account, or his Telegram account, or on liveleak.
The fact of the matter is that Alex Jones has more ability to braodcast his speech to people around the world than any single individual who was living before 1980.
I don't know, I suggest you ask him here: www.infowars.com or listen to one of his 6 podcasts a week, or subscribe to his newsletter, or buy his Tubo Force tablets in his shop, or download his app, or his soundcloud, or his reddit account, or his Gab account, or his Telegram account, or on liveleak.
The fact of the matter is that Alex Jones has more ability to braodcast his speech to people around the world than any single individual who was living before 1980.
> You're arguing this as if the censorship you're talking about has actually happened to anyone ever.
It has happened.
When Gab tried to compete with Twitter, Apple and Google banned their app.
Payment processors have banned controversial sites like Wikileaks too.
It has happened.
When Gab tried to compete with Twitter, Apple and Google banned their app.
Payment processors have banned controversial sites like Wikileaks too.
You can download the Gab android app here: https://apps.gab.com/application/5d3f982c9dd49a5b1d9fc881
Or visit gab.ai on your Chrome browser.
Wikileaks explains the 5 different ways you can donate to them here: https://shop.wikileaks.org/donate
Including about 75 different cryptocurrencies
Or visit gab.ai on your Chrome browser.
Wikileaks explains the 5 different ways you can donate to them here: https://shop.wikileaks.org/donate
Including about 75 different cryptocurrencies
It's still censorship if a school library bans a book even if you can still buy it from Amazon. The existence of alternatives doesn't mean censorship hasn't happened.
[deleted]
> We have Alex Jones as a great demonstration of the most objectionable person on the internet. Is he censored?
Oh come on there must be far more objectionable characters on the internet. Genuine terrorists and pedophiles and whatever. Or at least they would be, but they are so toxic they actually are censored by most every platform.
Oh come on there must be far more objectionable characters on the internet. Genuine terrorists and pedophiles and whatever. Or at least they would be, but they are so toxic they actually are censored by most every platform.
Of course it is censorship to remove someone because of the content they create. Plain and simple.
And no, he isn't the only one by far. He was just the notorious one to sell people the practice of content controls on platforms. Since then many content creators have either been removed or demonetized.
Nothing controversial will ever find a home on Youtube as a consequence. You will just get the most benign shit you will get on TV if trends fortify themselves.
And no, he isn't the only one by far. He was just the notorious one to sell people the practice of content controls on platforms. Since then many content creators have either been removed or demonetized.
Nothing controversial will ever find a home on Youtube as a consequence. You will just get the most benign shit you will get on TV if trends fortify themselves.
Where are you drawing that line, I'm really curious. Can you put me live on Zoom in your house so I can talk about things I like? If not, are you participating in censorship?
It's censorship to stop someone saying something, not to stop them saying something on your property. The New York Times isn't censoring me by choosing not to publish my incoherent ramblings on their front page.
It is still censorship if you do it on your property. It is your right to do so, not the point here but still censorship. The NYT is a publisher and we did a lot of work separating the two. Currently there are ambitions to moderate platforms because those have more listeners.
As I said, there are enough creators demonetized because they are just controversial. Advertisers don't like that. So what are you arguing here for exactly?
As I said, there are enough creators demonetized because they are just controversial. Advertisers don't like that. So what are you arguing here for exactly?
If all publishers, persons and organizations are censoring everyone who is not allowed to use their platform/property to express whatever they want... then it seems to dilute the meaning of censorship into nothingness.
> Stray far enough onto the wrong side of history, and society may voluntarily decide you're an asshole and show you the door. And that'll be on you.
Remember kids, there's no such thing as being an actual arsehole, harassing people and endangering people. It's just that they are people who strayed on "the wrong side of history". My neighbour who's kicking his cat? Not an arsehole.
Remember kids, there's no such thing as being an actual arsehole, harassing people and endangering people. It's just that they are people who strayed on "the wrong side of history". My neighbour who's kicking his cat? Not an arsehole.
I mean, at some point in history your asshole who’s kicking his cat was probably not seen as an asshole. If only because domesticated cats haven’t always been a thing.
He could end up like Laura Loomer and get banned from Uber, Uber Eats etc as well.
Maybe smarter people (Zizek?) have already talked about this, but for me the current global political compass is very weird. I consider myself a hard-leftist and yet somehow I sometimes feel ideologically closer, or at least not so estranged from your salt-of-the-earth Trump/Brexit voter than to the current modern western progressives, or what people in the 60s used to call a somewhat similar group: Champagne socialists. For me, at least, using my conspiracy hat this is a big big victory for the dominant class, because the existent cries for stricter corporate oversee, dismantling of the lobbying system , unjust labor conditions are totally drowned in a sea of political correctness, in which many of the issues are less important. Many people counter-argue saying that all injustices are worth to be talking about, and I of course agree, but not to the expense of the most important ones, and even less to the expense of basic issues like freedom of speech and equality before the law. The same people who cheer and request the banning of all platforms for their political enemies are scandalized if the workers demographics of any "chic" industry or company does not match exactly their perceived ideal.
This possibility seems lost on far too many people: if they can do it to him, they can do it to you, too.
This feeling of closeness is not new (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory)
Nice try, but no. I would say it is more an orthogonal thing.
Most of the worries of the common folk(left and right leaning) are not shared by the vocal pieces of the progressive movement.
Nice try? Look, mate, I intentionally only provided a reference to show that the idea of commonality between hard-left and hard-right is not a new one without going into the correctness of it or if it is the same as what you feel. My point is that it is not new and not weird. It is not even only an idea, as one can already observe both sides cooperating on some issues in Europe.
Apparently my bland non-committal comment was already provocative enough to get down-voted.
I don't have an inclination to debate it further as both of your comments are peppered with descriptions (salt-of-the-earth Trump/Brexit voter, common folk...) that suggest this would unlikely be fruitful.
Apparently my bland non-committal comment was already provocative enough to get down-voted.
I don't have an inclination to debate it further as both of your comments are peppered with descriptions (salt-of-the-earth Trump/Brexit voter, common folk...) that suggest this would unlikely be fruitful.
The one dimensional left-right spectrum is clearly inadequate, as there are many more axes. 2D maps are more useful (e.g. the Pournelle and Nolan Charts) but still a bit simplistic.
I doubt this is just your perception and companies notice it too and are already trying to leverage the desires for indiction.
> Zizek
50% of what he says is him talking out of his ass.
> what people in the 60s used to call a somewhat similar group: Champagne socialists. For me, at least, using my conspiracy hat this is a big big victory for the dominant class, because the existent cries for stricter corporate oversee, dismantling of the lobbying system , unjust labor conditions are totally drowned in a sea of political correctness
Absolutely. That's the point. Talk a big game about tolerance and blowing the progressive dog whistles... but keep data mining the fuck out of people and racking up insane profits.
50% of what he says is him talking out of his ass.
> what people in the 60s used to call a somewhat similar group: Champagne socialists. For me, at least, using my conspiracy hat this is a big big victory for the dominant class, because the existent cries for stricter corporate oversee, dismantling of the lobbying system , unjust labor conditions are totally drowned in a sea of political correctness
Absolutely. That's the point. Talk a big game about tolerance and blowing the progressive dog whistles... but keep data mining the fuck out of people and racking up insane profits.
> society may voluntarily decide you're an asshole and show you the door
For all people who support the "marketplace of ideas" argument (which I don't, not least because there is fairly compelling research that documents why a marketplace is a bad metaphor for how ideas spread and damaging ideology takes hold) – wouldn't this be evidence that your idea is failing in said marketplace? Your comment seems to confuse a laissez-faire approach with supporting and subsidising anyone who comes along no matter how problematic their speech is.
Being anti-censorship is not the same being pro-megaphone: freedom of speech doesn't require giving everyone the widest possible audience with no restrictions.
(obligatory XKCD https://xkcd.com/1357/)
For all people who support the "marketplace of ideas" argument (which I don't, not least because there is fairly compelling research that documents why a marketplace is a bad metaphor for how ideas spread and damaging ideology takes hold) – wouldn't this be evidence that your idea is failing in said marketplace? Your comment seems to confuse a laissez-faire approach with supporting and subsidising anyone who comes along no matter how problematic their speech is.
Being anti-censorship is not the same being pro-megaphone: freedom of speech doesn't require giving everyone the widest possible audience with no restrictions.
(obligatory XKCD https://xkcd.com/1357/)
You're really going to delegate censorship decisions to big tech? What's classes as "misinformation" should be our choice as consumers, not theirs.
Example: David Icke may be a conspiracy theorist, but banning him is one step closer from Alex Jones towards a censorship nightmare.
The slippery slope is 10ft behind and we're cruising down at 100 mph.
Example: David Icke may be a conspiracy theorist, but banning him is one step closer from Alex Jones towards a censorship nightmare.
The slippery slope is 10ft behind and we're cruising down at 100 mph.
No we're not, calm down.
Alex Jones is riling people up on conspiracy theories that actively do harm in order to make money. What happens if a private company removes him from their platform?
…
he can still post on his website?
This isn't some Orwellian nightmare.
A lot of people are trying to figure out how to balance absolute freedom with building a better collective human society.
It's messy! People are messy! And sometimes we make mistakes, even with the best of intentions, even when we make the best choice with the information we have.
It's not like they're kicking math off of YouTube. And, no, this isn't one step towards that.
Alex Jones is riling people up on conspiracy theories that actively do harm in order to make money. What happens if a private company removes him from their platform?
…
he can still post on his website?
This isn't some Orwellian nightmare.
A lot of people are trying to figure out how to balance absolute freedom with building a better collective human society.
It's messy! People are messy! And sometimes we make mistakes, even with the best of intentions, even when we make the best choice with the information we have.
It's not like they're kicking math off of YouTube. And, no, this isn't one step towards that.
"It's not like they're kicking math off of YouTube."
Actually, a funny thing happened to me recently that is sort of in this vein. I made a simple app for tuning theory nerds, for examining how a given equal temperament approximates different whole number ratios. I couldn't link to it when posting on a Facebook group; I was told it violated Facebook community standards (I think they just completely blocked the 1mb.site domain that I hosted it on).
Actually, a funny thing happened to me recently that is sort of in this vein. I made a simple app for tuning theory nerds, for examining how a given equal temperament approximates different whole number ratios. I couldn't link to it when posting on a Facebook group; I was told it violated Facebook community standards (I think they just completely blocked the 1mb.site domain that I hosted it on).
> Alex Jones is riling people up on conspiracy theories that actively do harm in order to make money.
This is literally what Rachel Maddow did with the Russia conspiracy nonsense.
This is literally what Rachel Maddow did with the Russia conspiracy nonsense.
Let's go to specifics. Alex Jones is facing a civil suit alleging that he defamed the families of Sandy Hook victims, the harm from which include harassment and death threats from Jones' followers [0]. When you say that Maddow's coverage of Russiagate is "literally" the same: what actual harm – both in layperson's terms and legally actionable – do you see as a consequence? Defamation? Who would be the aggrieved and threatened party? Trump, personally? The U.S. law affords a much higher legal burden for the president of the U.S. (or anyone as public and powerful) to prove defamation.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/31/alex-jones-p...
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/31/alex-jones-p...
[deleted]
Calm down, Sparky! Perhaps you misread what I wrote. I did not bring up defamation at all. The term used was conspiracy theory. Rachel Maddow pushed a conspiracy theory. It was completely disproven by the FBI investigation. She pushed it for three years with literally not a shred of evidence.
It doesn't count when the popular side does it.
/s
/s
They only think they’re popular because they’re raving so loudly in the public square that they can’t hear the silent majority.
I avoid Rachel Maddow for the same reason I don't bother with the majority of Fox presenters. MSNBC is quite liberal and as much as I like Ari Melber, Chris Hayes and Nicole Wallace, they don't always keep their biases in check. Can be amusing* though to watch Wallace lose it over something Trump said.
*I'm Australian, so my interest in US politics is largely entertainment.
*I'm Australian, so my interest in US politics is largely entertainment.
“Big tech”? What are we 5?
What if it was the investment banks controlling the censorship?
there was a great talk by david icke i saw last year. i think it was in a central american country. man, it's hard to search for it. results are a lot crazier than him, for sure. i think he's a good bloke. his ayahuasca experience and talk of other dimensional beings isn't too different what joe rogan talks about sometimes. i see icke has some new media platform thing called Ickonic.. good luck to him.
"Alex Jones has every right to start his own network if he wants"
Ah, the tired old "start your own Google / Facebook / Twitter / YouTube" trope. That can't be too hard /sarc
Why is delegating (effective) censorship to Big Tech suddenly a good idea?
Ah, the tired old "start your own Google / Facebook / Twitter / YouTube" trope. That can't be too hard /sarc
Why is delegating (effective) censorship to Big Tech suddenly a good idea?
I mean, in general - yeah. But Alex Jones? I've personally launched a few streaming video platforms for audiences within the same # of listeners as AJ's demo - with far less money than AJ has. It's actually not that big of a deal to load an MP4 into a <video/> tag, turns out.
> It's actually not that big of a deal to load an MP4 into a <video/> tag, turns out.
Kind of a big deal if you can't host that MP4 somewhere? If Google/Twitter/Facebook/etc. don't want your stuff ... chances are Amazon doesn't want to host it either. Even if you stand up your own hardware, you're at the mercy of whatever company is providing you the internet connection.
Free speech as a principle isn't about hearing stuff you like. It's about hearing stuff you don't like. That's where the tolerance part of it comes in. When you're tolerating something, it means you're putting up with it even if you don't like it.
And it's not about the law. Yeah, they can do whatever they want since they're private entities. It's about what values we choose to uphold as a society.
Kind of a big deal if you can't host that MP4 somewhere? If Google/Twitter/Facebook/etc. don't want your stuff ... chances are Amazon doesn't want to host it either. Even if you stand up your own hardware, you're at the mercy of whatever company is providing you the internet connection.
Free speech as a principle isn't about hearing stuff you like. It's about hearing stuff you don't like. That's where the tolerance part of it comes in. When you're tolerating something, it means you're putting up with it even if you don't like it.
And it's not about the law. Yeah, they can do whatever they want since they're private entities. It's about what values we choose to uphold as a society.
> Free speech as a principle isn't about hearing stuff you like. It's about hearing stuff you don't like.
Free speech is not about the "right to be listened to," it's a very specific concept that means that the government cannot punish you or restrict your ability to make speech. If one person has a wildly unpopular idea, that is simply what it is: unpopular. To quote the first amendment of the United States Constitution:
> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The true problem in all of this is that the right to "speak freely" is not something that was conceived thinking it would be possible to immediately transmit speech over thousands of miles to millions of people. We have so far enshrined corporations with protection and simultaneously not created any government backed properties for people to share ideas (akin to a digital public square).
If anything is a problem it's that there is no equivalent to a public square because most Internet forums are privately owned places. It would be like if the only land that people didn't own was the sidewalk to city hall.
Free speech is not about the "right to be listened to," it's a very specific concept that means that the government cannot punish you or restrict your ability to make speech. If one person has a wildly unpopular idea, that is simply what it is: unpopular. To quote the first amendment of the United States Constitution:
> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The true problem in all of this is that the right to "speak freely" is not something that was conceived thinking it would be possible to immediately transmit speech over thousands of miles to millions of people. We have so far enshrined corporations with protection and simultaneously not created any government backed properties for people to share ideas (akin to a digital public square).
If anything is a problem it's that there is no equivalent to a public square because most Internet forums are privately owned places. It would be like if the only land that people didn't own was the sidewalk to city hall.
Amazon isn't very likely to care what's hosted on their servers, as it's not as likely to be damaging - both in terms of brand and of legal liability. You don't know a website is hosted on Amazon Web Services the same way you know a video is hosted on Youtube.
It is knowable, by IP address.
That's... not the point. When you watch a youtube video, you have the youtube logo staring at your face. No matter how technically illiterate you are, you know you're on youtube. When your website is hosted on amazon, there's no component of the UI saying "Hey, we're on amazon property". Thus Amazon hypothetically hosting an Alex Jones website would be a lot less damaging to their brand than Youtube hosting an Alex Jones video.
> Amazon doesn’t want to host it either.
This is total bullshit. Amazon doesn’t give a fuck about what you’re hosting on an S3 bucket as long as it’s not illegal.
Also, Amazon is not the only storage provider in the world. Serving your bullshit to the world is definitely not an impediment or limitation.
You’re making it sound like all the major corporations in the world colluded to ban fucking Alex Jones. The reality is that he is probably too incompetent to figure out that he can build his own distribution without relying on major corporations.
But he doesn’t want that. Why? Because how else could he monetize his moronic bullshit?
Alex Jones is a drunk fuck who explodes the stupidity of his base with full knowledge and awareness about it. He knows the more shit he talks the more he can leverage his base to get financial benefits.
People defend Alex Jones on the merits of free speech and they fail to realize that you can say whatever you want and still be 100% factually wrong. So anybody has the right to refuse giving a platform to that. This is not about left and right, this is literally the difference between right and wrong.
You’re claiming that free speech is about hearing things you don’t like. Do you really believe that you’re entitled to an audience just because you have a right to freely speak about anything?
This is total bullshit. Amazon doesn’t give a fuck about what you’re hosting on an S3 bucket as long as it’s not illegal.
Also, Amazon is not the only storage provider in the world. Serving your bullshit to the world is definitely not an impediment or limitation.
You’re making it sound like all the major corporations in the world colluded to ban fucking Alex Jones. The reality is that he is probably too incompetent to figure out that he can build his own distribution without relying on major corporations.
But he doesn’t want that. Why? Because how else could he monetize his moronic bullshit?
Alex Jones is a drunk fuck who explodes the stupidity of his base with full knowledge and awareness about it. He knows the more shit he talks the more he can leverage his base to get financial benefits.
People defend Alex Jones on the merits of free speech and they fail to realize that you can say whatever you want and still be 100% factually wrong. So anybody has the right to refuse giving a platform to that. This is not about left and right, this is literally the difference between right and wrong.
You’re claiming that free speech is about hearing things you don’t like. Do you really believe that you’re entitled to an audience just because you have a right to freely speak about anything?
https://aws.amazon.com/aup/
They explicitly prohibit content that is "offensive".
"Offensive Content. Content that is defamatory, obscene, abusive, invasive of privacy ..."
Pretty sure he hits a few of those? So "Amazon doesn’t give a fuck" isn't quite right.
They explicitly prohibit content that is "offensive".
"Offensive Content. Content that is defamatory, obscene, abusive, invasive of privacy ..."
Pretty sure he hits a few of those? So "Amazon doesn’t give a fuck" isn't quite right.
> It's about what values we choose to uphold as a society
> "Offensive Content. Content that is defamatory, obscene, abusive, invasive of privacy ..."
> Pretty sure he hits a few of those?
I have a hard time reconciling your two statements.
The slippery slope argument is great when you encounter a (seemingly) insignificant step in the wrong direction.
Banning Alex Jones on platforms is simply upholding societal values, by your own account.
> "Offensive Content. Content that is defamatory, obscene, abusive, invasive of privacy ..."
> Pretty sure he hits a few of those?
I have a hard time reconciling your two statements.
The slippery slope argument is great when you encounter a (seemingly) insignificant step in the wrong direction.
Banning Alex Jones on platforms is simply upholding societal values, by your own account.
You're selectively quoting me. I'm pretty sure I spent a bit of time talking about tolerance and what it means.
They could have easily said we don't allow illegal content and that would be the end of it. I would be fine with that. It would mean a jury of my peers would determine if whatever was said violated our societal values.
That's not what they said. That's not what any of them say. Instead, they very clearly state that they will determine what is and what is not allowed by their standards.
They are within their legal rights to do so ... but I am in no way in support of that. I do not want Google, Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, etc. in charge of what we can and cannot say in public. We, as a society, should frown on that and those working in those companies should speak up during meetings when that is proposed.
They could have easily said we don't allow illegal content and that would be the end of it. I would be fine with that. It would mean a jury of my peers would determine if whatever was said violated our societal values.
That's not what they said. That's not what any of them say. Instead, they very clearly state that they will determine what is and what is not allowed by their standards.
They are within their legal rights to do so ... but I am in no way in support of that. I do not want Google, Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, etc. in charge of what we can and cannot say in public. We, as a society, should frown on that and those working in those companies should speak up during meetings when that is proposed.
I don't think I was selectively quoting you. You specifically brought up the part about offensive content and the examples they provide, and you yourself agreed he hit a few of those.
> That's not what they said. That's not what any of them say. Instead, they very clearly state that they will determine what is and what is not allowed by their standards.
This is in confliect with your quoted offensive content.
Sure, they will determine what constitutes the examples of offensive content, but at least in this case you yourself agreed with it, yet you claim you don't?
Again, make the argument when they do something wrong, not when they do something objectively in line with their terms and societal norms.
I might agree with you in principle, but I don't agree with the case put forth.
> That's not what they said. That's not what any of them say. Instead, they very clearly state that they will determine what is and what is not allowed by their standards.
This is in confliect with your quoted offensive content.
Sure, they will determine what constitutes the examples of offensive content, but at least in this case you yourself agreed with it, yet you claim you don't?
Again, make the argument when they do something wrong, not when they do something objectively in line with their terms and societal norms.
I might agree with you in principle, but I don't agree with the case put forth.
Quashing hateful, exploitative, conspiracy-theory-for-profit "free speech" is a societal value I can get behind.
He doesn't have to start all of those things?
He can go to alexjones.com and post whatever he wants.
He can go to alexjones.com and post whatever he wants.
delegating censorship to Big Tech is not suddenly a good idea. Louis CK makes millions more a year by funneling distribution through his own site.
I came here to write exactly this about Louis. Hell, he was doing that long before he became a pariah.
I think that cries of "censorship!" from bien-pensant tech folks are largely overblown, and not only for the reasons cited in this thread. If some heterodox ideas of today truly will be part of future orthodoxies, they'll find a way - YouTube or not. A powerful concept that dies on the vine because it cannot get onto Facebook isn't a powerful concept.
I think that cries of "censorship!" from bien-pensant tech folks are largely overblown, and not only for the reasons cited in this thread. If some heterodox ideas of today truly will be part of future orthodoxies, they'll find a way - YouTube or not. A powerful concept that dies on the vine because it cannot get onto Facebook isn't a powerful concept.
it does come across as them supporting it, yeah. they may as well just say they like to silence people. we all know they can kick alex jones off if they want, and there are plenty of people who dislike him. cheering it on though? i guess it's whether you want people you don't like silenced or you have principles. a major source of the 'think of the children' book-burning emotional behavior seems to be the ones they cheer on too. infantilized and scared into cheering on the infantilization. similar to how the corrupt will become a corrupting influence to others, but with more a denial of cognitive dissonance rather than a darkening of the heart.
>Why is delegating (effective) censorship to Big Tech suddenly a good idea?
Because they currently have alignment with the correct political ideology. When that changes, so will this attitude. History shows that it will eventually change. History also shows that those currently in control will erroneously believe they will forever be in control.
Because they currently have alignment with the correct political ideology. When that changes, so will this attitude. History shows that it will eventually change. History also shows that those currently in control will erroneously believe they will forever be in control.
Ah, the tired old "everyone is owed access to every platform in America" trope.
Think of "Youtube" as "CBS/NBC/Network of your Choice". They don't have to produce/host any content they don't want. They should be very transparent about how they choose their content (and "not going to piss off our users" is as legitimate as any other reason) but that's all the consumers are owed.
Do I want Youtube or whomever controlling things? No. Do I understand that unless you want to pass some laws dictating them a different utility status than they currently have they're going to be in control of their own platforms? Yes. Does it just so happen that I'm fine with Alex Jones being de-platformed? Yup
Think of "Youtube" as "CBS/NBC/Network of your Choice". They don't have to produce/host any content they don't want. They should be very transparent about how they choose their content (and "not going to piss off our users" is as legitimate as any other reason) but that's all the consumers are owed.
Do I want Youtube or whomever controlling things? No. Do I understand that unless you want to pass some laws dictating them a different utility status than they currently have they're going to be in control of their own platforms? Yes. Does it just so happen that I'm fine with Alex Jones being de-platformed? Yup
If it could be guaranteed to be limited to the Alex Joneses of the world, I would wholly agree with this.
However, now that a strong majority of the influential communication that takes place in society is divided across perhaps 5 tech platforms, with 1 tech company controlling the ability to search for other platforms, it's hard to say getting booted off all platforms isn't functionally restricting freedom of speech.
At what point do we concede that allowing a small set of 'private companies' carte blanche over public discourse is a restriction of public freedom?
However, now that a strong majority of the influential communication that takes place in society is divided across perhaps 5 tech platforms, with 1 tech company controlling the ability to search for other platforms, it's hard to say getting booted off all platforms isn't functionally restricting freedom of speech.
At what point do we concede that allowing a small set of 'private companies' carte blanche over public discourse is a restriction of public freedom?
If a regular user can be banned from Youtube for violating their TOS, what makes Alex Jones special and immune from community moderation?
Either a site has the right to moderate its users or it doesn't.
Either a site has the right to moderate its users or it doesn't.
Alex Jones was banned from YouTube, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, and Spotify pretty much simultaneously and after years of successful use of each service. You can argue that the conspiracy to remove him from those platforms was a good thing, but I don't think it is reasonable to suggest that each of the platforms coincidentally decided to boot him at the same time. They clearly coordinated to ban him, they didn't coordinate in public, so I think it makes it quite clear he was actually conspired against.
It also strikes me as a bit disingenuous to suggest that because he can just go create his own Twitter or his own YouTube and host things there he wasn't censored. He technically could, but that doesn't change the impact of banning him from the major services. It seems as perfectly clear that they are censoring him as it is that the big tech companies conspired to do so. Again, you may argue that it is right to censor Jones - he is either a liar or crazy, but it makes no sense to argue that he wasn't censored.
I think in isolation, it would be better if Jones didn't share his opinions. But if I had to pick between realities, and in one Jones was free to spread his conspiracy theories, and in the other big companies get to decide what we can and cannot say online? Well, it's a pretty obvious choice for me.
It also strikes me as a bit disingenuous to suggest that because he can just go create his own Twitter or his own YouTube and host things there he wasn't censored. He technically could, but that doesn't change the impact of banning him from the major services. It seems as perfectly clear that they are censoring him as it is that the big tech companies conspired to do so. Again, you may argue that it is right to censor Jones - he is either a liar or crazy, but it makes no sense to argue that he wasn't censored.
I think in isolation, it would be better if Jones didn't share his opinions. But if I had to pick between realities, and in one Jones was free to spread his conspiracy theories, and in the other big companies get to decide what we can and cannot say online? Well, it's a pretty obvious choice for me.
> They clearly coordinated to ban him
This is not necessarily true, it is perfectly reasonable both that individual employee were simply like minded, or that given the high visibility his character they all acted quickly not to be "accused" of supporting him.
It surely looks like they conspired, and effectively it is as if they conspired to do it, but personally I believe that as a default it should not be accredited to a conspiracy (as in the dictionary meaning of hidden agreement) unless we have some direct evidence.
Especially since the possibility that individual employees were biased and like minded is much more likely and stable.
This is not necessarily true, it is perfectly reasonable both that individual employee were simply like minded, or that given the high visibility his character they all acted quickly not to be "accused" of supporting him.
It surely looks like they conspired, and effectively it is as if they conspired to do it, but personally I believe that as a default it should not be accredited to a conspiracy (as in the dictionary meaning of hidden agreement) unless we have some direct evidence.
Especially since the possibility that individual employees were biased and like minded is much more likely and stable.
There was no conspiracy, and no censorship. He broke rules of all these platforms and the final straw pushed all platform owners to enforce their rules, that's it. It should be obvious to anyone that Facebook or Google or any other company can't be expected to publish anything anyone wants (did you even read the rules?) - since the dawn of the Internet we had to set up our own servers for that purpose. How is Facebook different from any old phpBB forum? Bans were often given for fun during these days!
If there was no conspiracy you think it was a coincidence that he was banned across all major platforms at the same time after using them for years?
I guess I can kind of see how it is possible to believe that it was a coincidence that all companies banned him simultaneously. It's obviously overwhelmingly unlikely that it was a coincidence, but that is at least a coherent thing to believe. On the other hand, I cannot say the same for the claim that there was "no censorship".
What do you call banning people because you don't like what they have to say and want to stop them from sharing their viewpoint if not censorship?
If you want to argue that Jones should be censored, that seems like a rational and worthwhile conversation. I don't get how you can argue that he wasn't censored though.
Regarding how Facebook, Apple, Twitter, YouTube, and Spotify are different than a random phpBB forum, I think I'll just leave that one as an exercise for the reader...
I guess I can kind of see how it is possible to believe that it was a coincidence that all companies banned him simultaneously. It's obviously overwhelmingly unlikely that it was a coincidence, but that is at least a coherent thing to believe. On the other hand, I cannot say the same for the claim that there was "no censorship".
What do you call banning people because you don't like what they have to say and want to stop them from sharing their viewpoint if not censorship?
If you want to argue that Jones should be censored, that seems like a rational and worthwhile conversation. I don't get how you can argue that he wasn't censored though.
Regarding how Facebook, Apple, Twitter, YouTube, and Spotify are different than a random phpBB forum, I think I'll just leave that one as an exercise for the reader...
Enforcing rules of platform is not censorship. I don't care much if it was a coincidence - I did not say that, anyways. Even if a group of people had a videocall about it, it's not a conspiracy, merely a group of people had a call about a long standing issue and did something about it, which was absolutely well within their rights - even if completely random, which it wasn't. We used to have chats with other Minecraft server admins about some specific people ("griefers"), too - not even the griefer thought they had any right of access or that we "conspired", though.
"Conspiracy - an evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons; plot." - https://www.dictionary.com/browse/conspiracy
"Conspiracy - an evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons; plot." - https://www.dictionary.com/browse/conspiracy
These platforms policing content surely was the beginning of the end, they're getting dragged in to every he-said-she-said fight you can think of and it puts them right smack in the middle of the great culture wars that are now raging online.
They should have just drawn the line at legality & calls to violence and everything else well ... deal with it. "We're a platform, not a publisher".
Naval Ravikant basically said this, on JRE.
They should have just drawn the line at legality & calls to violence and everything else well ... deal with it. "We're a platform, not a publisher".
Naval Ravikant basically said this, on JRE.
So McCarthyism was ok then, where you couldn’t find any job in Hollywood if you had leftist views? Private companies free to enforce the ideology they want.
> And stop with these "censorship" BS.
It is clearly censorship. The fact is simply that censorship is perfectly legal for private companies to engage in. Though when a private company starts to become a monopoly people often start trying to regulate it like a public utility.
A separate argument is whether customers and partners want to support a private company which engages in behavior they dislike such as censorship. Rogan also has every right to take his business elsewhere for such reasons, if that is actually what happened.
It is clearly censorship. The fact is simply that censorship is perfectly legal for private companies to engage in. Though when a private company starts to become a monopoly people often start trying to regulate it like a public utility.
A separate argument is whether customers and partners want to support a private company which engages in behavior they dislike such as censorship. Rogan also has every right to take his business elsewhere for such reasons, if that is actually what happened.
1. Be realistic. He wasn’t on Nickelodeon with a very large following. Google and YouTube have a heavy bias, that isn’t new news.
2. If your ISP starting preventing you from viewing HN, would that be censorship or their own right? Since you have your own right to start your own ISP.
3. If I own a cake business, is it perfectly acceptable to refuse to make a cake for a gay couple? (We all know how that turned out)
2. If your ISP starting preventing you from viewing HN, would that be censorship or their own right? Since you have your own right to start your own ISP.
3. If I own a cake business, is it perfectly acceptable to refuse to make a cake for a gay couple? (We all know how that turned out)
Youtube is a platform, Nickelodeon is a television channel. What a nonsensical comparison.
[deleted]
> Free speech doesn't mean everyone is forced to listen to that speech.
You are completely right. Free speech does not mean that anyone will force you to listen to Alex Jones or any other nutjob. It means that AJ will have the right to speak and you can ignore him.
From the top of my head, let me just list a few of the poeople that were considered crazy and could not initialy find a platform to express their ideas:
Clair Patterson E. Cuyler Hammond Albert Einstein Marie Curie Sklodowska Nikola Tesla
You get my point?
You are completely right. Free speech does not mean that anyone will force you to listen to Alex Jones or any other nutjob. It means that AJ will have the right to speak and you can ignore him.
From the top of my head, let me just list a few of the poeople that were considered crazy and could not initialy find a platform to express their ideas:
Clair Patterson E. Cuyler Hammond Albert Einstein Marie Curie Sklodowska Nikola Tesla
You get my point?
> You get my point?
If have come to the conclusion that you either get why people defend his presence as a price for many advantages or you do not. These are not the people that buy his "man-oil".
Some say the smarter ones give in, although that should not be applied on this topic in my opinion.
> Free speech doesn't mean everyone is forced to listen to that speech.
It is just a personal dislike of Alex Jones, not an elaborate thought. Not that hard to sympathize with, which makes defense against content regulation quite exhausting. But it is also a lie, since nobody was forced to listen to Alex Jones at all.
We have seen targeted harassment against Russians by mainstream media outlets. It is the same strain of reasoning, although I would put it anywhere near reason to be honest.
If have come to the conclusion that you either get why people defend his presence as a price for many advantages or you do not. These are not the people that buy his "man-oil".
Some say the smarter ones give in, although that should not be applied on this topic in my opinion.
> Free speech doesn't mean everyone is forced to listen to that speech.
It is just a personal dislike of Alex Jones, not an elaborate thought. Not that hard to sympathize with, which makes defense against content regulation quite exhausting. But it is also a lie, since nobody was forced to listen to Alex Jones at all.
We have seen targeted harassment against Russians by mainstream media outlets. It is the same strain of reasoning, although I would put it anywhere near reason to be honest.
I hope I won't go too close to breaching the Godwin's law, but there seem to be some analogies to Herschel Grynszpan here. We can always find an outlier that would be a good excuse for an overblown reaction. We can also probably find outliers on the other side of the spectrum, but we choose to ignore them. Conveniently.
Once again a post that does not break any guidelines is being downvoted. Which proves why we need to battle deplatforming inj the first place. If you cannot even post something as harmless without people trying to bend the system to silence you, then I cannot believe that there will be a due process for anyone that has a really strong opinion.
You're drawing a false equivalency, and even contradicting yourself. Alex Jones is no Einstein. And it sucks that those people initially had trouble spreading their ideas, but clearly they were able to do so, otherwise we wouldn't know about them. Sounds like the system functioning decently well, perhaps with some initial hiccups.
No Sir, you are just strawmanning here. Please do not put in my mouth (or rather in my hand) words that I did not say. My point is, that you cannot always distinguish what is hogwash and what is legit. If you refuse someone the right to speak, you give people a convenient tool to silence everybody that is inconvenient to them. Also, it's just a matter of common decendy to allow people their basic rights.
Sounds like people had to go around a system to get results. System that was full of holes and not bordering on orwellian or huxleyan principles.
Sounds like people had to go around a system to get results. System that was full of holes and not bordering on orwellian or huxleyan principles.
When were Einstein or Curie ever considered crazy or deplatformed?
Einstein was refused publication and ridiculed until Bohr, who was an authority, vouched for him. Madam Curie had to publish under her husbands name, because her publications were rejected on the basis that she was a woman.
Ok. But you cant have it both ways.
If this is the official position of google et al, that they should be free to boot people pf their platform. Fine. They are no longer pipes. They are editors for content.
As such. The agnostic pipes defense is no longer valid.
I would like to put my army of lawyers on attack mode to sue the sh*t out of them for copyright infringement, for trafficking stolen property, facilitating crimes etc.
You serve your dish and bow you must eat it.
If this is the official position of google et al, that they should be free to boot people pf their platform. Fine. They are no longer pipes. They are editors for content.
As such. The agnostic pipes defense is no longer valid.
I would like to put my army of lawyers on attack mode to sue the sh*t out of them for copyright infringement, for trafficking stolen property, facilitating crimes etc.
You serve your dish and bow you must eat it.
Shouldn’t government accounts be banned too then? Every government has spread major misinformation & harassed innocent people.
How about CNN? They do it too.
How about CNN? They do it too.
He is going to Spotify for $100 million.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/spotify-strikes-exclusive-podca...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/spotify-strikes-exclusive-podca...
He’s almost certainly moving to Spotify because they’re paying him to move.
I always found America’s grips on these things a tad weird. In my country you’re accountable to print the truth, and if you don’t, it comes with fines or even prison time. Because lying to the public is dangerous.
That hasn’t stopped opinion pieces, but it has stopped media outlets from printing things like “the earth is flat” or “drinking bleach cures covid”. Unfortunately this is yet to apply to social media stars, but when they have audiences larger than news papers I think they should frankly be under the same laws.
Yet in America you seem to put that sort of thing in the same box as Chinese censorship. Which is really just so strange to me. Do you really think you can have a functioning democracy when people live in completely different bubbles of subjective truth?
That hasn’t stopped opinion pieces, but it has stopped media outlets from printing things like “the earth is flat” or “drinking bleach cures covid”. Unfortunately this is yet to apply to social media stars, but when they have audiences larger than news papers I think they should frankly be under the same laws.
Yet in America you seem to put that sort of thing in the same box as Chinese censorship. Which is really just so strange to me. Do you really think you can have a functioning democracy when people live in completely different bubbles of subjective truth?
>you’re accountable to print the truth
Whatever portion of government handles that in your country, is quite literally analogous to the "Ministry of Truth" in 1984.
>Do you really think you can have a functioning democracy when people live in completely different bubbles of subjective truth?
Nobody knows, its always been an experiment. The experiment is done with the basis that other ways of going about it (some system of enforcing a consistent "truth" among all citizens) would be totalitarian and tend towards tyranny every single time.
Whatever portion of government handles that in your country, is quite literally analogous to the "Ministry of Truth" in 1984.
>Do you really think you can have a functioning democracy when people live in completely different bubbles of subjective truth?
Nobody knows, its always been an experiment. The experiment is done with the basis that other ways of going about it (some system of enforcing a consistent "truth" among all citizens) would be totalitarian and tend towards tyranny every single time.
Case by case by a judge not by a ministry.
So you ban churchs?
Killed maybe billions over the past 100,000 years.
They also provide comfort and help to billions through their lies. Hard to ever know what their total effect has been. But still lies.
Or is your religion ok and 'normal', but thinking the world is flat not?
Killed maybe billions over the past 100,000 years.
They also provide comfort and help to billions through their lies. Hard to ever know what their total effect has been. But still lies.
Or is your religion ok and 'normal', but thinking the world is flat not?
Countries that ask media to print the truth certainly go after religious sects that financially/morally exploit their worshipers.
Every time there are threads than mention free speech, it's as if political science and those millennial old problems were new to hn.
We don’t censor fiction.
Banning Alex Jones is a good thing.
I'm no longer convinced of that. He should be kept in the light where we can see him and respond.
Kept in the outer fringe he will operate in a bubble and the others who are attracted to him will also exist in that bubble. This also means no opposing views to pop that bubble. I actually think this is worse for society overall.
The more light shining on him to keep him honest the better.
Kept in the outer fringe he will operate in a bubble and the others who are attracted to him will also exist in that bubble. This also means no opposing views to pop that bubble. I actually think this is worse for society overall.
The more light shining on him to keep him honest the better.
Deplatforming works.
https://icct.nl/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/J.-M.-Berger-Maki...
https://www.cc.gatech.edu/~eshwar3/uploads/3/8/0/4/38043045/...
https://icct.nl/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/J.-M.-Berger-Maki...
https://www.cc.gatech.edu/~eshwar3/uploads/3/8/0/4/38043045/...
Wow, the first link brought up ISIS -- in these Covid 19 times, I have not thought about that/them for some time. The global zeitgeist is a real thing!
> He should be kept in the light where we can see him and respond.
If you want to publish his content for him, you can go ahead and do that. But don't complain that other people don't want to.
If you want to publish his content for him, you can go ahead and do that. But don't complain that other people don't want to.
>This also means no opposing views to pop that bubble.
But then you have the backfire effect. It'd be naive to assume everyone else is or can be as rational as yourself.
But then you have the backfire effect. It'd be naive to assume everyone else is or can be as rational as yourself.
Around 0:22
https://newsroom.spotify.com/2020-05-19/the-joe-rogan-experi...
Includes video.
https://newsroom.spotify.com/2020-05-19/the-joe-rogan-experi...
Includes video.
5. In regards to number five, at the time Spotify came out I was still using Winamp. The just completely insane thing to me was that I could from a cold start, start the app and listen to a new song in Spotify in noticeably less time than in Winamp where the songs where on my PC!
To this day it still perplexes me. Nowadays I think(?) they have switched to a more web-centric GUI-framework and a Server-model, but at that time, Jesus Christ was it impressive on my crappy computer. It was a beast.
PS. for a nostalgic trip, anyone remember Foobar?
To this day it still perplexes me. Nowadays I think(?) they have switched to a more web-centric GUI-framework and a Server-model, but at that time, Jesus Christ was it impressive on my crappy computer. It was a beast.
PS. for a nostalgic trip, anyone remember Foobar?
Great summary of the issues. I'll add that a nice part about having JRE on Youtube is having a comments section. Spotify does not have any kind of comments section.
#4 is a pretty big deal to me as I'm in Korea and Spotify is not supported here. I don't use Spotify mainly for that reason. I know I could use a VPN, but that's too much hassle only to listen to JRE (also I'm not aware of any quality free VPNs, and don't care enough to pay for a subscription).
#4 is a pretty big deal to me as I'm in Korea and Spotify is not supported here. I don't use Spotify mainly for that reason. I know I could use a VPN, but that's too much hassle only to listen to JRE (also I'm not aware of any quality free VPNs, and don't care enough to pay for a subscription).
> Seems like Spotify might be adding video later in the year but until that happens, we don't know what we will be getting.
He stays on YT 'til January 2021. Then Spotify is supposed to have full or more like better (because they already have) video support ready.
He stays on YT 'til January 2021. Then Spotify is supposed to have full or more like better (because they already have) video support ready.
From what you say it’s as if Joe Rogan is a solipsistic prick with a disproportionate ego who runs a much overrated show and who cares mostly about getting richer and richer...
keep in mind that spotify mines an incredible amount of data. This is what someone got when they did a GDPR request few years ago, and companies have only gotten more aggressive in the amount of data they're capturing https://twitter.com/steipete/status/1025024813889478656
You list 5 reasons to not choose Spotify. Joe has over 100 million reasons to choose Spotify as his platform. I say "good for him".
it wouldn't be "the exact same show" if there wasn't video. there's no way it'd be audio only.
Spotify actually has video already, which they used for music videos. Although it seems like they removed it fairly recently.
A podcast is only a podcast if it has RSS.
Their web player doesn't even work with desktop Safari...
Yes it does, I'm using it right now. Safari 13.1; macOS 10.15.4; 2014 MBP. Nothing special here, it just works (though I normally use Brave).
Use another browser. Probably Apple saying "we don't support "obscure" file formats".
I believe it's due to the DRM protection Spotify use.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Encrypted_M...
Oh, I thought it was the webplayer that the podcast site uses. If that is Spotify, shame on them for DRM.
It's probably well over $100 million dollars. I would love to see you stand on those principles of yours and turn down $100 million dollars.
It’s $100m on the dot. JR is already a multi-millionaire. Surely there is a point where money buys you the ability to live by your principles otherwise what’s the point in having principles at all?
> Spotify was the one who conspired with Facebook, Apple and Google to ban Alex Jones and others
Alex Jones has a right to free speech, but if he's going to claim Sandy Hook was a hoax causing grieving parents to be harassed, nobody owes it to him to give him a platform. He can pay his own hosting fees.
Alex Jones has a right to free speech, but if he's going to claim Sandy Hook was a hoax causing grieving parents to be harassed, nobody owes it to him to give him a platform. He can pay his own hosting fees.
YouTube: You can pay your own hosting fees.
Namecheap: Your users can find you at your IP address.
AWS: You can run your own server hardware.
Intel: You can build your own CPU.
Electric Co.: You can generate your own electricity.
VISA: You can take payments in cash.
Hospital: You can use your own butterfly strips and an ibuprofen.
Namecheap: Your users can find you at your IP address.
AWS: You can run your own server hardware.
Intel: You can build your own CPU.
Electric Co.: You can generate your own electricity.
VISA: You can take payments in cash.
Hospital: You can use your own butterfly strips and an ibuprofen.
I mean, these are all true. Lots of people chose to avoid particular hosting platforms, components, utility providers and healthcare providers.
Do you feel like Jones didn't have his proverbial "day in court"? He's had many, of course, and lost most of them. A basic google search tells me you can buy many books written by Alex Jones on his infowars shop. Even if he was kicked off the DNS system he would be able to host his page through TOR.
I do not think that we must provide equal quality of service to all speech. Just like we kick teenagers off online games when they won't stop yelling slurs, there's nothing wrong with banning people from the public square for spreading harmful falsehoods.
Do you feel like Jones didn't have his proverbial "day in court"? He's had many, of course, and lost most of them. A basic google search tells me you can buy many books written by Alex Jones on his infowars shop. Even if he was kicked off the DNS system he would be able to host his page through TOR.
I do not think that we must provide equal quality of service to all speech. Just like we kick teenagers off online games when they won't stop yelling slurs, there's nothing wrong with banning people from the public square for spreading harmful falsehoods.
I don't know if he got his "day in court", and I'm not sure he deserved one since these platforms can do what they want on an individual basis.
What is dangerous is a handful of platforms dominating communication and then conspiring to censor the same person all at the same time, which is exactly what happened with Alex Jones.
Though it seems reasonable to tell an undesirable to "find your own X", it's also a sentiment that can be taken too far and could be dangerous when taken to its logical extreme. I don't think most reasonable people believe that platforms shouldn't prevent someone from shouting "fire" in a crowded room, metaphorically speaking, but it shouldn't necessarily follow that the same can be said for anything that people may not like.
I listen to Alex Jones occasionally. I don't listen to him because I believe what he says. I just think he's hilarious and I consider him to be a comedian. I can't say that anything that he says is dangerous, as ill informed or misleading some of it is. (maybe his stance on vaccines) Not everything that Alex Jones says is wrong. He is also often wrong.
That said, depending on where the Overton window lies and the climate of politics, I don't like "find your own X" because it signifies a disdain towards dissidence, and we're not far off from saying "If you disagree with the WHO, go find your own platform." That's scary, but a lot of prominent figures in the media lump in skeptics of the WHO with the likes of Alex Jones, conservatives(i.e. heretics), and anti-vaxxers. When someone says "find your own platform", that is a complete dismissal towards someone and their ideas. Coordinated efforts to expunge people from the public square isn't something to be pleased with, even when Alex Jones is the target.
Once we're told to find our own platforms, and that becomes the norm, there's nothing to stop that precedence from propagating to "find your own website" or "find your own payment processor". When these companies are all in cahoots and basically agree about everything, there's absolutely no guarantee that a company's privilege to ban users stops with people like Alex Jones. You might just do or say the wrong thing with good intention.
There's a reason why we stopped excommunicating people who have committed no crime, and coordinated efforts to censor people is effectively modern day exile. If someone is to be expunged from the public square, the argument should be "they did (insert bad thing)", not simply "they can go elsewhere". Most people who think Alex Jones deserved to be banned don't seem particularly well informed about Alex Jones, other than that he's crazy and that he'd eat his neighbors.
What is dangerous is a handful of platforms dominating communication and then conspiring to censor the same person all at the same time, which is exactly what happened with Alex Jones.
Though it seems reasonable to tell an undesirable to "find your own X", it's also a sentiment that can be taken too far and could be dangerous when taken to its logical extreme. I don't think most reasonable people believe that platforms shouldn't prevent someone from shouting "fire" in a crowded room, metaphorically speaking, but it shouldn't necessarily follow that the same can be said for anything that people may not like.
I listen to Alex Jones occasionally. I don't listen to him because I believe what he says. I just think he's hilarious and I consider him to be a comedian. I can't say that anything that he says is dangerous, as ill informed or misleading some of it is. (maybe his stance on vaccines) Not everything that Alex Jones says is wrong. He is also often wrong.
That said, depending on where the Overton window lies and the climate of politics, I don't like "find your own X" because it signifies a disdain towards dissidence, and we're not far off from saying "If you disagree with the WHO, go find your own platform." That's scary, but a lot of prominent figures in the media lump in skeptics of the WHO with the likes of Alex Jones, conservatives(i.e. heretics), and anti-vaxxers. When someone says "find your own platform", that is a complete dismissal towards someone and their ideas. Coordinated efforts to expunge people from the public square isn't something to be pleased with, even when Alex Jones is the target.
Once we're told to find our own platforms, and that becomes the norm, there's nothing to stop that precedence from propagating to "find your own website" or "find your own payment processor". When these companies are all in cahoots and basically agree about everything, there's absolutely no guarantee that a company's privilege to ban users stops with people like Alex Jones. You might just do or say the wrong thing with good intention.
There's a reason why we stopped excommunicating people who have committed no crime, and coordinated efforts to censor people is effectively modern day exile. If someone is to be expunged from the public square, the argument should be "they did (insert bad thing)", not simply "they can go elsewhere". Most people who think Alex Jones deserved to be banned don't seem particularly well informed about Alex Jones, other than that he's crazy and that he'd eat his neighbors.
The challenge with giving an equal platform to bad-faith disinformation artists like Alex Jones is that it's simply not a fair fight.
Respectable news reporting organizations are bound by an obligation to research and vet their stories.
People like Alex Jones are not, and they can look 95% as slickly presented as a "real" news organization for 1% of the cost and 0% of the moral obligations. They can churn this stuff out at a rate that sources of respectable reporting cannot even begin to approach.
It's like the information equivalent of a DDOS attack, or the "Gish Gallop."
Give the Alex Joneses of the world an equal platform and the world will eventually be nothing but Alex Joneses -- whoever screams the most sensational stuff the most often is going to win.
But I do truly believe it's less terrible than giving a platform to bad-faith creeps like Jones.
Ultimately, the answer is an educated populace with strong critical thinking skills that can do a better job of deciding for themselves. That is truly the goal.
I'll let you decide how feasible that is in the short term, the long term, or any term whatsoever.
20-30 years ago we all thought the WWW was going to be this incredible marketplace of ideas where the truth would win. What an idealistic crock of shit that was.
Respectable news reporting organizations are bound by an obligation to research and vet their stories.
People like Alex Jones are not, and they can look 95% as slickly presented as a "real" news organization for 1% of the cost and 0% of the moral obligations. They can churn this stuff out at a rate that sources of respectable reporting cannot even begin to approach.
It's like the information equivalent of a DDOS attack, or the "Gish Gallop."
Give the Alex Joneses of the world an equal platform and the world will eventually be nothing but Alex Joneses -- whoever screams the most sensational stuff the most often is going to win.
What is dangerous is a handful of platforms dominating communication
But I do truly believe it's less terrible than giving a platform to bad-faith creeps like Jones.
Ultimately, the answer is an educated populace with strong critical thinking skills that can do a better job of deciding for themselves. That is truly the goal.
I'll let you decide how feasible that is in the short term, the long term, or any term whatsoever.
20-30 years ago we all thought the WWW was going to be this incredible marketplace of ideas where the truth would win. What an idealistic crock of shit that was.
> Respectable news reporting organizations are bound by an obligation to research and vet their stories.
Bound by whom? Where is this obligation written? Who holds them to it? What are the consequences if they break it?
Or more to the point: what consequences have they suffered for the fact that they have already broken this obligation over and over again over the past decades?
Bound by whom? Where is this obligation written? Who holds them to it? What are the consequences if they break it?
Or more to the point: what consequences have they suffered for the fact that they have already broken this obligation over and over again over the past decades?
I'll grant you some things.
1. The mainstream news sources have messed up lots of times. (I would argue that their success rate is very high, though)
2. The mainstream news are largely ad-supported and therefore their entire line of work is a bit of a minefield of conflicts of interest.
That said...
They are not perfect, but comparing them to a disinformation merchant like Alex Jones is an absolute farce.
Stories at "real" news organizations are vetted by multiple members of the staff. They make corrections. This cannot be said of wack jobs like Alex Jones. They are not even in the same league in terms of good-faith effort to get things right.
Two -- and perhaps more tangibly -- traditionally in mainstream media, reporters caught fabricating stories or otherwise being unethical essentially forfeited their careers.
You can see both of those factors at work in the story of Jayson Blair, a reporter who was caught fabricating stories for the NYT.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayson_Blair#Later_career
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/us/correcting-the-record-...
Yes, the NYT was duped. Embarrassingly. But the system worked. They conducted a pretty intense internal investigation to catch the guy. They caught him. They set the record straight. They admitted they screwed up. In that one instance they displayed more journalistic integrity than you'd see from Alex Jones in a lifetime.
And what happened to Jayson Blair? As I said above, his journalism career was over.
You can point out problems with "traditional" news organizations, and I'll agree with many of them, and they are still miles better than conspiracy hacks with zero journalistic scruples.
1. The mainstream news sources have messed up lots of times. (I would argue that their success rate is very high, though)
2. The mainstream news are largely ad-supported and therefore their entire line of work is a bit of a minefield of conflicts of interest.
That said...
They are not perfect, but comparing them to a disinformation merchant like Alex Jones is an absolute farce.
Stories at "real" news organizations are vetted by multiple members of the staff. They make corrections. This cannot be said of wack jobs like Alex Jones. They are not even in the same league in terms of good-faith effort to get things right.
Bound by whom? Where is this obligation written?
Who holds them to it? What are the consequences
if they break it?
Two -- and perhaps more tangibly -- traditionally in mainstream media, reporters caught fabricating stories or otherwise being unethical essentially forfeited their careers.
You can see both of those factors at work in the story of Jayson Blair, a reporter who was caught fabricating stories for the NYT.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayson_Blair#Later_career
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/us/correcting-the-record-...
Yes, the NYT was duped. Embarrassingly. But the system worked. They conducted a pretty intense internal investigation to catch the guy. They caught him. They set the record straight. They admitted they screwed up. In that one instance they displayed more journalistic integrity than you'd see from Alex Jones in a lifetime.
And what happened to Jayson Blair? As I said above, his journalism career was over.
You can point out problems with "traditional" news organizations, and I'll agree with many of them, and they are still miles better than conspiracy hacks with zero journalistic scruples.
[deleted]
> I don't know if he got his "day in court", and I'm not sure he deserved one since these platforms can do what they want on an individual basis.
I was making a tongue-in-cheek comment about his many legal troubles, but I also think that he had extended periods on all the platforms that he's been removed from where he knew that he was violating policies and did not change his behavior.
> What is dangerous is a handful of platforms dominating communication and then conspiring to censor the same person all at the same time, which is exactly what happened with Alex Jones.
Is this what happened with Alex Jones? The wikipedia article lists a somewhat piecemeal series of bannings in 2018[1]. You can still find videos about alex jones on youtube and there are still conspiracy videos here and there[2] I don't see much evidence that Alex Jones, the person, has been exiled from the public square. He's very much still a subject of valid conversation on the platforms that banned him. I'm not sure how the same platforms I've been using to find his content can be engaged in a conspiracy to censor him.
What you can't find on youtube[3] are video from Alex Jones's own accounts. It's also hard to find videos promoting various theories and ideas that youtube considers dangerous (like covid-19 conspiracies). I don't think this is a problem. I think there are all sorts of problems with the tech ecosystem, but I do not think a public, meandering process where one organization was removed because it continually broke website standards is going to lead us to fascism.
>When someone says "find your own platform", that is a complete dismissal towards someone and their ideas.
I don't think this is true in any situation. If I'm running a fictional video site "teentube" which hosts videos about teenage life in the US, I am not censoring anyone if I refuse to host amazing, essential, gory documentaries on terrorism and current events. Saying "go find another place" is not saying "your content has no value," it's saying "this is not your place!"
In general, I agree that we could use more specialized media hosts and economic models to support them. But it's not like the current crop of media hosts (Alphabet, Facebook, etc) are dealing with fundamentally different questions than the previous crop (ABC, CBS) did in the broadcast TV era. There were no fewer conspiracy theories in the 60s, but good luck getting a tv station to broadcast your tape on one!
>When these companies are all in cahoots and basically agree about everything
I think, to the degree that payment platforms and website hosters are in cahoots, that it is because they are all members of society. That is to say they are subject to international law and the laws of their own country. Within the boundaries of "not breaking international law," I think there's a lot of diversity in terms of perspective.
Edit: To add a summation: There's a world where people are forced out of society without the appropriate process, a world where going "elsewhere" isn't practical. I don't think we're in that world and I don't think Alex Jones is either.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Jones#Social_media_restri...
[2] I found this one (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGDuyDyMMDg), which I don't recommend watching, just by searching "alex jones" and scrolling down.
[3] Of course, if you want them, they are right there on infowars. Google will take you straight there.
I was making a tongue-in-cheek comment about his many legal troubles, but I also think that he had extended periods on all the platforms that he's been removed from where he knew that he was violating policies and did not change his behavior.
> What is dangerous is a handful of platforms dominating communication and then conspiring to censor the same person all at the same time, which is exactly what happened with Alex Jones.
Is this what happened with Alex Jones? The wikipedia article lists a somewhat piecemeal series of bannings in 2018[1]. You can still find videos about alex jones on youtube and there are still conspiracy videos here and there[2] I don't see much evidence that Alex Jones, the person, has been exiled from the public square. He's very much still a subject of valid conversation on the platforms that banned him. I'm not sure how the same platforms I've been using to find his content can be engaged in a conspiracy to censor him.
What you can't find on youtube[3] are video from Alex Jones's own accounts. It's also hard to find videos promoting various theories and ideas that youtube considers dangerous (like covid-19 conspiracies). I don't think this is a problem. I think there are all sorts of problems with the tech ecosystem, but I do not think a public, meandering process where one organization was removed because it continually broke website standards is going to lead us to fascism.
>When someone says "find your own platform", that is a complete dismissal towards someone and their ideas.
I don't think this is true in any situation. If I'm running a fictional video site "teentube" which hosts videos about teenage life in the US, I am not censoring anyone if I refuse to host amazing, essential, gory documentaries on terrorism and current events. Saying "go find another place" is not saying "your content has no value," it's saying "this is not your place!"
In general, I agree that we could use more specialized media hosts and economic models to support them. But it's not like the current crop of media hosts (Alphabet, Facebook, etc) are dealing with fundamentally different questions than the previous crop (ABC, CBS) did in the broadcast TV era. There were no fewer conspiracy theories in the 60s, but good luck getting a tv station to broadcast your tape on one!
>When these companies are all in cahoots and basically agree about everything
I think, to the degree that payment platforms and website hosters are in cahoots, that it is because they are all members of society. That is to say they are subject to international law and the laws of their own country. Within the boundaries of "not breaking international law," I think there's a lot of diversity in terms of perspective.
Edit: To add a summation: There's a world where people are forced out of society without the appropriate process, a world where going "elsewhere" isn't practical. I don't think we're in that world and I don't think Alex Jones is either.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Jones#Social_media_restri...
[2] I found this one (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGDuyDyMMDg), which I don't recommend watching, just by searching "alex jones" and scrolling down.
[3] Of course, if you want them, they are right there on infowars. Google will take you straight there.
Social media and sites like YouTube make it possible for anybody to instantly reach an audience far larger than ever possible with previous generation media, which provided at least some filtering and fact checking. This makes the stakes a lot higher when people are deliberately spreading misinformation. I don't know what the solution is but there are going to have to be some limits on what's allowed.
Utilities and the hospital don't ban people. They are considered a human right? The most effective censorship we have seen is from the finance sector. Assange helped kill off the liberal 'wild wild west' opportunities on the web, its all very closed off and locked down now.
You forgot Government: You can defend (what you consider to be) your rights/ideas/property with physical force.
Mixing up commodities and services I see.
The “Right to Free Speech” just means the government can’t impede. Nobody is required to give him a platform, though.
The Bill of Rights only covers negative rights: what Congress is explicitly forbidden from doing. Free Speech is a social norm as well as a legal construct; there are components of a civil society and Enlightenment values that have nothing to do with laws on the books: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity
Even if one concedes that any given platform has total authority over their private property (there is a case for regulating tech giants as utilities), one is still perfectly within their rights to vehemently disagree with those decisions, or find them to be grossly counter-productive.
Even if one concedes that any given platform has total authority over their private property (there is a case for regulating tech giants as utilities), one is still perfectly within their rights to vehemently disagree with those decisions, or find them to be grossly counter-productive.
What is a government but a corporation that owns land and has a military? Why would you bar the government from impinging on free speech, but give nearly unbounded power to corporations to expand and snuff out free speech? If Google owned nearly everything, should we not be upset when they negate our rights?
The difference is the monopoly on the use of force. The government can legally send men with guns to make you comply, while a corporation can't.
Corporations might not be able to legally detain or use traditional force against people, but they can coerce and threaten people's livelihoods. Exile is an effective means of getting compliance.
That's not even close to the same as the powers of the state.
Walmart can't put me in jail. Walmart cannot kill me.
Walmart can't put me in jail. Walmart cannot kill me.
This is a fairly cheap argument. Presumably the reasons why it's bad for the government to ban speech are also largely applicable to platforms that are almost universally used to discover new viewpoints.
Why?
In many perspectives, government is considered special because of the "monopoly on force."
Having a compelling platform is very different from that. Nobody is saying "you can't say that under threat of force" they say "I choose to respond to you saying that by exercising my own rights." Do you think anyone who waves a sign on the side of an intersection should also be entitled to an editorial in the local newspaper, say?
People today have fairly limited imaginations after a couple decades of "algorithmic search and recommendation" platforms. But the internet before Google was quite successful with organic word of mouth and hyperlinks. And nobody in that world was forced to provide links to anyone they didn't like either.
In many perspectives, government is considered special because of the "monopoly on force."
Having a compelling platform is very different from that. Nobody is saying "you can't say that under threat of force" they say "I choose to respond to you saying that by exercising my own rights." Do you think anyone who waves a sign on the side of an intersection should also be entitled to an editorial in the local newspaper, say?
People today have fairly limited imaginations after a couple decades of "algorithmic search and recommendation" platforms. But the internet before Google was quite successful with organic word of mouth and hyperlinks. And nobody in that world was forced to provide links to anyone they didn't like either.
You're free to make that argument and try to get a new law or amendment passed, but the existing laws and Constitution very clearly only apply to government.
You're completely missing the point. I'm making an argument about how companies should behave, not how they are legally obligated to.
Incidentally, YouTube, Twitter, etc. should be subject to far stricter regulation when they enforce speech codes and don't behave as neutral platforms.
Incidentally, YouTube, Twitter, etc. should be subject to far stricter regulation when they enforce speech codes and don't behave as neutral platforms.
> I'm making an argument about how companies should behave, not how they are legally obligated to.
The same can be said of jackasses spouting harmful drivel within the confines of free speech.
The same can be said of jackasses spouting harmful drivel within the confines of free speech.
I'm not sure OP would disagree with you. He made a separate point:
> So if Joe is moving off of YouTube because he doesn't like the censorship, he's not getting anything better with Spotify.
> So if Joe is moving off of YouTube because he doesn't like the censorship, he's not getting anything better with Spotify.
Every platform censors to at least some degree or they wouldn't continue existing as a platform. What matters to most folks is the degree of censorship. As YouTube is beholden to advertisers, it's kind of akin to cable TV in terms of what will and won't be shown.
You can have a fairly minimal degree of censorship limited to actual criminal speech. There's no reason why platforms can't adopt that as their standard.
Except that they would then be taken over by spammers and trolls. They might see that as a problem.
There is a reason, it's called money, which is why these platforms exist.
[deleted]
Alex Jones is a much less serious threat then 2 or 3 large companies deciding what can discourse can be promulgated.
(not a Jones supporter. nor can I imagine how anyone would be)
(not a Jones supporter. nor can I imagine how anyone would be)
My point is that they don't get to decide that, though. They decide whether they will pay for hosting, but they can't stop him from paying for his own hosting elsewhere.
Likewise, if the WSJ decides not to publish my letter to the editor, they aren't violating my freedom of speech, they are just deciding not to amplify it.
Likewise, if the WSJ decides not to publish my letter to the editor, they aren't violating my freedom of speech, they are just deciding not to amplify it.
You are comparing apples to oranges. WSJ is a publisher. These tech companies are currently enjoying the benefits of being a "platform" while acting as publishers.
> These tech companies are currently enjoying the benefits of being a "platform" while acting as publishers.
If this is referring to Section 230, I think it's a misinterpration. Section 230 gives platforms the ability to moderate without being (legally) treated as a publisher, but it doesn't make them into a utility. If it's referring to a different law, I'm curious which one.
In your view, if YouTube is not a publisher, should they be required to host pornography? Are the community features part of the platform, or is YouTube entitled to host content but make it undiscoverable?
If this is referring to Section 230, I think it's a misinterpration. Section 230 gives platforms the ability to moderate without being (legally) treated as a publisher, but it doesn't make them into a utility. If it's referring to a different law, I'm curious which one.
In your view, if YouTube is not a publisher, should they be required to host pornography? Are the community features part of the platform, or is YouTube entitled to host content but make it undiscoverable?
You’re trivialising the issue a bit. Remember when CloudFront stopped providing DDos protection to some white nationalist website (I forgot which one). “Just start your own multi-billion company bro!”
I'd be more sympathetic to your point if you hadn't said at first (paraphrased) "Alex Jones said this awful thing I disagree with". Therefore you presumably believe it's ok he got kicked off of whatever platform, because of _what_ he believes.
You really don't see the moral hazard in that?
You really don't see the moral hazard in that?
I believe YouTube has the right to remove it whether or not I agree with it, because they don't owe it to anyone to pay their hosting bill.
Should a restaurant be able to refuse service to an openly gay couple then in your opinion? What if it offends the other patrons?
There is no law protecting conspiracy theorists.
I'm not sure there is a national law requiring businesses to serve gay customers either. I'm just curious how OP feels about that.
Besides, who decides who is and who isn't a conspiracy theorist. You? A twitter mob? The government? Some people in San Francisco?
The fact that there is apparently such strong disagreement (most of which probably is from people who believe that it is appropriate to use the strong market share of these platforms to mold political discourse) is a bit alarming. No way that ends well.
Besides, who decides who is and who isn't a conspiracy theorist. You? A twitter mob? The government? Some people in San Francisco?
The fact that there is apparently such strong disagreement (most of which probably is from people who believe that it is appropriate to use the strong market share of these platforms to mold political discourse) is a bit alarming. No way that ends well.
Fine, let the court of public opinion decide.
Alex Jones is banned from Youtube. People, largely, do not give a shit. Now try banning gay people from a resturant.
Good luck with that.
And in many jurisdictions it is illegal to discriminate over sexual orientation. There is no such law protecting conspiracy theorists.
Alex Jones is banned from Youtube. People, largely, do not give a shit. Now try banning gay people from a resturant.
Good luck with that.
And in many jurisdictions it is illegal to discriminate over sexual orientation. There is no such law protecting conspiracy theorists.
Your argument is juvenile and fails to address the point
And your reply is devoid of substance.
I think we're done here.
I think we're done here.
And my point is that it's undesirable to have a handful of companies with this kind of control.
The "host your own" argument is done to death truly. If one type of speech can be hosted for "free" by a company with 80%+ market share, so should another without discrimination.
To allow otherwise is to risk of erosion of our values and enable corruption. Even if you don't like Jones.
The "host your own" argument is done to death truly. If one type of speech can be hosted for "free" by a company with 80%+ market share, so should another without discrimination.
To allow otherwise is to risk of erosion of our values and enable corruption. Even if you don't like Jones.
I think the bigger threat is us enabling 2 to 3 large companies to the degree where their decisions can affect discourse.
Alex Jones is a thoughtless jerk though, and can still find/provide his own hosting/distribution.
Alex Jones is a thoughtless jerk though, and can still find/provide his own hosting/distribution.
You presumably also would be in favor of domain brokers restricting speech (correct me if I'm wrong). Does every controversial political speaker also need to host his or her own ICANN domain? Or should they just promote their speech entirely offline?
I'd like people to use a multitude of domains/providers/companies to minimize the ability of a small group of companies to influence discourse.
Having said that, I understand that practically avoiding those companies is tough.
Having said that, I understand that practically avoiding those companies is tough.
There’s no shortage of companies who value money more than morals. Those affected can host their sites with one of them.
All these cries of "censorship" misunderstand that what is happening is fundamentally a business decision.
When Alex Jones gets pulled from Youtube, it's because he is effecting their business relationships and ability to make money.
When Alex Jones gets pulled from Youtube, it's because he is effecting their business relationships and ability to make money.
Couldn't you make the same argument about gay couples in a small town rural restaurant?
But would it be morally right to ban those couples from a restaurant?
But would it be morally right to ban those couples from a restaurant?
No one is born a conspiracy theorist.
Someone spouting asshole opinions is not the same as an immutable trait by birth.
Alex Jones is not even being sincere in his quackery, this has been explored in court and he admitted to being a fraud.
Someone spouting asshole opinions is not the same as an immutable trait by birth.
Alex Jones is not even being sincere in his quackery, this has been explored in court and he admitted to being a fraud.
Because we have decided that after decades of bigotry, violence and discrimination that the rights of gay people to their life supersede the rights of free association for public businesses.
We have? Can you show me a national law in the US that says restaurants have to serve gays?
See how the "it's a private business so they can discriminate!" works?
Keep in mind, as you mention, the shoe has been on the other foot and it will be again. It's better to enshrine and uphold these principals at all times. Not be like a dirty cop planting evidence because "he knows the suspect did it" and try to get to "Right" by cheating. In the end that blows up and it was wrong all along anyway.
See how the "it's a private business so they can discriminate!" works?
Keep in mind, as you mention, the shoe has been on the other foot and it will be again. It's better to enshrine and uphold these principals at all times. Not be like a dirty cop planting evidence because "he knows the suspect did it" and try to get to "Right" by cheating. In the end that blows up and it was wrong all along anyway.
Why do you think I’m talking about the US? There’s a whole world out there.
In that case "We" haven't decided anything at all what you suggest.
But now you and I are in the weeds.
I hope you see my point, that's all. Discrimination isn't good. Even if you don't agree with the other party.
But now you and I are in the weeds.
I hope you see my point, that's all. Discrimination isn't good. Even if you don't agree with the other party.
You could if it was 1950. Fortunately it’s 2020 and laws exist to protect gay couples.
I'm not sure they do to the extent you suggest.
But I agree, if you open a public service you can't not rent to blacks, you can't not serve gays nor Democrats. That is how it should be.
When you open an upload streaming service to the public, _particularly_ if you have the majority market share, you have certain obligations of non discrimination. This should include religious and political viewpoints as well as race and sexual orientation.
Maybe Jones does cross the line from political discourse into trolling and incitement to violence. Not sure because I haven't watched him except on Joe Rogan. But we need to be very careful about moving that line.
But I agree, if you open a public service you can't not rent to blacks, you can't not serve gays nor Democrats. That is how it should be.
When you open an upload streaming service to the public, _particularly_ if you have the majority market share, you have certain obligations of non discrimination. This should include religious and political viewpoints as well as race and sexual orientation.
Maybe Jones does cross the line from political discourse into trolling and incitement to violence. Not sure because I haven't watched him except on Joe Rogan. But we need to be very careful about moving that line.
I was replying to what you specifically said:
> Couldn't you make the same argument about gay couples in a small town rural restaurant?
And the answer is "no, you can't."
> Couldn't you make the same argument about gay couples in a small town rural restaurant?
And the answer is "no, you can't."
Well actually yes, you very clearly could.
Perhaps the restaurant is in a religiously conservative community and people won't eat there with their children if the restaurant has openly gay couples in attendance. So the gay couples being in the restaurant could negatively impact business.
What law prevents this? I'm not sure there is one in most of the U.S. Twitter and Reddit's opinion aren't so far law.
So the bottom line is yes, you could make the same argument.
But I think we both recognize this is morally unfair. When you provide a public venue, or offer something for sale to the public you have certain responsibilities towards non discrimination.
The fact the people being discriminated against are people you don't like or disagree with is irrelevant to this.
Perhaps the restaurant is in a religiously conservative community and people won't eat there with their children if the restaurant has openly gay couples in attendance. So the gay couples being in the restaurant could negatively impact business.
What law prevents this? I'm not sure there is one in most of the U.S. Twitter and Reddit's opinion aren't so far law.
So the bottom line is yes, you could make the same argument.
But I think we both recognize this is morally unfair. When you provide a public venue, or offer something for sale to the public you have certain responsibilities towards non discrimination.
The fact the people being discriminated against are people you don't like or disagree with is irrelevant to this.
Battles over freedom of expression have nearly always occurred at the boundary of the vile: see the obscenity battles over the rap group 2 Live Crew [0], or Chomsky's vociferous defense for the right of Europeans to express Holocaust denial [1], despite he himself finding those views to be inaccurate and repugnant.
It's a simple formula: Take the most awful idea you can imagine, that any reasonable person would also find unworthy of the public square. Now walk it back it by 1%. Still worth banning? Okay, do it again. Rinse and repeat, until anything anyone finds even vaguely controversial or upsetting is verboten. I can trivially produce a compelling argument that any opinion on abortion or the military (for or against), is hateful, vile, and dangerous.
In practice, we need specific exemptions for libel, slander, conspiracy to commit a crime, etc. (It's worth remembering that the infamous "fire in a crowded theater" line was used as a justification for suppressing pamphleteering against the draft [2].) We have such exemptions, and their details are certainly debatable. But they must be targted very narrowly, and the burden of proof must be high, lest moral panics or realpolitik throw out the baby with the bathwater, and outlaw thinking itself.
[0] https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1447/2-live-crew
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faurisson_affair
[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...
It's a simple formula: Take the most awful idea you can imagine, that any reasonable person would also find unworthy of the public square. Now walk it back it by 1%. Still worth banning? Okay, do it again. Rinse and repeat, until anything anyone finds even vaguely controversial or upsetting is verboten. I can trivially produce a compelling argument that any opinion on abortion or the military (for or against), is hateful, vile, and dangerous.
In practice, we need specific exemptions for libel, slander, conspiracy to commit a crime, etc. (It's worth remembering that the infamous "fire in a crowded theater" line was used as a justification for suppressing pamphleteering against the draft [2].) We have such exemptions, and their details are certainly debatable. But they must be targted very narrowly, and the burden of proof must be high, lest moral panics or realpolitik throw out the baby with the bathwater, and outlaw thinking itself.
[0] https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1447/2-live-crew
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faurisson_affair
[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...
“despite he himself finding those views to be inaccurate and repugnant”
If only that were true. Most people who look into this are dumbfounded at Chomsky’s support of Faurisson—not just his right to speak, but his insistence that we take this holocaust-denying nutjob’s “research” seriously.
If only that were true. Most people who look into this are dumbfounded at Chomsky’s support of Faurisson—not just his right to speak, but his insistence that we take this holocaust-denying nutjob’s “research” seriously.
ghthor(1)
Spotify gave Joe money for services.
> JRE leaving YouTube over the censorship
Meh. Youtube is an open platform. You can upload anything to it and there's almost no oversight except for a few sensitive situations, which I'm pretty much sure Google doesn't want to be involved with to begin with, but they have to. That's the price of them staying open for anyone to upload anything.
But Spotify is a closed and controlled environment. Not anyone can upload anything they want to it...
So in protest against Youtube's censorship he moved to a closed ecosystem where most of the world cannot publish to anyways.
That's either a faulty decision making, or trying to get some PR and making it look like a moral stand not just a better deal.
Meh. Youtube is an open platform. You can upload anything to it and there's almost no oversight except for a few sensitive situations, which I'm pretty much sure Google doesn't want to be involved with to begin with, but they have to. That's the price of them staying open for anyone to upload anything.
But Spotify is a closed and controlled environment. Not anyone can upload anything they want to it...
So in protest against Youtube's censorship he moved to a closed ecosystem where most of the world cannot publish to anyways.
That's either a faulty decision making, or trying to get some PR and making it look like a moral stand not just a better deal.
I don't listen to his show, but as a general podcast fan this is sad. This isn't the first podcast to move away from having a free and open feed of the show, but it is certainly the biggest and it opens the doors for a lot more exclusivity deals in the future.
Agreed. I don't think people appreciate how unique podcasting is as a distribution medium in that it has lasted so long as a completely open ecosystem. Nobody needs anyone's permission to write a podcasting app or launch a new podcast.
Sad to see that start to change, but I'm also kind of optimistic for one reason: there's just so damned much audio content out there that it is people's attention, not audio content, that is scarce. I don't think platforms have the upper hand in audio content the way that, say, Netflix does. I think that's why platforms like Luminary haven't really taken off.
Sad to see that start to change, but I'm also kind of optimistic for one reason: there's just so damned much audio content out there that it is people's attention, not audio content, that is scarce. I don't think platforms have the upper hand in audio content the way that, say, Netflix does. I think that's why platforms like Luminary haven't really taken off.
Agreed; that's what keeps me hopeful here too. Looking at my podcast player, I don't think there's any single podcast that I would download a new app for, if they tried this. So hopefully at least for the type of podcasts I listen to, this wouldn't be a winning move.
I agree, too. I've seen several podcasts move to exclusive apps and I've not followed any of them there.
With such a low entry barrier, there's so much content available that exclusive deals don't seem to have much influence, no podcast is "must have". Not available? I'll just play the next one on the list. Many will remain open and free. Fortunately, podcasts can financially sustain themselves under these conditions, it wasn't a forced move.
With such a low entry barrier, there's so much content available that exclusive deals don't seem to have much influence, no podcast is "must have". Not available? I'll just play the next one on the list. Many will remain open and free. Fortunately, podcasts can financially sustain themselves under these conditions, it wasn't a forced move.
Re permission, that's not quite true. His show is on YouTube, and his shows are allowed on there only at their pleasure. Censorship there is not unheard of, and though I've watched only a couple, his shows seem like something that could set them off.
It's available as an rss feed that can be consumed by any podcast player. It's not just YouTube.
"exclusive"
From the second paragraph of the article "The show will hit Spotify September 1, and become exclusive to the platform later in the year."
Doesn't this mean it will no longer be available via the RSS feed?
Edit: typo
From the second paragraph of the article "The show will hit Spotify September 1, and become exclusive to the platform later in the year."
Doesn't this mean it will no longer be available via the RSS feed?
Edit: typo
It feels like this became the life-cycle of Internet.
The same thing happened with decentralized websites and blogs.then everyone got attracted by the managed platforms and now the web is more centralized than ever.
The same thing happened with decentralized websites and blogs.then everyone got attracted by the managed platforms and now the web is more centralized than ever.
[deleted]
It pre-dates the internet. Happened with cable TV as well.
>...it has lasted so long as a completely open ecosystem
It's the platforms that have contributed to the podcast boom of recent years, not the "open ecosystem". Anyone can start a website and upload recorded audio, which may be the reason nobody uses RSS seriously anymore because "curated" content is the new norm.
The JRE podcast has been around for ages, and it built up an audience on YouTube because that has has been the dominating media platform for more than a decade. Now Spotify is investing heavily in big names like Gimlet and now JRE, which will help it become the next dominating platform for this decade.
It's the platforms that have contributed to the podcast boom of recent years, not the "open ecosystem". Anyone can start a website and upload recorded audio, which may be the reason nobody uses RSS seriously anymore because "curated" content is the new norm.
The JRE podcast has been around for ages, and it built up an audience on YouTube because that has has been the dominating media platform for more than a decade. Now Spotify is investing heavily in big names like Gimlet and now JRE, which will help it become the next dominating platform for this decade.
I’m be been listening to podcasts daily since probably at least 2007. I feel the same way. I have plenty of memories of filling up my iPod shuffle with pods and taking them wherever I wanted. I’ve got nothing against Spotify in general, but I’ve quit listening to a number of podcasts that went exclusive solely out of principle.
I'm still waiting for the sad day when Gimlet moves it's podcasts to exclusive status. I'm sure it's coming.
I was thinking the exact same thing. I wonder if any of their higher-profile hosts will jump ship if that happens. I'll quit listening out of principle, but also because I feel like I have an alternative in Radiotopia. If Gimlet really were the only ones putting out high-production content, I'd be pretty despondent right now. As it stands, I'm angry, but I feel like I at least have an escape plan.
my heart sank when I learned Reply All was beginning to offer exclusive (or maybe just early publish) content to Spotify. It was tempered by the fact that the hosts actually addressed this and committed to not being exclusive to their platform. But when I read this news today I knew that the era of podcasts as an open publishing channel via RSS are done. In 5 more years a lot of people will probably have to measure the worth of content on one platform vs. another as they do with Hulu or Netflix today.
The silver lining would be the ability to avoid ads as a premium subscriber, and not have to pay Google for the privilege.
The silver lining would be the ability to avoid ads as a premium subscriber, and not have to pay Google for the privilege.
I've stumbled on a bunch of good quality podcasts following freemium model, where they share a part of the content exclusively with their patrons. I'm guessing it earns them more money than ads.
I would have to ask more questions. Specifically about following the money.
As a contracted podcaster on a paid platform, does that mean his management and production team spend less time on trying to court advertising dollars? Does it mean fewer conflicts of interest? Does that mean less of (well I hardly ever listen to him, but for argument's sake) my information is sold?
Some of that could probably be figured out now. Some of it we will only know after Spotify has experienced financial distress a few times.
As a contracted podcaster on a paid platform, does that mean his management and production team spend less time on trying to court advertising dollars? Does it mean fewer conflicts of interest? Does that mean less of (well I hardly ever listen to him, but for argument's sake) my information is sold?
Some of that could probably be figured out now. Some of it we will only know after Spotify has experienced financial distress a few times.
you make the right point. A lot of people see this as youtube censorship, but the podcast was also available in its purest form: through a RSS decentralized feed.
Now it moves to a walled garden with content unavailable to the outside world.
Now it moves to a walled garden with content unavailable to the outside world.
True, but on the other hand allowing podcasters to make significantly more money will increase supply and you will have more podcasts to choose from with higher quality.
Consider what would happen to the quality of books if copyright couldn't be applied them: every book would have a 'free and open feed' on the internet, but overall I don't think readers would benefit.
Consider what would happen to the quality of books if copyright couldn't be applied them: every book would have a 'free and open feed' on the internet, but overall I don't think readers would benefit.
Yep. This is like a website moving from HTTP to behind the AOL browser.
Why is this sad? To me it illustrates that there is a lot of value in Spotify as a delivery mechanism and that the existing channels are not working.
If anything it should inspire creative new solutions to the issue.
If anything it should inspire creative new solutions to the issue.
This is sad because it is a harbinger of a future in which podcasting is like most other modern media. It is currently almost completely open. This openness flows in all directions. Anyone can start a podcast. Anyone can listen to a podcast. People can use any device or any piece of software to listen. Everything is up the the individuals involved and most of it is completely free. This is the future that people dreamed of for TV in the early days of cord cutting, but we are now in the era in which there are over a dozen legitimate TV streaming services and everyone seems to subscribe to multiple different ones. I don't want to have 8 separate podcast apps to listen to my favorite shows.
And for the record, this has nothing to do with compensation for content creators. I want everyone to get paid. I personally am probably in the top 0.1% of podcast consumers and spend roughly $50 per month directly supporting podcasts. There are numerous other revenue models for successful podcasts. Joe Rogan wasn't exactly poor before this exclusivity deal.
And for the record, this has nothing to do with compensation for content creators. I want everyone to get paid. I personally am probably in the top 0.1% of podcast consumers and spend roughly $50 per month directly supporting podcasts. There are numerous other revenue models for successful podcasts. Joe Rogan wasn't exactly poor before this exclusivity deal.
The main problem is Spotify isn't a podcast app. I don't listen to music like I do podcast, and I don't want my queue there because music would mix in, and it can easily reset.
Also, most "real" podcast app have better playback options. I want to be able to see chapters, and skip silence, but forcing to use Spotify for an open format is bad for everyone. Podcasts are great because they are open, and give you choices in playback apps.
Also, most "real" podcast app have better playback options. I want to be able to see chapters, and skip silence, but forcing to use Spotify for an open format is bad for everyone. Podcasts are great because they are open, and give you choices in playback apps.
I have a Spotify subscription but I still won't listen to podcasts on Spotify. If Spotify hosted the audio and offered an RSS feed this wouldn't be as bad.
This is exactly how I feel. I like having separate apps for separate types of content. If I reach the point of having to listen to my podcasts on Spotify, I'm going to start paying someone else for music instead.
If this were the case, wouldn't the podcasts would choose to use spotify on their own without having to be paid for it?
Value exists on both sides of the equation. Spotify wants people on their platform and will pay handsomly for an exclusive deal. Joe instantly gets prominent placement inside every Spotify installation on the earth, rock solid distribution and a partner to help market his content.
He has rock solid distribution between YT and RSS. Anyone who has heard of podcasts has heard of JRE, it doesn’t need marketing. Joe’s reach is going to take a big hit from exclusivity.
Spotify is clearly paying him enough that none of this matters. It’s the correct trade to make if he thinks JRE has passed peak growth and it’s time to focus on monetization.
Spotify is clearly paying him enough that none of this matters. It’s the correct trade to make if he thinks JRE has passed peak growth and it’s time to focus on monetization.
In addition to what's already been said, this is a loss for privacy. Spotify gathers information about you and sells it to whoever they want. An RSS feed simply does not allow anywhere near that level of privacy invasion. If a podcast app pulls that crap, I can always switch to another or make my own.
To the contrary. If Spotify was valuable as a delivery mechanism, it wouldn't need exclusives. People would use it voluntarily.
There are tons of podcasts that are on Spotify in a non-exclusive manner.
> To me it illustrates that there is a lot of value in Spotify as a delivery mechanism and that the existing channels are not working.
Spotify is pouring money into attracting exclusive talent in order become more sticky to consumers and to build a moat against alternatives. They want to erode other platforms (including the open web) so that they become the unichannel.
This is not a sign of existing channels not working. This is taking land from natives and taxing it. It's being done by a powerful player that doesn't want freedom of choice, so long as the only option is their own.
This is not good for anyone but Spotify and Joe Rogan's net worth.
Spotify is pouring money into attracting exclusive talent in order become more sticky to consumers and to build a moat against alternatives. They want to erode other platforms (including the open web) so that they become the unichannel.
This is not a sign of existing channels not working. This is taking land from natives and taxing it. It's being done by a powerful player that doesn't want freedom of choice, so long as the only option is their own.
This is not good for anyone but Spotify and Joe Rogan's net worth.
Isn't this the case because the Spotify podcast player... is a podcast player? It reads RSS feed like any other player, so it has "all" podcasts in a non-exclusive manner. This is exactly what people are lamenting in this thread
No, pretty sure Spotify doesn’t allow any random RSS link, podcasts need to be added explicitly
Currently, Spotify doesn't have video (except album cover clips which occasionally show up). I prefer JRE's video format instead of audio. Think of Elon smoking weed on video vs on audio - very different.
Seems like Spotify might be adding video later in the year but until that happens, we don't know what we will be getting.
Seems like Spotify might be adding video later in the year but until that happens, we don't know what we will be getting.
"To me it illustrates that there is a lot of value in Spotify as a delivery mechanism and that the existing channels are not working."
I think it illustrates that Spotify has a lot of money and needs to pay more publishers to use its platform.
I think it illustrates that Spotify has a lot of money and needs to pay more publishers to use its platform.
When was it free and open?
JRE stopped live streaming his shows a year or more ago and they were on YouTube which I wouldn't consider open. They would complain pretty regularly about being demonetized because they played a short clip that Joe or a guest was commenting on.
Seems like this deal gives them more ability to have fewer restrictions imo
JRE stopped live streaming his shows a year or more ago and they were on YouTube which I wouldn't consider open. They would complain pretty regularly about being demonetized because they played a short clip that Joe or a guest was commenting on.
Seems like this deal gives them more ability to have fewer restrictions imo
When I say free and open, I mean having something like this available. [1] Anyone can listen to this, on any device, using an software they want.
[1] - http://podcasts.joerogan.net/feed
[1] - http://podcasts.joerogan.net/feed
Article really goes out of its way to let you know why you're supposed to hate Joe Rogan...
I think it's probably a good move for his bank account but will piss off a lot of his fans. I casually follow him on Youtube, just watching clips mostly but occasionally full interviews. I never use Spotify for spoken word or video---and I probably won't follow him there.
I think it's probably a good move for his bank account but will piss off a lot of his fans. I casually follow him on Youtube, just watching clips mostly but occasionally full interviews. I never use Spotify for spoken word or video---and I probably won't follow him there.
I listen to his podcast all the time both audio and video versions on YT and I dont see what the big deal is, so I open spotify instead of youtube and click JRE.
Well, spotify.com tells me this: "Spotify is currently not available in your country."
[deleted]
gccxsse(1)
[deleted]
I find it interesting that the radical left seeks to silence rather than find a competitor. Ideas are just as marketable as products.
I've listened to Joe Rogan for years and have found it educational and entertaining. It's fairly easy to listen while not agreeing to everything with his guests' viewpoints. I believe the content is high-quality, researched, and thoroughly unique. If you do not like the content, you don't need to listen to it.
When everything is "hate speech", nothing is hate speech. We often forget our own freedoms, especially the freedom of choice.
I've listened to Joe Rogan for years and have found it educational and entertaining. It's fairly easy to listen while not agreeing to everything with his guests' viewpoints. I believe the content is high-quality, researched, and thoroughly unique. If you do not like the content, you don't need to listen to it.
When everything is "hate speech", nothing is hate speech. We often forget our own freedoms, especially the freedom of choice.
It's a lucrative business to be an entertainer masquerading as someone who is educated about 1000s different topics to his fans.
He speaks whatever his fans want to hear so that their beliefs will be reinforced and will continue watching.
Nothing more...nothing less.
He speaks whatever his fans want to hear so that their beliefs will be reinforced and will continue watching.
Nothing more...nothing less.
I highly doubt many are convinced he's educated in any way about his topics lol. Some interviews are just entertaining.
Joe's whole bit as an interviewer is the curious kid asking dumb questions and getting interesting answers because he manages to get the people talking about what they are interested in.
Joe gets teased by a ton of people for his dumb questions or how he goes off-topics, including for his Alpha Brain pseudoscience pill. But it's not a big deal to the fans.
I really dislike this idea that humans are all dumb and take all information at face value. Like little propoganda machines. Everyone in the west is trained since childhood to look through marketing, sales people, politicians, etc for the real message and not believe anything you hear. This is no different.
Joe gets teased by a ton of people for his dumb questions or how he goes off-topics, including for his Alpha Brain pseudoscience pill. But it's not a big deal to the fans.
I really dislike this idea that humans are all dumb and take all information at face value. Like little propoganda machines. Everyone in the west is trained since childhood to look through marketing, sales people, politicians, etc for the real message and not believe anything you hear. This is no different.
I don't think I can agree with that, and would maybe even go a step further and suggest that what keeps the various pillars of North American society functioning, is a passive damper on asking 'why', if not an active one. I wouldn't say that we're dumb or that all information is taken at face value, but my impression is that a lot of people don't think very much about any given topic. The numbers aren't really run that often, or only by a minority. Why do I need a house, why do I need a car, why is/isn't my local government doing anything and how can I verify that? Especially when you're younger—for parental or institutional efficiency—people are often told 'don't ask why, just do it'. I definitely also dislike the idea, but I don't think I'd give people quite as much credit, and I'd like to.
> Everyone in the west is trained since childhood to look through marketing, sales people, politicians
Not really. Very few are "trained" to look beyond, most people take everything at face value. Once they feel somewhat "betrayed", they go to the opposite end and start rejecting everything they hear, indiscriminately, unless it agrees with some of their core beliefs.
Not really. Very few are "trained" to look beyond, most people take everything at face value. Once they feel somewhat "betrayed", they go to the opposite end and start rejecting everything they hear, indiscriminately, unless it agrees with some of their core beliefs.
[deleted]
I’m having a hard time making sense of this. He certainly isn’t without bias (no one is), but he has brought a wide variety of people on the show (Bernie Sanders, Andrew Yang, Ben Shapiro). I don’t follow him heavily, but from the interviews I’ve seen, he just seems to try to get the guest to talk.
Yeah, I think Joe would be the first to say (and I believe he has said exactly this many times) "I'm a dumbass comedian, don't listen to me as an authority for any changes you make to your life, I'm stupid and this is just entertainment." I personally like how not only does he say stupid shit, but then the next day he says the opposite and talks about how he learned something new, they never speculate when they can just look something up on Google, etc. I think it has a lot of live integrity and fact-checking. Yes, sometimes they have figures on which are complete assholes. But they also have fringe people who are very smart who you would never hear from otherwise who have offered a huge range of insightful new theories. You don't listen to JRE to get "news", you listen to stimulate your mind in different directions, and get motivated to do something yourself. I don't want to be like Joe at all, but there is something motivating about how unapologetic he is about basically just being a dumbass comedian with a big platform and he's literally not doing anything of real value with it. It's art. I think it's one of the best things in media today.
> he has brought a wide variety of people on the show
That is exactly the problem. You can't be "fair" and balance out Neil deGrasse Tyson by giving equal time to a flat earther.
I have no issue with Alex Jones being given a platform in a forum such as the Howard Stern show, which is intentionally not taken seriously. But Joe Rogan has stepped away from his comedy roots and is talking authoritatively about health, physical fitness, wellness, etc. and in the same breath peddling supplements from Onnit without disclosing he has a financial interest in the company.
That is exactly the problem. You can't be "fair" and balance out Neil deGrasse Tyson by giving equal time to a flat earther.
I have no issue with Alex Jones being given a platform in a forum such as the Howard Stern show, which is intentionally not taken seriously. But Joe Rogan has stepped away from his comedy roots and is talking authoritatively about health, physical fitness, wellness, etc. and in the same breath peddling supplements from Onnit without disclosing he has a financial interest in the company.
I would say it’s up to the viewer to decide what to take seriously. I wouldn’t listen to the flat earther for geographic information, but to better understand why they think that way. By better understanding their thought process, you have a better chance of explaining to them the holes in their theories. I personally don’t know why someone would be a flat earther, and am curious to know why.
You could look at it another way. A flat earther might watch his buddies episode, enjoy the Joe Rogan format, then watch the recommended Neil deGrasse Tyson episode. This would expose them to concepts that can help them see the error of their way.
I think it boils down to people thinking for themselves and deciding which episodes are for pondering vs which are for entertainment. Plus, who gets to decide what’s too “out there” for the show. A lot of the information dropped by Snowden was considered tin foil hat before the leak.
You could look at it another way. A flat earther might watch his buddies episode, enjoy the Joe Rogan format, then watch the recommended Neil deGrasse Tyson episode. This would expose them to concepts that can help them see the error of their way.
I think it boils down to people thinking for themselves and deciding which episodes are for pondering vs which are for entertainment. Plus, who gets to decide what’s too “out there” for the show. A lot of the information dropped by Snowden was considered tin foil hat before the leak.
> at every opportunity
This is some The Onion level shit
This is some The Onion level shit
Just asking for some (not totally out of context) quotes would mean you are just as worse as him obviously.
In reality his "attacked transgender people" probably only refers to his opposition to trans-women competing as women in MMA, which is a perfectly valid opinion to have and is certainly not "attacking transgender people", thats idiotic.
His position on transgender athletes is one thing... his referring to Fallon Fox as a man, saying "that's a fucking man" is disrespectful at the very least... I'd label that transphobic. People seem to forget that he said that.
This quote caught my eye:
"At the time, the Human Rights Campaign said Sanders “must reconsider” the endorsement, stating that Rogan has “attacked transgender people, gay men, women, people of color and countless marginalized groups at every opportunity.”"
If they attack somebody like Rogan in this way, it's no wonder that a lot of people are getting tired of political correctness and move the other direction.
"At the time, the Human Rights Campaign said Sanders “must reconsider” the endorsement, stating that Rogan has “attacked transgender people, gay men, women, people of color and countless marginalized groups at every opportunity.”"
If they attack somebody like Rogan in this way, it's no wonder that a lot of people are getting tired of political correctness and move the other direction.
[deleted]
The kicker is, they got their way, and we've got notable woke icon.. checks notes.. Joe Biden as the nominee instead.
Spoiler effect: rendered. This why it’s important to stick to your own party if you need to keep FPTP. An echo chamber is literally better than being interfered with.
Were any good points made? Did anyone learn anything? No. It was just a facade to help their own tribe.
Were any good points made? Did anyone learn anything? No. It was just a facade to help their own tribe.
If this was a podcast that I listened to, I would be mad. I want podcasts to be in my podcast app. I listen to them mostly on my phone and I don't have spotify on my phone. I don't want to install and open a separate program just for one show.
It also irritates me off when I see a podcast mentioned online and they only give an itunes link. I am an android user. Yes, most of the shows are in pocketcast's directory if I search for it but only putting an itunes link makes it more work for me and less likely to bother.
It also irritates me off when I see a podcast mentioned online and they only give an itunes link. I am an android user. Yes, most of the shows are in pocketcast's directory if I search for it but only putting an itunes link makes it more work for me and less likely to bother.
What do you think if Spotify added "buy and download" button for specific podcast episodes?
Ben Thompson & James Allworth had a nice discussion recently on the podcasting space and how Spotify is posed to close over this space.
https://overcast.fm/+BihnTujyQ
Disregarding over all the negatives of centralizing podcast discovery in one place, I would love to pay one fee and get 0 ads on all the episodes. Where the money is then distributed to the podcast hosts I listen to the most (like Spotify does already with music).
It's so bizzare to me how ads are still a thing. I never ever bought anything from an ad (my mind subconsciously ignores everything I hear in an ad & often paints the product in the ad in a negative light). And I lose quite a chunk of my time speeding over (the same ads) in the episodes I listen too.
https://overcast.fm/+BihnTujyQ
Disregarding over all the negatives of centralizing podcast discovery in one place, I would love to pay one fee and get 0 ads on all the episodes. Where the money is then distributed to the podcast hosts I listen to the most (like Spotify does already with music).
It's so bizzare to me how ads are still a thing. I never ever bought anything from an ad (my mind subconsciously ignores everything I hear in an ad & often paints the product in the ad in a negative light). And I lose quite a chunk of my time speeding over (the same ads) in the episodes I listen too.
I just hate how Spotify is trying to bring music back into the pre-download era.
As a society, we somehow decided paying for and downloading DRM-free music is acceptable (though strangely not for movies and shows), but now you have albums becoming Spotify exclusives, and (just like with movies and shows) I can either sign up for this streaming service or hope I can download 'em through torrent or YouTube[0]. :T Ech
0: youtube-dl -i -f 140 -o '%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s' https://youtu.be/hzpDOB2JYKc?list=PLXPYMcRIi2fHdvKx6Orw2ux9L...
As a society, we somehow decided paying for and downloading DRM-free music is acceptable (though strangely not for movies and shows), but now you have albums becoming Spotify exclusives, and (just like with movies and shows) I can either sign up for this streaming service or hope I can download 'em through torrent or YouTube[0]. :T Ech
0: youtube-dl -i -f 140 -o '%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s' https://youtu.be/hzpDOB2JYKc?list=PLXPYMcRIi2fHdvKx6Orw2ux9L...
Apparently as a podcast consumer you prefer the "premium" Spotify model. As Thompson and Allworth have explained numerous times, they'll never be on Spotify. Centralization is not the reason for this decision, even though it's bad for humans in general. The main reason is they want a direct relationship with their customers, which may be redundant to say because does anyone on Spotify actually have a customer other than Spotify? (OK your link to some goofy aggregator instead of the actual Exponent podcast [0] sort of undercuts this; well played.) Interestingly, Thompson has explored other funding mechanisms for his other podcasts [1]. He prefers "open and paid" to "closed and free-as-in-beer". I have "subscribed" to several podcasts that would do well to use his tech; after paying the yearly fee I was given a link to a "secret" feed that could be shared with anyone if I or the podcast app I'm using chose to do so.
In many podcast apps, you can fast-forward through advertisements. When Spotify decides they have to have advertising in addition to subscriptions in order to make investors happy, their app won't allow such fast-forwarding. In that sense Spotify's new podcast model is a bit of a scam on investors. Buying talent with invested money makes sense as long as that investment is coming in. After that stops, the underlying business won't support it, and stars like Rogan will be back on RSS.
[0] https://exponent.fm/
[1] https://stratechery.com/2020/dithering-and-the-open-web/
In many podcast apps, you can fast-forward through advertisements. When Spotify decides they have to have advertising in addition to subscriptions in order to make investors happy, their app won't allow such fast-forwarding. In that sense Spotify's new podcast model is a bit of a scam on investors. Buying talent with invested money makes sense as long as that investment is coming in. After that stops, the underlying business won't support it, and stars like Rogan will be back on RSS.
[0] https://exponent.fm/
[1] https://stratechery.com/2020/dithering-and-the-open-web/
> Disregarding over all the negatives of centralizing podcast discovery in one place, I would love to pay one fee and get 0 ads on all the episodes. Where the money is then distributed to the podcast hosts I listen to the most (like Spotify does already with music).
This is one aspect of ad-free monetization that I'm not really comfortable with. I value my content for reasons other than "how much of my time they take" - in fact, for a given amount of information, the podcast is more valuable the shorter it is.
I really just want a model where I pay some dollar figure in exchange for each episode or set of episodes (or album or discography for music, etc.) - high-value podcasts are free to set higher fees, and I'll pay more for them.
Basically I want podcasts on Bandcamp, I guess.
This is one aspect of ad-free monetization that I'm not really comfortable with. I value my content for reasons other than "how much of my time they take" - in fact, for a given amount of information, the podcast is more valuable the shorter it is.
I really just want a model where I pay some dollar figure in exchange for each episode or set of episodes (or album or discography for music, etc.) - high-value podcasts are free to set higher fees, and I'll pay more for them.
Basically I want podcasts on Bandcamp, I guess.
Spotify is free with ads though. So it's more like Joe isn't running his own ad program, but instead letting Spotify run the ads, or provide premium ad-free tier.
Sure, I'd love to have a model where if you don't pay a premium fee, you get the ads as part of the episode. However if you do pay, those ads go away.
Although it does question who would pay to put ads in the first place if you can skip them. And people that will pay to skip are ones you want to target.
I hope there is a model that can work that makes ads worse off than alternatives as they are cancer.
Although it does question who would pay to put ads in the first place if you can skip them. And people that will pay to skip are ones you want to target.
I hope there is a model that can work that makes ads worse off than alternatives as they are cancer.
Spotify runs intentionally annoying and frequent ads for itself, saying they'll go away if you pay them. I pay, it's very cheap for how much I use it.
Rogan’s claim to be doing this as message to Youtube is silly. He’s signing a contract to do a “podcast” with spotify where his “podcast” will not be a podcast at all. Podcasts are not platform specific. They’re open and distributed to any app which can read the RSS file.
This is nothing but an act on his part to appeal to the outrage brigade.
Re spotify, theyve been heavily ramping up their podcasts lately and doing exclusive/semi-exclusive content all over the place. If you care about the health of our podcast ecosystem, fight this any way you can–podcasts need to remain open. Our current trajectory is a straight line path to paying for podcasts which will have forced ads to go along with paying for them. That’s the road we’re on.
This is nothing but an act on his part to appeal to the outrage brigade.
Re spotify, theyve been heavily ramping up their podcasts lately and doing exclusive/semi-exclusive content all over the place. If you care about the health of our podcast ecosystem, fight this any way you can–podcasts need to remain open. Our current trajectory is a straight line path to paying for podcasts which will have forced ads to go along with paying for them. That’s the road we’re on.
I've never heard about the "podcast" quality being conditioned on platform availability.
It is likely not in the definition, but "Spotify-exclusive podcast" sounds a lot like "Chrome-only website".
They are podcasts and websites respectively, they just go against the effective spirit of the medium.
They are podcasts and websites respectively, they just go against the effective spirit of the medium.
Do they? Podcast, to me, is a talk show on the internet.
The distribution model of podcast has always been peculiar. A podcast is a radio show live or not distributed on the internet.
Its distribution model mimics that of radio shows archives, that for the internet means RSS-like
Its distribution model mimics that of radio shows archives, that for the internet means RSS-like
[deleted]
[deleted]
This is pretty strange coming from a dude who talks about how corporatism and monopolies are bad for us regular humans in every other episode. Either he's planning something or he just sold out. Either way, podcasting will stay as long we keep it alive. Rogan wants to move to a closed ecosystem, fine, that's one less podcast for me to subscribe to!
Edit: one thing we can do as consumers is to stop paying for a company that's trying to take over an open medium.
Edit: one thing we can do as consumers is to stop paying for a company that's trying to take over an open medium.
Is Joe really in charge?
The problem with collaborations is that we either treat them as a dictatorship or a democracy and neither works. At some point we give up on certain things because it's too much work versus too many other people, maybe we've vetoed too many other things and we - or others - feel less entitled to keep doing it, so we don't say anything or they try to go around us when we aren't looking.
I know some of the stuff I complain loudest about online is motivated by an argument I'm presently losing somewhere else. It's hard to look at what someone says in public and know if that's how they really feel, or them reacting to something that is off balance by leaning farther in the other direction than they would unprompted.
That said, where do most people watch the JRE? Is it Youtube? Youtube is Google, and if someone wants to argue that Spotify is the little guy compared to Google, I don't know how to talk someone out of that idea. Are we on a road to "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss?" Are we already there?
The problem with collaborations is that we either treat them as a dictatorship or a democracy and neither works. At some point we give up on certain things because it's too much work versus too many other people, maybe we've vetoed too many other things and we - or others - feel less entitled to keep doing it, so we don't say anything or they try to go around us when we aren't looking.
I know some of the stuff I complain loudest about online is motivated by an argument I'm presently losing somewhere else. It's hard to look at what someone says in public and know if that's how they really feel, or them reacting to something that is off balance by leaning farther in the other direction than they would unprompted.
That said, where do most people watch the JRE? Is it Youtube? Youtube is Google, and if someone wants to argue that Spotify is the little guy compared to Google, I don't know how to talk someone out of that idea. Are we on a road to "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss?" Are we already there?
Is Spotify a monopoly?
Exclusive deals are monopolies by definition.
That’s not what anyone means by monopoly, every TV show and film starts as exclusive and opens up with “windowing” until distribution is ubiquitous.
Doesn't make it not a monopoly and it's still bad for consumers (on the first order, on the second order allegedly it enables the producers to create more content).
> This is pretty strange coming from a dude who talks about how corporatism and monopolies is bad for us regular humans in every other episode. Either he's planning something or he just sold out. Either way, podcasting will stay as long we keep it alive. Rogan wants to move to a closed ecosystem, fine, that's one less podcast for me to subscribe to!
My guess is he's looking at his stand-up revenue approaching zero so needs to find something to replace it.
I've wondered what performance professionals are going to do.
My guess is he's looking at his stand-up revenue approaching zero so needs to find something to replace it.
I've wondered what performance professionals are going to do.
Joe initially said he didn't want to go to Spotify because they don't pay creators.
I guess a few million made that thought go away.
I guess a few million made that thought go away.
Let's not forget when Howard Stern went to satellite radio. That deal was worth $500M.
He also said he's quit when he got bored with it. Hard to do when you're in a multi-year licensing deal.
More than a few is my guess
Sounds like they started paying creators.
They are paying a handful of creators who have leverage. I don't think they're making any changes to their per-play payouts.
Joe "Spotify doesn't make any sense" Rogan
This makes me incredibly sad: not that we are losing Rogan's show, but that Adtech is finally absorbing the last type of media that was truly Free.
I agree, the idea of my podcasts becoming infected with non-stop ads keeps me up at night. But you know what doesn't keep me up all night? My Eliza mattress. You see the folks at Eliza designed a mattress that allows you to create your own website in minutes. Eliza's network of doctors can review your mattress's website and prescribe the best medication to regrow it's natural hair. Don't forget to use the promo-code HACKER at checkout for 3.14% off and free shipping!
Let me finish my Best Fiends game first. It's friends without the r.
Quick pause, I just wanted to thank today's video sponsor: SponsorTech!
Do you ever get tired of searching for a sponsor for your video? Let SponsorTech deliver the revenue you need to buy ramen noodles, all while connecting your customers with ads that are roughly as annoying as this one. Offer-code GETREKT for 20% off in the description below.
Do you ever get tired of searching for a sponsor for your video? Let SponsorTech deliver the revenue you need to buy ramen noodles, all while connecting your customers with ads that are roughly as annoying as this one. Offer-code GETREKT for 20% off in the description below.
Rogan had ads on his podcast even before this partnership, and has had them for a long time now. I don't think that adtech is going away as long as there is a cost for the creator to make the content. Rogan (and other podcasters) have to pay for their studios somehow, and as long as the ads remain skippable (ex. at the beginning of the show like Joe has) I'm OK with it.
I don't care about ads, I care about walled gardens. Especially walled gardens that are designed to spy on you. Right now there are basically no metrics adtech companies have for how listeners behave, and this changes that.
Spotify doesn't add ads to music if you pay for it. I don't know about podcasts. If it was a viable business strategy for them to be paid-only, I think they would have done it, I'm pretty sure they make much more profit on paying customers than free ad-supported ones.
Again, ads are not the issue. The freedom to listen without being spied on is.
You really think your http requests aren't being "spied on"? Especially since virtually every podcast is served via a CDN.
I download podcasts in bulk by downloading every available episode, and then listening in the offline audio player of my choice. I repeat every year or three when I catch up on a particular podcast. I'm unwilling to give any further information about myself to podcast publishers.
For shows that do fresh ad reads every episode, I don't even skip them. Just the slight difference of not being pure repetition every time makes them so much more bearable.
I'm not sure why you think Youtube is "truly free". They run an enormous amount of advertising. Rogan's show has always been ad supported. Possibly you use an ad-blocker, like I do, and don't see them.
The Joe Rogan Experience is currently available on many different platforms, not just YouTube.
This, however, is an exclusive deal with Spotify, so you will only be able to get it from Spotify going forward. Hence less free.
This, however, is an exclusive deal with Spotify, so you will only be able to get it from Spotify going forward. Hence less free.
It's not YouTube, but podcasting over rss feeds as a means of distribution that is 'free' in the pertinent sense.
Adtech would actually make it free. Arguably this is more like cable / Netflix than adtech
Now my podcast player and by extension adtech markets know what I listen to, when I listen to it, how long I listen, when I stop, when I fast forward/skip, etc., with no way to opt out. This is not freedom.
[deleted]
You have to pay for cable / Netflix. Spotify is free (with ads).
I pay for Spotify and don't get ads, so its not really adtech for me.
Paying for Spotify does not imply that they cease spying on you, only that they aren't using that information to serve you ads on their platform.
That's too bad, I hope at least the old episodes remain on YouTube.
Not only because it is simple and easy and free to find and listen to the episodes, but the associated visual content (clips, reactions) is good too.
Would Elon's blunt hit have been nearly as entertaining in purely audio form?
Not only because it is simple and easy and free to find and listen to the episodes, but the associated visual content (clips, reactions) is good too.
Would Elon's blunt hit have been nearly as entertaining in purely audio form?
Spotify is rolling out video podcasts. Clips like that will still make their way to YouTube and other platforms (as they announced). However, you are right that making it harder to find and listen to will shrink its audience even if more economically sustainable. It reminds me a lot of Howard Stern leaving radio for satellite.
YouTube really, really didn't deserve his patronage though. As somebody who has had a YouTube Premium membership over the years, the general disrespect YouTube has for the people who make the videos that attract people to their platform is offensive to me.
On YouTube, your live stream can be pulled mid-sentence if you say the name "Eric CIAramella", even if you're referring to one of the many people with that name other than the one they're concerned with. Then there is the 共匪 fiasco of the last few days. The history goes back and back and back, it's a history of declining principle, and a complete lack of policy consistency, where the audiences and creators are not only a mere commodity in reality (which is par for the course) but made to feel like it too.
On YouTube, your live stream can be pulled mid-sentence if you say the name "Eric CIAramella", even if you're referring to one of the many people with that name other than the one they're concerned with. Then there is the 共匪 fiasco of the last few days. The history goes back and back and back, it's a history of declining principle, and a complete lack of policy consistency, where the audiences and creators are not only a mere commodity in reality (which is par for the course) but made to feel like it too.
Really? They might be able to legitimately compete with Youtube. I watch a lot of podcast clips on Youtube but would much rather view it ad-free on Spotify.
on his announcement[0], he says that he will do his video podcast on spotify.
[0]https://www.instagram.com/p/CAYSqQLFP_l/
[0]https://www.instagram.com/p/CAYSqQLFP_l/
You can view YouTube ad-free by paying, just like Spotify.
True. But I'd never pay for ad-free Youtube. Gladly already paying for Spotify.
My guess is that the show will still be released on YouTube. I think this just applies to the audio feed.
I think there was a further statement which mentioned only clips will be released on Youtube. The full video will be available only on Spotify.
Too bad, I occasionally enjoy his show, depending on the guest.
I don’t use Spotify and I won’t bother with an account just for Joe. I hope he is getting good revenue from Spotify to make up for loss of listeners. I discovered him from Apple’s podcast app.
I don’t use Spotify and I won’t bother with an account just for Joe. I hope he is getting good revenue from Spotify to make up for loss of listeners. I discovered him from Apple’s podcast app.
This is a place where the JRE technical ignorance (or disregard) screws the audience despite the recent episode with Adam Curry. The beauty of 'podcasts' is the open RSS publishing and subscription. The content creator controls their feed with ease. Forcing people to get the show through a corporate infrastructure is completely contradicting the feeling and (what I thought) the philosophy of the show is (was).
I discourage people from having apps like FB and other apps that pretend to be one thing and do a whole helluva lot more. The pirate ship that was JRE will now be another shill/cog in a bigger grinder. Will the market hold them to any particular standard? I say the thing that brought you over 8M subs should be enough. Grinding and squeezing all the pennies out of it seems unreasonable here.
Just an example of ONE problem being part of the lefty corporate structure is the question: How many 'questionable' or 'offensive' references will be self-censored going forward?
I discourage people from having apps like FB and other apps that pretend to be one thing and do a whole helluva lot more. The pirate ship that was JRE will now be another shill/cog in a bigger grinder. Will the market hold them to any particular standard? I say the thing that brought you over 8M subs should be enough. Grinding and squeezing all the pennies out of it seems unreasonable here.
Just an example of ONE problem being part of the lefty corporate structure is the question: How many 'questionable' or 'offensive' references will be self-censored going forward?
This might be a big thing. I think audio is kind of underused medium. We have podcasts, audio books and music, but there’s much more that could be done. Like radio theater, documentaries, talk shows. Professionally produced audio content can be really enjoyable experience.
Production costs for audio stuff are less than for video. Our busy lives have limits for video consumption, but I think there’s still room for more audio content. Audio you can consume while doing something else. Combine it with taking a walk and you feel good for yourself - compare that to spending a hour on sofa with Netflix.
Production costs for audio stuff are less than for video. Our busy lives have limits for video consumption, but I think there’s still room for more audio content. Audio you can consume while doing something else. Combine it with taking a walk and you feel good for yourself - compare that to spending a hour on sofa with Netflix.
Not disagreeing too much, but I really think podcasts have a limited "parallelism" to them
Sure, you can do the dishes or go for a walk and listen to podcasts.
But it's impossible to do anything mildly intellectual or that requires some attention
Sure, you can do the dishes or go for a walk and listen to podcasts.
But it's impossible to do anything mildly intellectual or that requires some attention
I was trying to make a Hulu or Netflix simile in my head and then you brought up audio books.
I'm trying to decide if I would mind world where 'a Spotify' bought Libro, and focused on doing literary interviews and such.
I'm trying to decide if I would mind world where 'a Spotify' bought Libro, and focused on doing literary interviews and such.
Rogan said in his instagram post the podcast will stay free, I don’t think this will drive down listenership. With spotify hosting the content he will be able to have Jamie pull up lots more because of fair use, YouTube’s ContentId won’t pull the videos and steal the ad revenue. I think this is the biggest motivation for the move as he is often frustrated with that issues. Also continuing to put clips on YouTube will continue to grow the audience. I’d love to know how much the deal was worth, I bet somewhere around 150 million a year for 3-5 years.
Yeah I suspect Youtube's policies is the main reason to switch rather than any limitations with the audio podcast in RSS. They always have an enormous amount of concern in trying to follow Youtube's policies and not get demonetized/strikes. Given video RSS is not popular, switching to Spotify makes a lot of sense. The RSS feed may have been collateral damage.
> I don’t think this will drive down listenership
I do, I think his podcast has benefited massively from being pushed out by the YT algorithm. Think a not insignificant percentage of his listeners didn't even get into it because they were looking for a podcast but because they were watching a YT video and the algorithm fed them a clip or an episode.
His format became so popular on YT that YouTubers started to replicate it.
I do, I think his podcast has benefited massively from being pushed out by the YT algorithm. Think a not insignificant percentage of his listeners didn't even get into it because they were looking for a podcast but because they were watching a YT video and the algorithm fed them a clip or an episode.
His format became so popular on YT that YouTubers started to replicate it.
Platform shifts are enough to lose significant viewership.
It work the opposite way too, wherein platforms lose users due to undesired changes. YouTube's banning/striking/demonitizatation of high profile channels, something that Joe often says he's afraid of, could be seen as an undesirable platform change.
If that means he's no longer going to be on YouTube, that's going to suck. That's been the only way I've been watching/listening the show for awhile now.
And it's going to be a lot more out-of-sight, out-of-mind for a lot of people if it's not up there with their normal YouTube video browsing. I'm sure they got a ton of money up front for that deal though.
And it's going to be a lot more out-of-sight, out-of-mind for a lot of people if it's not up there with their normal YouTube video browsing. I'm sure they got a ton of money up front for that deal though.
From his post about it on IG:
> We will still have clips up on YouTube but full versions of the show will only be on Spotify after the end of the year.
:-(
> We will still have clips up on YouTube but full versions of the show will only be on Spotify after the end of the year.
:-(
Does Spotify play video though? I have seen those little looping background animations they have for some songs, but I have never seen a full blown music video or podcast video on there.
EDIT: I see a "Podcasts & Videos" category, so I guess there are.
EDIT: I see a "Podcasts & Videos" category, so I guess there are.
This seems like short-term thinking from Joe.
I'm sure he got paid big time. But his audience will shrink massively and he'll become a niche personality.
It'll be similar to what happened to Howard Stern when he went to satellite radio; he quickly faded into relative obscurity.
I'm sure he got paid big time. But his audience will shrink massively and he'll become a niche personality.
It'll be similar to what happened to Howard Stern when he went to satellite radio; he quickly faded into relative obscurity.
>he quickly faded into relative obscurity
And his bank account exploded in to outer space.
And his bank account exploded in to outer space.
Yeah it’s pretty weird. I watch a lot of his shows in the background while working. But I won’t be downloading Spotify to follow him over there.
He's not shrinking by moving to one of the most ubiquitous apps in the world. You're just going to see some brief internet rage before people type "rogan" into the Spotify app they already have running all day.
That is nothing like XM radio where I've never met someone who said they had it.
That is nothing like XM radio where I've never met someone who said they had it.
I'm a casual watcher of his show (maybe 1 show every few weeks). Spotify has made no investment into their platform to support podcasts. No notification system for new episodes, no already listened to tracking, no subscriptions or an area where i can find all my podcasts.
I like the idea of having my music and podcasts all in one place which working across all my devices (Linux, iOS, Windows) and i gave up on them. Spotify may be ubiquitous but they're not engineered for podcasts.
I like the idea of having my music and podcasts all in one place which working across all my devices (Linux, iOS, Windows) and i gave up on them. Spotify may be ubiquitous but they're not engineered for podcasts.
Why would Joe want to be a famous podscaster forever? Maybe he's heading into podcast retirement.
This explanation does not really make sense:
> Bringing the JRE to Spotify will mean that the platform’s more than 286 million active users will have access to one of culture’s leading voices.
Spotify has podcasts, JRE is a podcast, so I assume those users already have access to JRE before this deal.
> By partnering with Spotify, Rogan and his team will enjoy the support of the world’s leading audio platform.
Vague. What can JRE do now they couldn't do before?
> Bringing the JRE to Spotify will mean that the platform’s more than 286 million active users will have access to one of culture’s leading voices.
Spotify has podcasts, JRE is a podcast, so I assume those users already have access to JRE before this deal.
> By partnering with Spotify, Rogan and his team will enjoy the support of the world’s leading audio platform.
Vague. What can JRE do now they couldn't do before?
Make a lot more money.
Not having to deal with youtube's nonsense is likely a strong reason. If I was Rogan that reason alone would cause me to regularly evaluate alternatives. Multiple episodes have Rogan himself hitting a Youtube restriction and him verbally expressing frustration.
This is something a lot of content creators on youtube are experiencing.
This is something a lot of content creators on youtube are experiencing.
The final blow to RSS, podcasting remained one of the last strongholds of free distribution and now even that is being locked down in corporate silos.
I probably will never watch it now since I don’t have a Spotify subscription and don’t need one. Is Spotify free for Podcasts?
He said in the announcement his podcast is remaining free. I don't know if you have to register with Spotify to listen, but I would think you would.
That’s the whole point, killing open podcast distribution. They want the only viable place to get podcasts to be the Spotify app which they control.
From memory, you don't need an account to use spotify. You don't even need to download an app.
Spotify has an ad-supported free tier. This will be available on that, along with all their other podcasts.
...and this is how podcasting dies.
Or this is how the Joe Rogan show dies.
Did radio die when Howard Stern signed with Sirius?
I could never set up my own radio station :).
The point of spotify moving into podcasts is to make a netflix-like channel that 1) attracts user and so 2) attracts more publishers. In turn, Spotify can do dynamically targeted and unskippable advertising which attracts more advertisers, and so more publishers.
As users and publishers leave the open, rss based, podcast world will have significant downwards pressure.
The point of spotify moving into podcasts is to make a netflix-like channel that 1) attracts user and so 2) attracts more publishers. In turn, Spotify can do dynamically targeted and unskippable advertising which attracts more advertisers, and so more publishers.
As users and publishers leave the open, rss based, podcast world will have significant downwards pressure.
Point taken.
I am a paid subscriber to Stratechery and Dithering; I hope this model wins. The creators get paid directly.
https://stratechery.com/podcasts/
I am a paid subscriber to Stratechery and Dithering; I hope this model wins. The creators get paid directly.
https://stratechery.com/podcasts/
[deleted]
With thunderous applause.
That sounds like he won't be on YouTube anymore. Shame. I don't really like using Spotify.
It says he has creative freedom but would they seriously let him bring Alex Jones back on the podcast under the Spotify banner?
Personally I think that's probably a good thing because I find mainstreaming conspiracy theorists completely awful but I really don't know what it'll do to his fanbase given that they were big on this whole independence and do what you want brand that he had going on
Personally I think that's probably a good thing because I find mainstreaming conspiracy theorists completely awful but I really don't know what it'll do to his fanbase given that they were big on this whole independence and do what you want brand that he had going on
Those episodes get great views; I enjoy them because I find his gonzo-levels of speculative fringe insanity to be entertaining and humorous.
But I get it, some folks think that all dangerous things should be regulated or banned; especially speech.
But I get it, some folks think that all dangerous things should be regulated or banned; especially speech.
He has creative freedom until something crazy hits the media. Though given how exhausted everyone is of these battles these days, I'm not sure anything he could do would generate sufficient outrage.
When widespread outrage is measured simply by twitter likes, I feel there is no end to the outrage machine. The cost of participating is zero while the dopamine hit of lending your support to some presumed moral issue non-zero. And therein lies the problem with adjudicating moral issues through social media. There is zero cost to join in the mob and so these tempests appear to be much stronger than they actually are. If there were a tangible cost to signing on to these outrage mobs, there would be much fewer of them and it would also be a more accurate metric.
I think the real problem started in the early '10s, when mainstream journalists got lazy af and just started combing Facebook and Twitter for material rather than doing actual journalism. It started with "crowdsourced" journalism like photos and videos of actual notable events, but devolved into internet drama stuff pretty quickly.
Many people saw what was happening and started treating Twitter as a legitimate news source to try and 'scoop' the major news outlets. Once it was obvious that being on Twitter gave you an outsized voice, it attracted all sorts of bad actors.
The 2016 election really threw it into overdrive though. Part of me wonders if Trump's whole Twitter strategy is to rile up the left because most of his base is old people on Facebook or Nextdoor. The young edgelords who were already using Twitter didn't take any of it seriously because they were just using it to troll people with 4chan memes about using bleach as eyedrops anyway.
Many people saw what was happening and started treating Twitter as a legitimate news source to try and 'scoop' the major news outlets. Once it was obvious that being on Twitter gave you an outsized voice, it attracted all sorts of bad actors.
The 2016 election really threw it into overdrive though. Part of me wonders if Trump's whole Twitter strategy is to rile up the left because most of his base is old people on Facebook or Nextdoor. The young edgelords who were already using Twitter didn't take any of it seriously because they were just using it to troll people with 4chan memes about using bleach as eyedrops anyway.
I will get downvoted for saying this. Spotify was the one who conspired with Facebook, Apple and Google to ban Alex Jones and others. So if Joe is moving off of YouTube because he doesn't like the censorship, he's not getting anything better with Spotify.
What happens if the conspiracy theorist is someone you agree with? Do we still avoid mainstreaming them?
I wanted to avoid starting a discussion about conspiracy theories which is why I qualified it as personal, but given that you're asking, I categorically reject conspiracy theories because conspiracy logic is by definition paranoid, and I don't believe any of them.
So all it takes to shortcut your "rational examination of the evidence at hand" loop is to have someone label a subject as 'a conspiracy'? That's certainly an interesting way to move through life.
No. Where did I say that? What makes me disregard a subject is if the person advocating it uses conspirational logic to make their case.
What is "conspiratorial logic?"
Humans conspire _all the time_; the whole of human history is marked by innumerable conspiracies between humans to achieve shared goals.
Believing that it's possible for humans to conspire isn't wrong, it's rational.
Humans conspire _all the time_; the whole of human history is marked by innumerable conspiracies between humans to achieve shared goals.
Believing that it's possible for humans to conspire isn't wrong, it's rational.
>What is "conspiratorial logic?"
Making claims without having evidence for it, believing that shadowy cabals of people are somehow running the world or entire organisations (actually pretty much impossible in modern times), adopting scientific language but actually not understanding how science works (anti-vaxxers, 9/11 truthers, flat earthers etc..), making extraordinary claims or rationalisations without having an extraordinary good reason to make them, generally being paranoid and framing everything as some sort of power play, believing that everyone who disagrees with them is part of some establishment or has a hidden agenda, and so on.
>Believing that it's possible for humans to conspire isn't wrong, it's rational
Conspiracy theorists don't just believe that it's possible for humans to conspire, they believe that humans conspire all the time and use it as an explanation for claims that don't hold any water. Virtually 99.9% of conspiracy theories are wrong even if one or two happen to be right by accident, so it's useless as a way of approaching the world.
Making claims without having evidence for it, believing that shadowy cabals of people are somehow running the world or entire organisations (actually pretty much impossible in modern times), adopting scientific language but actually not understanding how science works (anti-vaxxers, 9/11 truthers, flat earthers etc..), making extraordinary claims or rationalisations without having an extraordinary good reason to make them, generally being paranoid and framing everything as some sort of power play, believing that everyone who disagrees with them is part of some establishment or has a hidden agenda, and so on.
>Believing that it's possible for humans to conspire isn't wrong, it's rational
Conspiracy theorists don't just believe that it's possible for humans to conspire, they believe that humans conspire all the time and use it as an explanation for claims that don't hold any water. Virtually 99.9% of conspiracy theories are wrong even if one or two happen to be right by accident, so it's useless as a way of approaching the world.
So you believe the official account of everything? Authority is everything to you?
What about all those conspiracies that turn out to be true? Libor rate fixing, US tapping merkel, certain groups in media conspiring with certain political party, etc? Every war we've been involved in the last few decades have been conspiracies. Or did you forget about yellowcake?
Extreme paranoid thinking is detrimental but so is extreme naivety. Categorically rejecting conspiracy theories is as ridiculous as categorically accepting official narrative.
So do you accept everything Trump says as gospel? Should we shut down CNN/MSNBC/etc since they peddled conspiracies about Putin owning Trump?
For someone who rejects paranoia, you seem quite paranoid about conspiracies...
What about all those conspiracies that turn out to be true? Libor rate fixing, US tapping merkel, certain groups in media conspiring with certain political party, etc? Every war we've been involved in the last few decades have been conspiracies. Or did you forget about yellowcake?
Extreme paranoid thinking is detrimental but so is extreme naivety. Categorically rejecting conspiracy theories is as ridiculous as categorically accepting official narrative.
So do you accept everything Trump says as gospel? Should we shut down CNN/MSNBC/etc since they peddled conspiracies about Putin owning Trump?
For someone who rejects paranoia, you seem quite paranoid about conspiracies...
I am guessing Joe didn't learn anything from his recent guest Adam Curry.
Episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaPKrZTUoUs
Episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaPKrZTUoUs
Guessing this is the beginning of the end of podcasting being an open medium backed by RSS, at least for "big" shows.
Definitely. The more passive participants in this space (mainly Apple) have extremely deep pockets to start defending the amount of content on their platform. I wouldn't be surprised if the RSS method will be niche by next year and it's all walled gardens for the top 1000 podcasts.
Note that the old clips WILL NOT remain on youtube at the end of the year. At least that's what he said in the Patton Oswald intro.
He's been a critic of yt's policies for a while. I hope that he comments on whether this is a purely monetary call or, in some part, due to those policies. Maybe he or Jamie-pedia read hn? :>
He's been a critic of yt's policies for a while. I hope that he comments on whether this is a purely monetary call or, in some part, due to those policies. Maybe he or Jamie-pedia read hn? :>
This reminds me of Howard Stern’s move to Sirius.
I would love if Spotify would allow podcast creators to set music breaks and play my music in between some of the more segmented podcast episodes.
I would love if Spotify would allow podcast creators to set music breaks and play my music in between some of the more segmented podcast episodes.
Never understood why his podcast such a hit. I mean, I like the guy, and he's knowledgeable about MMA. But he's not someone I care to listen to on other topics.
I find the guests pretty interesting most of the time and it tends to be laid back as he doesn’t get confrontational with people. It helps that’s he’s a funny guy and can carry a conversation with pretty much anyone.
It's the unusual guests. Rogan himself is pretty dull, same repetitive talking points about uninteresting things.
The best shows are when he gets someone on and lets them talk for hours about a niche topic. He has a large back catalogue of strange guests, some are legitimately interesting. Skip any guests who are comedians or fighters.
I unsubscribed a few months back, either I outgrew the show or it has declined in quality. I just find him to be annoying most of the time now. But there are a lot of good episodes in the shows history.
The best shows are when he gets someone on and lets them talk for hours about a niche topic. He has a large back catalogue of strange guests, some are legitimately interesting. Skip any guests who are comedians or fighters.
I unsubscribed a few months back, either I outgrew the show or it has declined in quality. I just find him to be annoying most of the time now. But there are a lot of good episodes in the shows history.
[deleted]
Not a big fan but an occasional listener. He covers a wide range of topics and his content is interesting if you have no prior exposure to them. I think many people find his attitude a breath of fresh air in the face of cancel culture.
Podcasts such as his aren't really about his opinion, rather the opinions of his guests and the conversation that follows. I'm not the biggest Joe Rogan fan but have enjoyed a few of his shows.
For me it’s bye bye Joe Rogan and not hello Spotify.
One of my favourite podcasts recently went exclusively to Spotify. Despite paying for premium I've stopped listening.
The podcast experience is awful on Spotify, by far the worst fault is progress gets forgotten, which is completely unacceptable.
The podcast experience is awful on Spotify, by far the worst fault is progress gets forgotten, which is completely unacceptable.
Is their player anywhere near as good as Overcast? Can you sync them on Apple Watch to listen to without the phone? I quit Spotify because you couldn’t do that with the music, so I’m guessing probably not?
It’s much more primitive. No silence skipping, no voice boost, and most importantly, show notes are hidden and don’t really support HTML.
Spotify is hurting podcasting and a lot of what is good about the open ecosystem with diverse clients.
Spotify is hurting podcasting and a lot of what is good about the open ecosystem with diverse clients.
The way I see it, some positives to come out of this:
-Will be fun again to hear "Jamie pull that up" and actually be able to see the content in question on video without any awkwardness.
-Competition for Youtube is needed. This is a massive channel moving ship, may lead others to follow.
-Having controversial guests/topics won't be such a big deal (Assuming Spotify is less beholden to advertisers than youtube because of its premium memberships - for now)
-A smaller audience is not a such a bad thing for Joe, esp if $ is still guaranteed in this exclusive deal. Slightly less eye balls on him, and in turn, less social responsibility, scrutiny and pressure from pseudo justice warriors.
Negatives:
-Exclusivity is in itself a form of censorship. Spotify is yet another company silo that relies on a proprietary ecosystem and pay-walling content.
-You may have to sit through 20 spotify ads in a 3hr podcast (if you don't have premium). Or worse, maybe spotify is not even available in your country.
-Sets a bad precedent, especially given that JRE was always at the forefront of promoting accessibility and openness. This is a move in the other direction, supporting a pay walled, ad-infested solution that is known to underpay artists. A platform that Joe himself was criticizing heavily just a year or two ago...
-Will be fun again to hear "Jamie pull that up" and actually be able to see the content in question on video without any awkwardness.
-Competition for Youtube is needed. This is a massive channel moving ship, may lead others to follow.
-Having controversial guests/topics won't be such a big deal (Assuming Spotify is less beholden to advertisers than youtube because of its premium memberships - for now)
-A smaller audience is not a such a bad thing for Joe, esp if $ is still guaranteed in this exclusive deal. Slightly less eye balls on him, and in turn, less social responsibility, scrutiny and pressure from pseudo justice warriors.
Negatives:
-Exclusivity is in itself a form of censorship. Spotify is yet another company silo that relies on a proprietary ecosystem and pay-walling content.
-You may have to sit through 20 spotify ads in a 3hr podcast (if you don't have premium). Or worse, maybe spotify is not even available in your country.
-Sets a bad precedent, especially given that JRE was always at the forefront of promoting accessibility and openness. This is a move in the other direction, supporting a pay walled, ad-infested solution that is known to underpay artists. A platform that Joe himself was criticizing heavily just a year or two ago...
If it's not on the Apple Podcasts app I won't be listening to it any longer. Ah well, probably better to support smaller podcasters with my listening time.
Well that's unfortunate. I just got in to watching his full interviews.
Good thing Techcrunch reminded me just how evil he is. That way I avoid downloading Spotify.
Good thing Techcrunch reminded me just how evil he is. That way I avoid downloading Spotify.
Who started this "exclusive" nonsense? This article suggests Spotify made some moves before Apple started:
https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/16/20696666/apple-podcast-ex...
https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/16/20696666/apple-podcast-ex...
Regardless of what you think of Rogan ,this is horrible news for podcasts and independent internet culture in general.
Podcasts can easily be entirely free of platforms, networks, editorial control and reliance on advertising, and many of them still are. I hope that at some point we can stop calling anything that doesn't have an rss/atom feed pointing to audio files a podcast, as they don't deserve that name.
I've already abandoned one podcast which moved to Spotify exclusive (The last podcast on the left) out of principle.
Re the view of Rogan, I find it fascinating that Joe is viewed as some kind of right wing chauvinistic demagogue because he has a few controversial guests, and states views in line with 99.9% of the worlds population.
Contrast with someone like Louis Theroux, who has repeatedly visited and palled around with all sorts of controversial people, including white supremacists, Joe Exotic & the Westboro baptist church, all while holding onto an entirely neutral reputation.
Podcasts can easily be entirely free of platforms, networks, editorial control and reliance on advertising, and many of them still are. I hope that at some point we can stop calling anything that doesn't have an rss/atom feed pointing to audio files a podcast, as they don't deserve that name.
I've already abandoned one podcast which moved to Spotify exclusive (The last podcast on the left) out of principle.
Re the view of Rogan, I find it fascinating that Joe is viewed as some kind of right wing chauvinistic demagogue because he has a few controversial guests, and states views in line with 99.9% of the worlds population.
Contrast with someone like Louis Theroux, who has repeatedly visited and palled around with all sorts of controversial people, including white supremacists, Joe Exotic & the Westboro baptist church, all while holding onto an entirely neutral reputation.
OTOH it's kinda good news for podcasters, because it frees up a spot in the itunes top.
Does this mean it will no longer be on Youtube? That really sucks because I like reading the comments even if they are 90% banter.
It's 2020 and I can't set the content language in Spotify to other language than my native.
It's literally impossible for me in Europe to discover any american podcast becasue I all the categories for podcasts are full of my native language only content.
Same with music playlists by spotify - they are mix between English and my Native language -> shite.
It's literally impossible for me in Europe to discover any american podcast becasue I all the categories for podcasts are full of my native language only content.
Same with music playlists by spotify - they are mix between English and my Native language -> shite.
With RSS/Atom, the history so far is that any use case of open feeds that gets popular enough is eventually consumed by platforms, with the feeds discontinued.
Same with podcasts: the current open golden age always felt like was going to be temporary and so far Spotify looks like the most likely player to eat the mainstream.
Same with podcasts: the current open golden age always felt like was going to be temporary and so far Spotify looks like the most likely player to eat the mainstream.
Spotify always asks me to sign in or tells me that I can't listen to embedded media in a given country. I've never successfully played any media they've hosted.
Easier and simpler to download or stream elsewhere with no signup or red tape.
I suspect this is more about the money for Rogan. His content isn't essential for me. He often has contradictory takes as he seeks to placate his guests. That's fine for his particular interview format, but his inconsistency combined with censorship grandstanding and an exclusive contract strikes me as opportunist.
He's never been known as someone who speaks truth to power. If anything he's a conformist who wears his derision of conformism on his shirtsleeves. Feels like this is mostly to placate his audience.
Good on him, I hope he continues to earn money with his brand.
Easier and simpler to download or stream elsewhere with no signup or red tape.
I suspect this is more about the money for Rogan. His content isn't essential for me. He often has contradictory takes as he seeks to placate his guests. That's fine for his particular interview format, but his inconsistency combined with censorship grandstanding and an exclusive contract strikes me as opportunist.
He's never been known as someone who speaks truth to power. If anything he's a conformist who wears his derision of conformism on his shirtsleeves. Feels like this is mostly to placate his audience.
Good on him, I hope he continues to earn money with his brand.
So I won't be able to watch the full episodes on YouTube any longer?
Where will the videos be hosted?
Answer to my own question: Spotify began testing video podcasting last year according to The Verge - https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/19/21263927/joe-rogan-spotif...
I guess now I'm wondering if all of his existing clips and episodes will disappear from YouTube? I would think not... but I don't ever recall finding any podcast on Spotify from a Google search result. Findability might take a hit.
Where will the videos be hosted?
Answer to my own question: Spotify began testing video podcasting last year according to The Verge - https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/19/21263927/joe-rogan-spotif...
I guess now I'm wondering if all of his existing clips and episodes will disappear from YouTube? I would think not... but I don't ever recall finding any podcast on Spotify from a Google search result. Findability might take a hit.
[deleted]
I listen to the podcast because of the diverse and interesting guests that are on there sometimes.
It's interesting to watch how a guy that kinda rambles with some friends mostly, created a following, turned his side hustle into an income and now he's really cashing in.
Idk to what extent he worked hard to develop this business. But I suspect it's mostly him making people feels comfortable to table about what they know. If there is someone working on this I would guess the cohost - Jamie - is doing the heavy googling.
It's interesting to watch how a guy that kinda rambles with some friends mostly, created a following, turned his side hustle into an income and now he's really cashing in.
Idk to what extent he worked hard to develop this business. But I suspect it's mostly him making people feels comfortable to table about what they know. If there is someone working on this I would guess the cohost - Jamie - is doing the heavy googling.
Free or not, Spotify is still not available in some countries.
I know that only a tiny minority of people is affected by this, but I still don't like that they chose geo-restricted service. :/
I know that only a tiny minority of people is affected by this, but I still don't like that they chose geo-restricted service. :/
People will probably mirror the podcast all over the web.
“attacked transgender people, gay men, women, people of color and countless marginalized groups at every opportunity.”
What a gross misrepresentation. Have the listened to any of his shows?
What a gross misrepresentation. Have the listened to any of his shows?
> every opportunity
There's your bullshit indicator
There's your bullshit indicator
I sometimes listen to Joe Rogan using Rhythmbox audio player. Occasionally I'll check the corresponding YouTube clip to see what the guest looks like.
I've never used Spotify and see no need to sign up for anything. If I can't download/stream to open players I probably just won't listen anymore. There are plenty of other good podcasts and books and, although I enjoy Rogan, he does get a bit redundant after a bit so not that big of a loss.
I've never used Spotify and see no need to sign up for anything. If I can't download/stream to open players I probably just won't listen anymore. There are plenty of other good podcasts and books and, although I enjoy Rogan, he does get a bit redundant after a bit so not that big of a loss.
Spotify has been running an exclusive high-profile podcast in Germany for multiple years now. It was previously running on radio and regular podcasts ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fest_%26_Flauschig )
It's surprising to me that popular, platform exclusive audio content isn't happening faster. All video platforms have it.
It's surprising to me that popular, platform exclusive audio content isn't happening faster. All video platforms have it.
Not many podcasts have the following and clout of JRE. Seems like the podcast you mentioned in Germany has it as well.
But platform exclusive content is the exact opposite of what pretty much every podcast listener wants. Someone in another comment mentioned how podcasts are the last distribution of media thats completely open and this is the first big step in the wrong direction.
But platform exclusive content is the exact opposite of what pretty much every podcast listener wants. Someone in another comment mentioned how podcasts are the last distribution of media thats completely open and this is the first big step in the wrong direction.
They must be paying him a shitload. He has spoken with multiple guests about how he loves being independent, having full control etc.
Or they've put a big enough sweetener in the contract that he's willing to take the risk. A per episode contract with a buyout if he gets kicked off (to cover losses while he reestablishes ad relationships when they kick him off) would be pretty sweet.
So he's ending his podcast and starting a radio show. I mostly watched the clips on YouTube and while I do subscribe to Spotify, I use PocketCasts for Podcasts. Guess I'll be using YouTube less which is fine, and maybe I'll tube in for the occasional really interesting guest.
"Spotify is currently not available in your country."
Take my euros goddarnit. Probably fights involving licensing agreements, or competition buying whole markets. I don't know if I should play at being an international spy and buy VPN just for Rogan or just pirate it out of the general principle.
Take my euros goddarnit. Probably fights involving licensing agreements, or competition buying whole markets. I don't know if I should play at being an international spy and buy VPN just for Rogan or just pirate it out of the general principle.
This is a huge changing of the guard play. You have to give credit towards Spotify for this move, and what could signify a pivotal point in changing history.
The fact there is a paying subscription model behind Spotify, I can see a future where all podcasts move towards this platform.
The fact there is a paying subscription model behind Spotify, I can see a future where all podcasts move towards this platform.
To be clear you don't need to subscribe to Spotify to use it to play podcasts. They don't even play ads.
From their point of view it's presumably a loss-leader that gives them brand awareness.
From their point of view it's presumably a loss-leader that gives them brand awareness.
I absolutely love Spotify, but for some reason I just can't get with it on podcasts. I'm not sure if it's the interface or maybe I just like to keep my music and podcasting separate? They're both audio yes -- but completely different somehow.
I agree. I find i don't always finish a podcast in one sitting, say half of it on my way in to work.
Then I want to listen to music during the day/at the gym etc. But if I use the same thing, then I lose my place in the podcast, and I can't start up again.
Then I want to listen to music during the day/at the gym etc. But if I use the same thing, then I lose my place in the podcast, and I can't start up again.
Sounds a little bit like when Howard Stern first signed a deal to move from terrestrial radio over to satellite radio.
If this brings in a lot more subscribers for top podcasts, then Spotify will do what SiriusXM did with radio hosts, or what Netflix did with comedy specials.
If this brings in a lot more subscribers for top podcasts, then Spotify will do what SiriusXM did with radio hosts, or what Netflix did with comedy specials.
Sad, I don't have a spotify account I am for sure not gonna get one just to listen to JRE. I hate this kind of shit in the podcasting world.
Right now, the overwhelming majority of podcasts are open and if it were to change that would be a dark and sad day.
Right now, the overwhelming majority of podcasts are open and if it were to change that would be a dark and sad day.
That’s too bad. I ditched Spotify because they won’t release a proper Apple Watch app with cellular streaming. I prefer to watch JRE so I guess this is just going to be the end of me being able to legitimately consume this content.
Half the fun of JRE is watching it! I hope this means that they will be introducing video, but I'm guessing not. If JRE disappears from video form, a part of the goodness of the universe will have died.
Time to archive all clips from Youtube and all old episodes from his website.
I always download JRE as an MP3 rather than use a podcast platform or streaming service (or Youtube). Is this going to change that or is the MP3 still available? Joe must be making a frickin mint!
Selling quackery wasn’t paying off his mansion mortgage fast enough? Now here’s a guy who sells out as fast as he possibly can. Fuck the message. Fuck the medium. Just get the guy some money.
If it's on Spotify does it still count as a "podcast"?
[deleted]
So what in the definition of a podcast precludes it being available on one platform?
Mainly the mechanism for discovery & delivery - podcasts used to be RSS or Atom + Audio which allowed for repackaging and offline play.
With Spotify you need their specific app to listen. You have offline on premium but not on the free level.
Joe is now a feature of Spotify rather than being it's own destination.
With Spotify you need their specific app to listen. You have offline on premium but not on the free level.
Joe is now a feature of Spotify rather than being it's own destination.
RSS pointing to audio files versus a closed platform. Same way a WhatsApp message isn't an email.
That's mixing the medium and the content to me like how Art Deco isn't just architecture it's a style.
If they broadcast them over radio, is it still a podcast? Emailed out the audio files to a mailing list? Distributed them on cassette tape? It seems to me the format is part of it. RSS or something equivalent (Atom), feeding audio files to whatever client you bring, is a podcast. Youtube videos aren't podcasts just because I listen to them in the background (though one might also have a youtube video of one's podcasts) or because I could youtube-dl the audio and listen to it. The format is what gave it the name—if you can't consume it in a podcast client, it's not a podcast. My physical mailbox and my email box both contain pretty similar things, but my email reader can't read my physical mail, because it's not email. If you send me a letter, I don't receive an email, because you didn't send one. If you publish your audio interviews in a closed platform, I can't receive a podcast, because you're not publishing one.
The main thrust of what I'm saying is that RSS is a very very specific part of just the distribution of the actual content. Everything except the RSS and use any app is there on Spotify; the functionality of an open app (download, speeds, RSS feeds etc.), the content style, etc.
Personally I'm not a fan of Spotify locking down podcasts because I do like that I can use whatever app I like but I'm not going to call something not a podcast because it's annoying to get.
Personally I'm not a fan of Spotify locking down podcasts because I do like that I can use whatever app I like but I'm not going to call something not a podcast because it's annoying to get.
Does anyone have any inkling of what he was offered? Gimlet got hundreds of millions for a barely breakeven business - what is the Howard Stern of Podcasting worth on an exclusive deal?
[deleted]
I’ve long wondered why Spotify hasn’t done this for music itself? Spotify is in a great position for vertical integration: own the artist, own the content, own the subscriber.
WSJ estimates this deal to be worth more than $100M.
I hope Joe Rogan has a plan for how to invest a good chunk of this for greater good. IMHO this kind of sum comes with a responsibility to do something with it that goes beyond your family and friends. (Like Tim Ferris does now for psychedelics research).
Judging by how I perceive him from the show, I don’t think he’s just greedy and wants that much for himself. Either there’s some detail in the contract that allows him to break free in case Spotify tries to censor too hard. Or he already has some longer-term thing in mind that he needs the capital for.
One nice detail is that they’d be free to play music.
I hope Joe Rogan has a plan for how to invest a good chunk of this for greater good. IMHO this kind of sum comes with a responsibility to do something with it that goes beyond your family and friends. (Like Tim Ferris does now for psychedelics research).
Judging by how I perceive him from the show, I don’t think he’s just greedy and wants that much for himself. Either there’s some detail in the contract that allows him to break free in case Spotify tries to censor too hard. Or he already has some longer-term thing in mind that he needs the capital for.
One nice detail is that they’d be free to play music.
[deleted]
Maybe a stupid question, but does this mean that the podcast will be audio-only from the 1st september or will the videos still be published somewhere?
I honestly don’t care. But Spotify podcasting is so shitty compares to overcast.
The fact that music is mixed up with podcasts makes search and discovery much much worse
The fact that music is mixed up with podcasts makes search and discovery much much worse
Makes sense, the success of bringing the Joe Budden Podcast no exclusively last year opened the way for this.
Very interested to see how video will be on Spotify.
Very interested to see how video will be on Spotify.
It was another Spotify podcast acquisition which led me to cancel them in favour of Napster earlier this year, and I couldn't be happier.
It doesn't take much listening to JRE or similar shows to realise that they're in constant fear of strikes and demonetization, even when talking about mundane topics. Joe's no Alex Jones or David Icke, and he's still afraid of getting more strikes on the channel. If this move means he can talk comfortably then good for him. It's not as if listeners lose any rights in the process.
Would this mean he could play artist's music that Spotify are allowed to stream? Or would other agreements be needed for this?
Would this mean he could play artist's music that Spotify are allowed to stream? Or would other agreements be needed for this?
More likely Youtube are too difficult to work with and their ever-present-but-arbitrary ban-hammer is becoming increasingly high friction.
This might be Europe’s answer to YouTube.
Spotify is just as ban-happy as YouTube.
Links? Much more aware of the YouTube scene
"Spotify bans R. Kelly from playlists as hate policy announced"
https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/spotify-bans-r-kelly-fro...
https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/spotify-bans-r-kelly-fro...
Spotify was the one who conspired with Facebook, Apple and Google to ban Alex Jones and others. So if Joe is moving off of YouTube because he doesn't like the censorship, he's not getting anything better with Spotify.
How many times are you going to post this same fear mongering comment.
Is different than when Howard Stern signed to Sirius XM? Seems like there is some precedence.
100M+, Same with Bill Simmons on the Ringer. His was 86M I think, Joe's is like 100M+
He should just go self-hosted. If anyone has the resource to make that happen it is him.
It is weird to me that even gimlet podcasts are not exclusive to Spotify.
But JRE will become exclusive
But JRE will become exclusive
they are starting to release them early on spotify and then a few days later to rss. I think they are also doing "bonus" episodes or something. I think they are boiling the water and we are the frog
I'm hoping this peak Rogan
Spotify is the Clearchannel/iHeartMedia of the 2020's. I refuse to use.
Unfortunate to see in the discussion that Americans are so disturbed by one Alex Jones that there seems to be an eagerness to empower quasi-government entities to a dystopian, Orwellian degree.
If I wanted to create more Alex Jones characters, this is one way to guarantee it.
If I wanted to create more Alex Jones characters, this is one way to guarantee it.
Americans aren't disturbed by Alex Jones. They're disturbed by the number of Americans who actually believe Alex Jones
I wonder how many that is on any given topic and what our public expectation is.
2% of the population is intellectually disabled (by definition). 7 million Americans fall into this category and will never progress beyond a 3rd grade comprehension.
2% of the population is intellectually disabled (by definition). 7 million Americans fall into this category and will never progress beyond a 3rd grade comprehension.
Jones is no more ridiculous or dangerous than your average holy book though.
Furthermore his vision of the future is coming true by being sympathetic to the idea of an all-powerful tech platform.
Furthermore his vision of the future is coming true by being sympathetic to the idea of an all-powerful tech platform.
He was bragging the other day about eating his neighbors.
Ezekiel 5:10
I don't see the connection. That passage isn't advocating cannibalism, it is portraying it as a divine punishment.
It's portraying it as a consequence - he was too. If there is no food, he will have to feed his kids somehow, etc.
"I will be forced to eat my neighbour" versus "Sky fairy warns that people will eat one another"
The second is more ridiculous, and more people believe it.
"I will be forced to eat my neighbour" versus "Sky fairy warns that people will eat one another"
The second is more ridiculous, and more people believe it.
Exactly. If anything, it's the insane cancel culture that pushed me to the right.
Any ideas on how much the deal was for?
So it won’t be on YouTube anymore?
Joe Rogan is surprisingly greedy. The man has been rich for decades, doesn't need money at all, and yet he's been selling crappy snakeoil products for years, and now he's selling out wholesale. He's taking a boatload of money to kill his show. Maybe he's just tired and this seems like a smart way to end it...
Sadly he just doesn't seem to be up to the challenge of seizing his role in history anyway. He could be someone that bridges the left/right political divide. He's the closest we have right now, but just not up to it.
There is a deep desire in the US for someone almost like Joe Rogan. Just like there is a deep desire for someone almost like Bernie Sanders. Or even someone almost like Donald Trump.
I consider these people the first wave of Great Internet Personalities. And just like the first pancake, they're not quite right.
We're living in a Bizzaro World for now. I'm eagerly looking forward to the second wave of Great Internet Personalities.
Sadly he just doesn't seem to be up to the challenge of seizing his role in history anyway. He could be someone that bridges the left/right political divide. He's the closest we have right now, but just not up to it.
There is a deep desire in the US for someone almost like Joe Rogan. Just like there is a deep desire for someone almost like Bernie Sanders. Or even someone almost like Donald Trump.
I consider these people the first wave of Great Internet Personalities. And just like the first pancake, they're not quite right.
We're living in a Bizzaro World for now. I'm eagerly looking forward to the second wave of Great Internet Personalities.
the video will be on spotify? what does that mean?
I wonder if SPOT gaining +8.42% today has to do anything with it.
ok. well i certainly won't be use Spotify now to see this thick necked, horrible tattooed moron douchebag.
Spotify giving him 100M in the middle of a crisis seems particularly tone deaf.
Spotify giving him 100M in the middle of a crisis seems particularly tone deaf.
There's plenty of content and creators exclusive to services and often stuck behind paywalls. I can't muster any outrage about one more person joining their ranks.
I hope and doubt this will change JRE much.
On the topic of libertarianism..
Almost all statists share some libertarian perspective on some issues. No libertarian has statist perspective on any issues. There are a lot of self proclaimed libertarians, Christians, Muslims, or people of any principle, who are incorrect. Unlike "Republican" and "Democratic" which don't mean anything, "libertarian" means something. You can claim you are "libertarian" just like you can claim you're a "martian", but it doesn't make it so.
Joe Rogan and Adam Carolla are not the only two who mistakenly call themselves "libertarian" at times. They just don't know what it means.
"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being for any reason whatever; nor will a libertarian advocate the initiation of force, or delegate it to anyone else.
Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim." — L. Neil Smith
On the topic of libertarianism..
Almost all statists share some libertarian perspective on some issues. No libertarian has statist perspective on any issues. There are a lot of self proclaimed libertarians, Christians, Muslims, or people of any principle, who are incorrect. Unlike "Republican" and "Democratic" which don't mean anything, "libertarian" means something. You can claim you are "libertarian" just like you can claim you're a "martian", but it doesn't make it so.
Joe Rogan and Adam Carolla are not the only two who mistakenly call themselves "libertarian" at times. They just don't know what it means.
"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being for any reason whatever; nor will a libertarian advocate the initiation of force, or delegate it to anyone else.
Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim." — L. Neil Smith
This is a little "no true Scotsman," no?
Self-identification is probably the best indicator we've got for whether a label applies to a person. If enough new people label themselves a thing, and use the word to mean something different, I'd argue the word itself has begun to change, or at least has aquired multiple definitions.
Coopting a label in the political sense sucks (see: "liberal"), but from a linguistic perspective it's silly to pretend language doesn't evolve.
Self-identification is probably the best indicator we've got for whether a label applies to a person. If enough new people label themselves a thing, and use the word to mean something different, I'd argue the word itself has begun to change, or at least has aquired multiple definitions.
Coopting a label in the political sense sucks (see: "liberal"), but from a linguistic perspective it's silly to pretend language doesn't evolve.
Like "Literally" "evolving" to mean "metaphorically"?
When "X" becomes "Not X", that's not evolution but coopting. It's degradation, and it's often purposeful.
"Libertarian" means something, which is why the "Libertarian Party" required an oath to adhere to the non-aggression principle. The fact that statists moved in to ruin the "Libertarian Party", take the oath and betray it, may make them "Libertarian Party" members, but doesn't make them libertarian (in fact, the opposite).
Are you a Christian if you're not Christian but call yourself "Christian"? Are you an atheist if you believe in a god? Are you "blind" if you have perfect vision?
I realize that this assault on reality/truth is at the heart of many issues today.. We have no language if things can mean both a thing, and/or the opposite of that thing.
...which is the point.
You may have a libertarian perspective on an issue, or a group of issues (as almost everyone does), but that doesn't make you libertarian, which means liberty in all issues. There is a line between minarchist and anarchist, and a reason for both terms.
When "X" becomes "Not X", that's not evolution but coopting. It's degradation, and it's often purposeful.
"Libertarian" means something, which is why the "Libertarian Party" required an oath to adhere to the non-aggression principle. The fact that statists moved in to ruin the "Libertarian Party", take the oath and betray it, may make them "Libertarian Party" members, but doesn't make them libertarian (in fact, the opposite).
Are you a Christian if you're not Christian but call yourself "Christian"? Are you an atheist if you believe in a god? Are you "blind" if you have perfect vision?
I realize that this assault on reality/truth is at the heart of many issues today.. We have no language if things can mean both a thing, and/or the opposite of that thing.
...which is the point.
You may have a libertarian perspective on an issue, or a group of issues (as almost everyone does), but that doesn't make you libertarian, which means liberty in all issues. There is a line between minarchist and anarchist, and a reason for both terms.
>I realize that this assault on reality/truth is at the heart of many issues today.. We have no language if things can mean both a thing, and/or the opposite of that thing.
Contronyms exist in many languages[0]. They're not part of some nefarious scheme to corrupt Libertarian identity or anything of the sort.
That is how language works. The language you're typing your prescriptivist nonsense in has become bastardized and corrupted from its Latin and Germanic roots over generations, after all.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-antonym
Contronyms exist in many languages[0]. They're not part of some nefarious scheme to corrupt Libertarian identity or anything of the sort.
That is how language works. The language you're typing your prescriptivist nonsense in has become bastardized and corrupted from its Latin and Germanic roots over generations, after all.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-antonym
Doesn't JRE have guests on there with cemented right-wing opinions, and in general controversial figures from which he gains his popularity/notoriety? Is Spotify going to allow those guests or is JRE going to have to censor?
I agree with JRE leaving YouTube over the censorship but I disagree with him moving exclusively to spotify for following reasons:
1. Spotify was the one who conspired with Facebook, Apple and Google to ban Alex Jones and others. So if Joe is moving off of YouTube because he doesn't like the censorship, he's not getting anything better with Spotify.
2. Currently, Spotify doesn't have video (except album cover clips which occasionally show up). I prefer JRE's video format instead of audio. Think of Elon smoking weed on video vs on audio - very different. Seems like Spotify might be adding video later in the year but until that happens, we don't know what we will be getting.
3. "Exclusive" deals in the podcast world is bad. Podcasts were supposed to be platform independent audio files. Making things exclusive is going backwards.
4. Spotify is not available in many countries.
5. Spotify's desktop player isn't the best imo. Their web player is only for audio so far, so they need to make major changes.
1. Spotify was the one who conspired with Facebook, Apple and Google to ban Alex Jones and others. So if Joe is moving off of YouTube because he doesn't like the censorship, he's not getting anything better with Spotify.
2. Currently, Spotify doesn't have video (except album cover clips which occasionally show up). I prefer JRE's video format instead of audio. Think of Elon smoking weed on video vs on audio - very different. Seems like Spotify might be adding video later in the year but until that happens, we don't know what we will be getting.
3. "Exclusive" deals in the podcast world is bad. Podcasts were supposed to be platform independent audio files. Making things exclusive is going backwards.
4. Spotify is not available in many countries.
5. Spotify's desktop player isn't the best imo. Their web player is only for audio so far, so they need to make major changes.
[deleted]
Really, a typo in the very first sentence?
> Over the past couple of years, Spotify has demonstrating a long-term commitment to the podcasting format . . .
I feel like editorial quality has really gone to shit lately, especially at less mainstream outlets like TechCrunch (where I seem to spot at least one mistake in every article I read without trying). I wish I could say it didn't matter, but sloppy writing undermines your credibility, especially with so many voices competing for attention nowadays. Your [sic] doing it wrong.
> Over the past couple of years, Spotify has demonstrating a long-term commitment to the podcasting format . . .
I feel like editorial quality has really gone to shit lately, especially at less mainstream outlets like TechCrunch (where I seem to spot at least one mistake in every article I read without trying). I wish I could say it didn't matter, but sloppy writing undermines your credibility, especially with so many voices competing for attention nowadays. Your [sic] doing it wrong.
The comments here are insane. Why do HN readers have this defeatest attitude about absolutely everything?
One prominent podcaster takes his show to one of the most popular music streaming services on the planet and the reaction is really "this is the end of podcasting as we know it" ???
One prominent podcaster takes his show to one of the most popular music streaming services on the planet and the reaction is really "this is the end of podcasting as we know it" ???
I think this is because it can't be listend to anywere but spotify. The excusivity is what I see many people are taking issue with
Because podcasts up till now have been one of the last remaining media types that are not owned and produced by some gigantic tech corporation, and are instead truly independent media. The fear is that podcasts will go the route of blogging, which many lament, because now we are at the whims of Twitter and medium for distribution. For at least 2-3 years, several companies have been trying to "own" the podcast medium, and it's looking more and more like Spotify may came out ahead.
I personally don't care for this podcast, but imagine if a popular website (say HN) were to sign a deal to be available exclusively through a walled garden (say Facebook). The open internet loses overall.
> One prominent podcaster takes his show to one of the most popular music streaming services on the planet and the reaction is really "this is the end of podcasting as we know it" ???
It's already been trending that way, it's not like this is the first sign of it. It is an indication that the process of closing up what had been an open ecosystem, which was already underway, is about to accelerate, and yet another open protocol is about to start to wither in favor not of a better open protocol, but closed platforms full of spyware.
It's already been trending that way, it's not like this is the first sign of it. It is an indication that the process of closing up what had been an open ecosystem, which was already underway, is about to accelerate, and yet another open protocol is about to start to wither in favor not of a better open protocol, but closed platforms full of spyware.
He's more than prominent. He's first or second in most podcast lists I see. I don't listen, but it does seem like a precedent I don't want to see.
Given that Spotify engages in some of the same censorship and control that other bit tech platforms like Google/YouTube/Twitter practice, I don't see why I would trust them and invest in their platform as a fan of such content. See https://www.midiaresearch.com/blog/spotifys-censorship-crisi... for a past example where Spotify entered the fray of imposing their own worldviews by censoring content. Yes they ultimately backed off on that but I can't trust that they'll be the best steward for free thinking open minded content like Joe Rogan's.
EDIT: see the update at the bottom of the Tech Crunch article.
> Update: In response to a question the Rogan show’s history of controversial guests and subject matter, a spokesperson for the company simply responded, “All shows on Spotify are subject to our content policies.”
Given their content policies include a vague "hate content" policy (https://artists.spotify.com/faq/music#what-content-is-prohib...), I don't see how Joe Rogan can openly discuss controversial topics like "Should transgender athletes compete in women's sports" any longer. Just one more reason to not trust Spotify or other big platform arbiters.
EDIT: see the update at the bottom of the Tech Crunch article.
> Update: In response to a question the Rogan show’s history of controversial guests and subject matter, a spokesperson for the company simply responded, “All shows on Spotify are subject to our content policies.”
Given their content policies include a vague "hate content" policy (https://artists.spotify.com/faq/music#what-content-is-prohib...), I don't see how Joe Rogan can openly discuss controversial topics like "Should transgender athletes compete in women's sports" any longer. Just one more reason to not trust Spotify or other big platform arbiters.
busymom0(1)
1. Spotify was the one who conspired with Facebook, Apple and Google to ban Alex Jones and others. So if Joe is moving off of YouTube because he doesn't like the censorship, he's not getting anything better with Spotify.
2. Currently, Spotify doesn't have video (except album cover clips which occasionally show up). I prefer JRE's video format instead of audio. Think of Elon smoking weed on video vs on audio - very different. Seems like Spotify might be adding video later in the year but until that happens, we don't know what we will be getting.
3. "Exclusive" deals in the podcast world is bad. Podcasts were supposed to be platform independent audio files. Making things exclusive is going backwards.
4. Spotify is not available in many countries.
5. Spotify's desktop player isn't the best imo. Their web player is only for audio so far, so they need to make major changes.