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YouTube Is Removing Some Nootropics Channels

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Re: YouTube Is Removing Some Nootropics Channels

#131
post #129
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you know that Pepsi is made from dead babies? I didn't, before YouTube [1]. It turns out you can say almost anything you want on video without it being a legal issue. I don't think regulators care about this small-time stuff. [1]: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d72KsFEenz8

Absolutely bogus. I just spent 30 minutes verifying this claim. They used HEK 293 cells combined with taste receptors as a tool in the development of a totally unrelated molecule by Senomyx called Sweetmyx. Sweetmyx has zero embryo cells in it. The embryo cells were used to test how the human taste receptors would respond to Sweetmyx. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/senomyxed-messages/

Yes, it is bogus. That's the point, actually. You can just say whatever bogus stuff you want on YouTube.

Re: YouTube Is Removing Some Nootropics Channels

#132
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this may be a case where the truth is difficult for the general public to believe because it sounds too "conspiratorial".

No, I don't believe it because it sounds like a really stupid idea. YouTube isn't going to have much less variety, because YouTube makes money by selling ads to viewers, and they're going to have a significant number fewer viewers if they try to do that. And I suspect that they want to make money even more than they want to reshape the culture into the image of what they think it should be...

The theory as I've heard it goes that youtube believes manual human review of videos is becoming increasingly necessary and creates a significant expense (hiring human reviewers is more expensive than algorithmic review). The less monetized channels there are on youtube, the less money youtube has to spend manually reviewing videos. And if youtube users all 'choose' to watch only a relatively small portion of channels, youtube users will be less distressed when smaller channels start complaining about being demonetized. If the vast majority of their users are only watching a handful of channels, youtube becomes more efficient and more profitable.

Therefore culture shaping and profit are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, they both reinforce each other.

Re: YouTube Is Removing Some Nootropics Channels

#133
post #75
post #54

Youtube is a private company and can do whatever they want with their own website. Nobody's stopping makers of these videos from hosting the videos themselves. This is not censorship in the way we have traditionally understood. It only feels like it because Youtube is where the biggest audience is. It's the same whenever Facebook penalizes a post in the timeline, or whenever Google hides content from the search resul…

The "my preferred definition of censorship specifies that it can only be done by governments, and [company] is not a government" rhetoric that always appears with these sort of stories is truly tiring and pedantic. Nobody here thinks that youtube is a government. The problem isn't people thinking that youtube is a government; the problem is people thinking that censorship is something only a government can do, or thi…

* >With regard to the rest of your comment, I'm not confident breaking up the google 'monopoly' would actually solve this problem. If you spun youtube off as its own company distinct from the rest of google, wouldn't it still have a virtual monopoly on this user-uploaded online video space? How would you actually solve that? Split youtube itself into several "Baby Youtubes"? How would that work, which one would get the domain name? *

Not OP, but IMO breaking Google into smaller chunks would increase responsibility on each smaller chunk to provide a pro-customer experience, and require specific (and slower to act) government requests to affect large swathes of data. Smaller corporations simply can't afford to screw users as quickly or in such numbers as mega-groups.

Right now, 'Google' can be asked to affect data for many services? Is that good? It doesn't feel good to me.

Having a large backing company , in nearly every instance i've encountered it, reduces overall customer satisfaction, reduces communications between company and consumer to as bare minimum as possible, and makes the service much more likely to attract, and fold to, government pressure.

Re: YouTube Is Removing Some Nootropics Channels

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>while science isn't saying you should use magnesium for sleep per se, it isn't necessarily a crazy idea taking nutritional supplements without any evidence that they accomplish anything useful and without a physician's advice is generally a bad idea (the default mode is not 'take until suggested otherwise' but 'only take if necessary'), and trying to make money off it by marketing them on youtube is even more misera…

Check the Wikipedia page on magnesium deficiency, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnesium_deficiency_(medicine... . It has solid citations and says: "Symptoms of magnesium deficiency include ... insomnia" and "57% of the US population does not meet the US RDA for dietary intake of magnesium." I don't know what was in the video beyond its title, but the title is solidly inside the bounds of established science.

The difference between established science, and medical advice is that the latter needs to look at the body as a holistic system.

Magnesium deficiency may be a documented problem, with documented symptoms. Taking magnesium to correct it may have unfortunate side effects, due to other drugs that you're taking, or other conditions that you may have.

Re: YouTube Is Removing Some Nootropics Channels

#135
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "my preferred definition of censorship specifies that it can only be done by governments, and [company] is not a government" rhetoric that always appears with these sort of stories is truly tiring and pedantic. Nobody here thinks that youtube is a government. The problem isn't people thinking that youtube is a government; the problem is people thinking that censorship is something only a government can do, or thi…

> pedantic It's not pedantic , it is patently false . Wikipedia: "Governments and private organizations may engage in censorship" Merriam Webster: Censor: "a person who supervises conduct and morals " Dictionary.com: Censor: "any person who supervises the manners or morality of others" ACLU: "Censorship can be carried out by the government as well as private pressure groups"

Fair enough. The confusion seems to be so common I wonder where it comes from originally. Evidently it's not coming from dictionaries... maybe schools are creating this misconception by primarily discussing government censorship.

Re: YouTube Is Removing Some Nootropics Channels

#136
post #86
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "my preferred definition of censorship specifies that it can only be done by governments, and [company] is not a government" rhetoric that always appears with these sort of stories is truly tiring and pedantic. Nobody here thinks that youtube is a government. The problem isn't people thinking that youtube is a government; the problem is people thinking that censorship is something only a government can do, or thi…

> the problem is people thinking that censorship is something only a government can do, It's not. Private companies can attempt to silence people. But Youtube isn't preventing the creators from hosting content elsewhere. They aren't hitting them with a slapp lawsuit. They aren't colluding with other websites to ban these videos. Youtube is just saying "host these somewhere else." How is that different from a publishi…

"The problem, in my eyes, is that youtube can ban you, and there is no alternative place to host your videos with the same level of exposure. Having a competitive market place would solve this problem, and give video hosting sites an incentive to treat creators fairly."

And the way to get that is to start using the alternative sites. If everyone is going to continue to use YouTube to host their videos, nothings going to change.

Re: YouTube Is Removing Some Nootropics Channels

#137
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube could not survive on its own. YouTube only exists so that Google can guarantee they see no competition in the video space. It loses money by the mountain-load. It is propped up by Google Search and the titanic amounts of money AdSense brings in. If you wanted to build a competitor to YouTube, you would need investors willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to build the infrastructure - and willing to…

Maybe this makes this problem a candidate for nationalization then, but it's questionable at best if that would actually improve the situation (particularly for people residing outside of the country that nationalized it, presumably America.) I'm just spitballing here, but if Youtube were handed over to the United States Postal Service (which has a reasonable but far from untarnished reputation for being content neut…

Or, just start hosting your stuff at the alternative platforms. Those other platforms aren't as big as YouTube because people don't use them.

Re: YouTube Is Removing Some Nootropics Channels

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So should it be illegal to run a curated platform?

To be fair information is a weapon and there should be no free reign for anyone. If you are on purpose suppressing some information to fulfil political agenda - that should be a criminal act.

Ok, but what about the opposite: What if you are, on purpose, constantly disseminating false information to fulfill a political agenda?

Re: YouTube Is Removing Some Nootropics Channels

#139
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any time you open the paper, turn on the TV, crack open a book, or visit Hacker News, you are trusting some curator, gatekeeper, editor, or censor's judgement. Even bazaars like 4chan are moderated.

And the unmoderated spaced of before don't exist any more (Usenet), because companies didn't make money on it. Or worse, because it violated some company's "right". Now, in order to speak, you nearly have to go through one of Their gateways. If you piss off FAMGA (Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon), you're gone off the net. Some of those gatekeepers are big scripts with no human intervention for your level.…

"If you piss off FAMGA (Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon), you're gone off the net."

No, you're not. Not even close. The Daily Stormer is still online; you will be too.

Re: YouTube Is Removing Some Nootropics Channels

#140
Look, I know there are plenty of people here who will sing the praises of their chosen Nootropic stack, but quite honestly, the majority of the videos I have seen on the subject online tout over-the-counter supplements as miracle pills with limitless-esque possibilities.

9/10 pieces of advice I see on Nootropic use amount to dangerous and misinformed medical advice.

I can understand why YouTube would want to avoid looking complicit in all of this, especially with more than one popular Nootropic supplement sending users to the hospital in recent months.

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