101–110 of 140 posts
Problem with ads is that we don't want to buy from them, we want to search and evaluate products instead. I never buy anything online unless I test both the seller and the product for bad reviews. Ads are just too risky to buy from. I need to trust before I buy, and it's silly to keep watching ads when I know I am not going to buy anything from them.
It's more growing pains. Advertisers are starting to better understand the digital space so will hopefully concentrate their efforts and dollars on those creating premium video (like Kurzgesagt). Youtube could help the case by adjusting their recommendation algorithms ... watch one weird video and your recs are ruined.
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monopoly is not about being most popular service, it's about being the only supplier of some commodity or service. youtube is not the only supplier of video publishing service, hence it's not a monopoly. users can switch from youtube to another service easily. users can't easily (and sometimes at all) switch to a different internet provider, which is why net neutrality is important.
you clearly have no idea what a monopoly is.
Steem is an interesting concept around rewarding content creators through blockchain and cryptocurrency technology: https://steem.io/
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> Discussion is terribly confused when 'censorship' is interpreted in this general sense. It's the original sense. > Censorship enforced by the state is something distinctly different from editorial control exercised by private entities. Yes, government censorship is different in important ways than censorship by a publishing or distributing entity, but both are censorship (and they are also similar in important ways…
> It's the original sense. Nope. The original "censors" were Roman magistrates who enforced public morals. They're called censors because they were also responsible for the census. The government part of censorship has been baked in from the very coining of the word.
That is the original use of the Latin word "censor"; the use of "censor", even in Latin (in part, because Catholic Church), had expanded considerably in the millenium+ between the fall of Rome and the coining of the English word "censorship".
Latin and English are different languages, and "censor" and "censorship" are different words.
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I'm willing to concede that that 'censorship' has always been an expansive term. Perhaps my perspective is just a personal idiosyncrasy. But that is really ancillary to my point that in order to communicate clearly about the public policy issues involved it is important to avoid the generic use of the term because that obfuscates the arguments making it harder to explore the issues. In particular I think that in the…
>The negative aspects of censorship in the 1st Amendment sense are misleadingly attached to censorship in the editorial sense. The very presence of anti-censorship in the 1st amendment is the reason many people in the US get outraged when companies censor views. They view free speech as a fundamental right, even though the 1st amendment only applies to the government.
No, it's not. The value of free expression and the concept of the marketplace of ideas to which it is essential predates and goes beyond the 1st Amendment. The 1st Amendment isn't the cause, it's a product of the same cause.
Though it's a lot trickier to apply the concept to private censorship, which is both, in one sense, an exercise of the right of free speech and, potentially, a restriction on it in some cases. Government censorship is a lot more of a clear issue (even if there are issues of drawing the precise boundary.)
I think there still is a big opportunity for ad companies that try to actually show stuff the user might interested in. Let me explain. Let's say you are an amateur astronomer, like me. You have subscribed to a paper magazine about astronomy, like me. If, again, you are like me, then you also read the magazine for the ads in it. Ads showing new telescopes, ads talking about astronomy expeditions, ads for the astronom…
I think you're missing the point of how current targeted advertising works. The person paying for the advertising is the one choosing when/where to show it to you. They are intentionally getting in your way with something irrelevant, since it suits their campaign goals. What you describe is a system where the consumer has control over how they are advertised to, but that only works when you are the one with power in…
Want to target hobby astronomers who watch a specific Youtube channel? Impossible. Cloud developers who follow the same 3 tell-tale Twitter accounts that clearly define the group? No can do. People at the big 4 in SV with Go in their resume on LinkedIn? Pfff, you wish.
All the data to serve truly relevant ads is there, but advertising networks do not offer the type of targeting required. Today if you want to reach a specific audience you have to make a native advertising deal with the content creator, which is outside the budget and skillset of most advertisers.
Strictly speaking it isn't censorship when Youtube removes a channel for being politically too extreme. Not to distract from the larger point, but this isn't true. The definition of censorship says nothing about the government being the one suppressing the content.
but if there was a right leaning "youtube" and they removed overt-lgbt, antifa, anti-trump videos then it's ok right? or is it wrong because they align with the current us-government?
Yes, hate speech of the racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, etc. variety will be a problem to these advertisers, and is the headline of most articles. But so will other forms of "hate speech" (eg: Islamic extremism). As noted in the article, even LGBT content in itself may be "controversial" enough for Youtube to have to tiptoe around. Veganism was also mentioned in the article; Googling, apparently activism that used graphic imagery has also been blocked too (http://vegnews.com/articles/page.do?pageId=7970&catId=1). I would expect the same of other content that is violently graphical, whether it is pure crass or not.
If you believe that there is a successful business model out there for hosting explicitly conservative political videos, there is frankly nothing to prevent you from pursuing that path. From my perspective, though, the opening is frankly not necessarily political. If someone like PewDiePie is akin to the 1980s/1990s radio "shock jocks" (an allegory I kind of agree with), there is a parallel: many shock jocks (most famously Howard Stern, but also Opie and Anthony and Bubba the Love Sponge) were scooped up by Sirius or XM, after the Janet Jackson Super Bowl incident caused the FCC to clamp down on controversial radio content. In other words, there is an opportunity for other video hosts to compete with Youtube merely for not having quite as onerous of a content policy.
Strictly speaking it isn't censorship when Youtube removes a channel for being politically too extreme. Not to distract from the larger point, but this isn't true. The definition of censorship says nothing about the government being the one suppressing the content.
Here's a fun question for HN: Does a private entity that's of a given sufficient large size, i.e. YouTube or Facebook, that covers such vast swathes of the population have a civil responsibility to uphold freedoms of speech? Typically I err on the side of you have the right to speak, not to have someone provide you a podium and loud speaker but at the same time, if we're providing everyone the podium and loud speaker does it change the rules?
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No, Youtube is demonetizing anyone who disagrees with the narrative. Do you think pewdiepie is right of Fox News? Do you think buzzfeed, printers of the 4chan fanfic "piss dossier" are not notoriously full of bullshit? Have tmz or mtv ever broken any story besides celebrity gossip? Every single "news" organization that printed fake polls for months claiming Hillary would win by huge margins is still considered "News"…
How were the polls fake when they were basically right? The state-polls for Wisconsin / Michigan in the end were wrong, but those states in the end were probably not polled enough to capture the volatility of unprecedented events like the Comey letter. And FYI national polls predicted a 1-4% popular vote win, those where pretty much on the money.
Most Fake News (NBC, CBS, NYT, etc.) headlined these fake polls while not reporting sampling to their viewers. There's a reason almost all Fake News casters like Maddow were shocked on election night. They bought into their own lies and selective reporting. I learned of the sampling methodology from some of the very sites that Google now reports as "fake" and from Youtubers they have demonetized.
"Polls are used to influence public opinion, not reflect it."
What we're seeing is Google trying to control the narrative through search and monetization now. This is a more-extreme extension of the crap they pulled during the election (where Google search-complete consistently suggested positive things for Hillary and negative things for Trump).