zlacker

No we cannot pass laws that do that no matter how indignant we may be. The whole bloody point of the constitution is that no matter how pissed off the majority (or "the majority" which is just a noisy minority as it may be) is that you cannot simply legislate away rights.

The vague "do something!" regulation push has all of the marks of a moral panic and all participants should slap themselves hard enough to leave a mark and repeat "It is never too import to be rational."

>>Nasrud+(OP)
Please explain what rights would be legislated away in this case. It's definitely not the 1st amendment - you can still say what you want, just not on necessarily on the platform of your choice. This was equally true in the broadcast TV days. So what other right(s) would be legislated away by regulating Youtube's content?

>>Alexan+Aq
Broadcasters had the special pleading with some scintilla of a point in that there were actual shared commons to prioritize. In practice it was a fig-leaf as you never saw arguements in broadcast censorship over 'values' to wrestle over airwave ownership but instead bullshit doctrines like 'community standards'. The fact that the US has a long history of laying out rights for all, seeing the revolutionary implications and then saying 'No wait that can't be right it is too different.' and going back to the bullshit control they had before for a few centuries is a whole other sad topic.

One thing that did make it through that was the ruling that mediums which lack said limitation like cable and internet don't have the rationale for that restriction and thus the censorship that weak minds had become accustomed to vanished in a puff of logic. This has been the case since cable porn channels were a thing.

By regulating YouTube you effectively regulate what /all/ platforms may push. It isn't simply that YouTube decides that "You know what we don't want to post that." - an exercise of their collective Freedom of Association but "The government doesn't want us to post that so we can't." You can't just deputize tasks to third parties and expect the limits on exercises of power to vanish. Otherwise we'd see hordes of private detectives as a work around to Fourth Amendment rights.

Said regulations on youtube would be a major infringement upon freedom of the press and speech. Not to mention it is logically equivalent to censoring your own press is whenever it fits whatever criteria they dislike.