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0 pointsklyrs6y ago0 comments

> ...now the same people and institutions are asking for the head of individuals like Phillip DeFranco.

I'm fairly lefty, and haven't heard of this Phillip DeFranco before. Surely if I consult my biased google bubble, it will show me the dirt on him? Well, not really:

> “Hey, writer here,” Roose responded. “This collage is just a sample from his viewing history. Some far-right, some not.” [1]

And reading the original NYT article... they aren't asking for anybody's head. And this is where it gets really interesting from a free speech perspective. Phillip got offended because he was in a collage of somebody's viewing history. He might have been a step along somebody's slippery slope, whose politics are/were too extreme for his comfort -- or it might just be correlation without causation. The article didn't dig into Phillip and denounce him.

In fact, the thrust of the NYT article is that YouTube's recommendations take folks from moderate content, and send them on a spiral to more extreme content.

You're free to describe all of that as 'asking for heads,' but that really doesn't seem to be the case here.

[1] https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/youtuber-philip-defran...

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stcredzero6y ago

You're free to describe all of that as 'asking for heads,' but that really doesn't seem to be the case here.

It's a staple of the Far Left in 2019, to vilify purely through association. For example, every time I've asked for proof that Tim Pool is "Alt-Right," I've only ever received vilification through association as "proof." The same pseudo logic is used to claim that Ben Shapiro (a devout yamaka wearing adherent of Judaism and arguably a top target of the Alt Right) is "Alt-Right."

In fact, the thrust of the NYT article is that YouTube's recommendations take folks from moderate content, and send them on a spiral to more extreme content.

As far as I can tell, this is just more of the tactic of moving the Overton Window left, by re-labeling the center as "Far Right." It's dishonest and manipulative. I say this as a lifelong Democratic voter and someone who tests center-left on the Political Compass test.

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