Google, Facebook quietly move toward automatic blocking of “extremist” videos
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Re: Google, Facebook quietly move toward automatic blocking of “extremist” videos
#2One man's "extremist" video is another man's political views.
Where does it stop? Does a video supporting Trump become an extremist video if enough people complain about it? What about a video that shows you how to take apart a pistol for cleaning?
Re: Google, Facebook quietly move toward automatic blocking of “extremist” videos
#3One man's "extremist" video is another man's political views. Where does it stop? Does a video supporting Trump become an extremist video if enough people complain about it? What about a video that shows you how to take apart a pistol for cleaning?
These walled gardens have have TOSes. Extremist or political, content that violates TOS gets taken down .
Re: Google, Facebook quietly move toward automatic blocking of “extremist” videos
#4One man's "extremist" video is another man's political views. Where does it stop? Does a video supporting Trump become an extremist video if enough people complain about it? What about a video that shows you how to take apart a pistol for cleaning?
Agreed, there is a fine line and it should not be decided by companies.
Re: Google, Facebook quietly move toward automatic blocking of “extremist” videos
#5One man's "extremist" video is another man's political views. Where does it stop? Does a video supporting Trump become an extremist video if enough people complain about it? What about a video that shows you how to take apart a pistol for cleaning?
These walled gardens have have TOSes. Extremist or political, content that violates TOS gets taken down .
From the Facebook TOS, and YouTube's is much the same, with different, more casual verbiage:
You will not bully, intimidate, or harass any user. You will not post content that: is hate speech, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.
That is such a broad swathe that any unpopular opinion can get disqualified. Is me posting a video of how to sharpen a kitchen knife threatening? Or someone advocating that the Civil War should have never happened because of the right of states to withdraw from the Union?
We need the freedom of speech to protect unpopular opinions, not popular ones.
Re: Google, Facebook quietly move toward automatic blocking of “extremist” videos
#6I wonder what it is they hope to accomplish by blocking this type of content. One could argue that what actually happens is a Streisand effect that promotes the views these companies are attempting to squash. My belief is that movements like Trump are a direct effect of overreaching censorship by the left which has essentially created a new right wing movement due to people backlashing against left wing media shaping.
In short, if the ideas are truly terrible they should be left viewable to everyone since they'll only turn people off. It's when you hide things that people become curious as to why the content is powerful enough to require censorship.
Re: Google, Facebook quietly move toward automatic blocking of “extremist” videos
#7One man's "extremist" video is another man's political views. Where does it stop? Does a video supporting Trump become an extremist video if enough people complain about it? What about a video that shows you how to take apart a pistol for cleaning?
I remember Reuters for years refused to use the term "terrorist(s)" because "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" (that's how I remember it), current guidelines see [1]
The same applies here, is a violent political organization fighting an authoritarian regime by means of terrorist attacks an "extremist organization" worth blocking, or people fighting for freedom? A good recent example for how hard it can be to distinguish is what happened in Egypt with the Muslim brotherhood [2]
This will just reinforce the sense of people with unpopular opinions and populist movements that they are being discriminated against because of political correctness [3]
[1] http://handbook.reuters.com/?title=T#terrorism.2C_terrorist
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood#2011_revolu...
(try to tell me who is the bad guy and who is the good guy at any given point in that period? It isn't that simple)
[3] http://europe.newsweek.com/college-campus-free-speech-though...
Re: Google, Facebook quietly move toward automatic blocking of “extremist” videos
#8I think an important point which is related is that these companies control information. DMCA requests and the companies issuing them have become much more sophisticated. The joke is that Bing is much better for porn. However, I personally have noticed many files, images and other media have completely disappeared from google results.
The amount of information on the internet is of course staggering, but no one seems concerned that it is accessed through a very tightly controlled pipeline.
edit: not sure how anyone could disagree that the english speaking internet is almost exclusively controlled by google and (to a lesser extent Microsoft). Chrome and Edge/Explorer have ~67% of browser market share and google has ~75% SE market share while bing has ~7%. 2 companies collectively control the environment and on ramp to the english speaking internet. Facebook (and now microsoft with the purchase of linkedin) as well as google control the bulk of people's online identitites.
Re: Google, Facebook quietly move toward automatic blocking of “extremist” videos
#9One man's "extremist" video is another man's political views. Where does it stop? Does a video supporting Trump become an extremist video if enough people complain about it? What about a video that shows you how to take apart a pistol for cleaning?
Agreed, there is a fine line and it should not be decided by companies.
I think companies are free to do what people are willing to subject themselves too, but I also think that people are also free to subvert/undermine/exploit such. From some ip addr locations, their TOS are toothless (as well as the legal repercussions of ignoring such).
Re: Google, Facebook quietly move toward automatic blocking of “extremist” videos
#10One man's "extremist" video is another man's political views. Where does it stop? Does a video supporting Trump become an extremist video if enough people complain about it? What about a video that shows you how to take apart a pistol for cleaning?
Agreed, there is a fine line and it should not be decided by companies.
If it's that company's site then I don't see who else has any business getting involved. Do you want someone telling you what (legal) content you can or can't show? Why?