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Unmoored

03 Jun 2020 | OP ED Watch

We have to note that Michael Moore’s film Planet of the Humans is now gone from YouTube because a photographer who hated it with a characteristically modern mindless vulgarity objected that it contained four seconds of copyrighted material. Enough for YouTube, which apparently hasn’t heard of the “fair use” doctrine. OK. It has. But it only applies to its friends.

Censoring the Internet is tricky if you’re not Xi Jinping. And we concede that for all its prominence and influence, YouTube is not a public amenity and the removal is not censorship. It is a private firm and it can post or not post what it likes (subject obviously to legal rules about fraud, incitement to violence etc. including real rules about copyright). Possibly the majority of its clients will think more highly of it for finding an excuse to remove Moore’s film.

Planet of the Humans is apparently on Vimeo at least for now. How that decision will play out remains to be seen. But there is a certain unseemly glee with which the greens are seeking not to rebut but to cancel Moore.

4 comments on “Unmoored”

  1. A search of LBRY.TV is showing 8 copies of "Planet Of The Humans" available for viewing or download so far. LBRY is looking like a very good uncensored alternative to YouTube. Maybe CDN should be there too?

  2. I just found Planet of the Humans in full on YouTube 9:24pm Australian Eastern Standard Time 3rd of June 2020. I watched it a few weeks ago. It is still there now.

  3. Trump implemented a genius solution to private censorship by internet platforms. Internet platforms that want to edit content, like newspapers, can now be held civilly liable for the content they publish, just like newspapers can be. If internet platforms want to keep their legislated immunity from civil liability, they must remain neutral in the content they allow to be posted on their platforms.

  4. You know, I am amazed that whenever 'Planet of the humans' appears in any comments section following news articles some commentors SERIOUSLY quote Michael Mann's criticism of this film in order to put it down. Have they not heard of the 'Hockey Stick'? Michael Mann has no longer any credibility. This casts aspersions his criticism & renders it worthless, thus rendering the commentator's use of it as worthless too.

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