1. The Absolutist Approach holds that the First Amendment means exactly what it says:
that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.
2. The Categorical Approach would protect or not protect speech based on the label that is
attached to the speech in question.
3. The Balancing Approach sees the Absolutist Approach as impracticable and the
Categorical Approach as artificial. Balancers believe that in every case courts should weigh the individual’s interest in free expression against the government’s interest in restricting the speech in question.
Most of the earlier mentioned ‘Self-Righteous Flaggers’ are approaching free speech in an absolutist way, while YouTube clearly takes the categorical approach by dividing the content up in issues for the community to flag. Which in the context of flagging makes sense, for as how it now works only offers the users the option ‘I don’t agree’; without the possibility of argumenting their case and also leaving out the ‘I do agree’ option.
While this all takes place in the flagging context, the third approach already takes place in the unfiltered comment section. Where instead of a government (or the company), it is the community that makes the verdict.
Such is the crux of the argument made by free-speech absolutists: Unfiltered comments sections allow debate to flourish, and other commentators will organically shut down homophobes. Call it free-market tolerance. “Comments sections of blogs, like blogs themselves, offer a space where people can challenge stereotypes and push others to exchange ideas rather than slurs,” says Marc McCarthy, senior director of communications for GLAAD.
The choice of not filtering the comments is a conscious decision by YouTube as revealed by
YouTube spokesperson Kathleen Fitzgerald: “YouTube is, and always has been, a forum for free expression (…) Our community is made up of millions of people across the world and is diverse racially, ethnically, politically, religiously, as well as in terms of sexual orientation.”
But this claim becomes debatable when the rating entered the comment section in August, 2007:
- Remember: you can choose which comments you want displayed, based on their overall ratings, on all video Watch pages. You can always choose to show all comments regardless of their ratings. Just use the pulldown menu near the comments section on the Watch page.
- In the near future, we’ll make comment ratings a feature that the video creators can turn on or off for their uploaded videos.
Which would enforce the categorical approach that YouTube already handles the flagging issues. The comment section is the only area available for absolutist free speech. And maybe in that aspect I am a free speech-absolutist. For I see the online environment as a radical change in outlet from the offline outlet sources, in which I see the Chomskyan possibility of letting the underdog be heard;
“How likely is it that anyone calling for radical change in society – whether environmentalists, human-rights activists or opponents of the arms trade – will be consistently and fairly reported by corporate news organizations? How much more likely is it that their arguments will be vilified, marginalized or simply ignored?”