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YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

bbc.co.uk

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Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#151
As a Father of very young kids, I think this is nothing short of emergency. Not only commenting on kids videos should be banned, also youtube should heavily vet and tag all their kids related videos -- these days kids are hooked on watching cartoons and poems on youtube and a lot of times, there are really garbage videos targeting kids just showing little girls buying and playing with make ups, cleaning houses and learning about shopping.

Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#152
post #138

Or, you know, maybe the kids/parents could turn off the comments themselves?

YT isn't really worried about the kids/parents.

They're worried about the Feds in the same way that craigslist was worried about the Feds when they scrapped their "escorts" section. (And the same way that Backpage should have been worried about the Feds when they hosted their "escorts" section.) If the Feds find that pedophilia stuff on your servers, you better have a good lawyer. Which I assume YT does, and just like craigslist, they have concluded that the nuclear option is the one that will keep the maximum number of executives out of federal court.

My question is this, is there a better way? Is there a way to prevent these undesirable comments other than just taking comments down for everyone?

I understand YT's position. They have to make money, and their executives would just as soon not receive the Backpage treatment. That said, is there a better way?

Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#153
post #9

Chris Ulmer, who runs the popular YouTube channel Special Books for Special Kids, said that comments were removed from his channel despite no evidence of unacceptable comments, and YouTube told him that if he turned comments back on, he risked his channel being deleted. [EDIT: Turns out, this is not actually the case. See child comments.] https://twitter.com/chrisulmer/status/1099366622329036801 "Last night I realize…

> see child comments

I can't, they were removed.

But seriously: YT is just hiding the problem by disabling comments; pushing it under the rug.

Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#154
post #107
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly is it so bad if most videos end up turning off comments in the future? I use a blocker to hide comments and don’t seem to miss much. Let people discuss videos on other sites like twitter or reddit.

> Let people discuss videos on other sites like twitter or reddit. Yes, exactly. I've never understood why content-host sites seem to think attaching first-party comment hosting directly to hosted content is a good idea. Why not just host what you host, and then let aggregator/discussion sites (various subreddits, various private forums, Usenet, Slack/Discord groups, etc.†) link to your thing-that-you host and host c…

The community is the valuable part; creators want people to find their stuff, users want to find interesting channels and its fans, etc.

If you evict the community to an outside site, will someone care if the video links starting point to Vimeo or another video hoster instead of YouTube? Probably a bit, but not that much.

Why would YouTube makes changes that make them more into a replaceable part?

Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#155
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sadly, you are probably right. Are you sad that viewing the content in question isn't harmful? Or that it isn't illegal? Or that YouTube—Google, IOW—can’t unilaterally imprison people whose behavior it disapproves of?

Both of your statements. It's probably out of their legal authority and the act of watching a video is obviously not illegal nor harmful to anyone. But that's is a very simplistic view of the situation.

[deleted]

Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#156
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both of your statements. It's probably out of their legal authority and the act of watching a video is obviously not illegal nor harmful to anyone. But that's is a very simplistic view of the situation.

> It's probably out of their legal authority Probably? Is there an actual question about YouTube’s authority to order imprisonment? Because it seems to me that should be a bigger story than them cutting off comments on videos with kids in them.

Obviously, YouTube can't imprison anyone.

What I am saying "probably" is about what they could do to initiate an investigation on someone that might lead to imprisonment.

Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#157
post #9

Chris Ulmer, who runs the popular YouTube channel Special Books for Special Kids, said that comments were removed from his channel despite no evidence of unacceptable comments, and YouTube told him that if he turned comments back on, he risked his channel being deleted. [EDIT: Turns out, this is not actually the case. See child comments.] https://twitter.com/chrisulmer/status/1099366622329036801 "Last night I realize…

I might be in the minority here but I enjoy the low quality youtube comments. Most people dismiss them as cancer but the reality is a lot of people think in patterns that drive these comments.

I would rather be in touch with and exposed to this rather than try to pretend it doesn’t exist. It won’t ever go away, it will just be hidden.

Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#158
post #9

Chris Ulmer, who runs the popular YouTube channel Special Books for Special Kids, said that comments were removed from his channel despite no evidence of unacceptable comments, and YouTube told him that if he turned comments back on, he risked his channel being deleted. [EDIT: Turns out, this is not actually the case. See child comments.] https://twitter.com/chrisulmer/status/1099366622329036801 "Last night I realize…

Thanks for pointing me toward SBSK. Fair warning to others: have some napkins handy.

Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#159
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, thanks for pointing that out! It appears that he saw demonetization and mistook that as deletion. That said, for some channels, demonetization means effectively shutting down the channel.

Limited Monitization Video that include minors and are at risk of predatory comments may receive limited or no ads (yellow icon). If you think we made a mistake please appeal [link]. We will continue to refine our approach in the coming weeks and months. Is misstaken as deletion? English is not my first language, but I have a hard time reading this as "we may delete your channel".

Removing monitization is as good as deletion for the content creators. Furthermore, their "appeals" process tends to be a black hole, as is basically everything at google that would require human intervention.

Re: YouTube bans comments on all videos of children

#160
post #157
post #9

Chris Ulmer, who runs the popular YouTube channel Special Books for Special Kids, said that comments were removed from his channel despite no evidence of unacceptable comments, and YouTube told him that if he turned comments back on, he risked his channel being deleted. [EDIT: Turns out, this is not actually the case. See child comments.] https://twitter.com/chrisulmer/status/1099366622329036801 "Last night I realize…

I might be in the minority here but I enjoy the low quality youtube comments. Most people dismiss them as cancer but the reality is a lot of people think in patterns that drive these comments. I would rather be in touch with and exposed to this rather than try to pretend it doesn’t exist. It won’t ever go away, it will just be hidden.

>It won’t ever go away, it will just be hidden.

deplatforming is an effective strategy to reduce the spread of malicious content for several reasons, in the case of youtube because it reduces the incentive to monetize and spread harmful content.

To say that you'd rather be a exposed to pedophilia in youtube comments than to remove them is a little bit like saying you'd like to stay in contact with the marburg virus.

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