Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 744 posts

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#101

Post by creaghpatr »

zelon88 wrote: post #71
warp_factor wrote: post #10

And here we go. As usual the "racist" pretext is being used to censor videos. I have no doubt that there are some terrible awful racist videos in that lot but you have to wonder how many times this is ALSO used as a mean to censor pretty much any video that the youtube execs don't like. Censorship is getting worse Edit: Replacing "Censorship is coming back" with "Censorship is getting worse"

Honestly, it should to some extent. Conspiracy theorists and/or political extremists (on both sides) should have to seek out their extreme content with prejudice. No more marketing birther theories alongside CSPAN videos on YouTube, or click-bait "TOP 10 UNEXPLAINED PHENOMENON" when someone looks for academic material. It shouldn't be possible to "stumble" onto a video that promotes falsehoods like vaccines causing a…

>It's damaging our society because not everyone has the acumen to know when they're being gaslit.

Do you understand how pretentious this sounds?

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#102

Post by stcredzero »

nilkn wrote: post #46
okket wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No censorship. You are still free to create your own YouTube clone and publish your extreme political views there. Maybe call it "GabTube"?

Sure. We might as well allow public speech in cities and towns to be controlled and limited as well, and if you don't like it you can always just go settle your own town somewhere. There's tons of open land in the US available for cheap after all.

Sure. We might as well allow public speech in cities and towns to be controlled and limited as well

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#103

Post by ModernMech »

0815test wrote: post #44

So, they're removing thousands of bad videos... thousands ! Don't worry though, there are many, many other videos just like those on the platform. Your default recommendations are still going to suck.

Headline says thousands of videos, story body says thousands of videos and channels. I imagine you have to remove only about 20% of the videos/channels to account for 80% of the views.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#104

Post by root_axis »

rukittenme wrote: post #27
wnevets wrote: post #15

Why do some people think they're entitled to say what they want on youtube?

Because some people view free speech as more than a legal requirement. Its a philosophy of individual rights.

Getting banned from YouTube is not a violation of individual rights. Forcing a company to host videos for free sounds like a violation of individual rights though.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#105

Post by HBKXNCUO »

warp_factor wrote: post #10

And here we go. As usual the "racist" pretext is being used to censor videos. I have no doubt that there are some terrible awful racist videos in that lot but you have to wonder how many times this is ALSO used as a mean to censor pretty much any video that the youtube execs don't like. Censorship is getting worse Edit: Replacing "Censorship is coming back" with "Censorship is getting worse"

I'm not sure why we should give them a pass on censoring ANY legal political content, including racism, homophobia, anti-semitism, or any other political stance outside of the corporate mainstream.

The fact is that YouTube has become one of the primary places (along with Facebook and Twitter) where people not rich enough to own a newspaper or television station engage in political speech. Preventing people from meaningful participation in the public political debate is a precursor to real world violence, because you leave people with little other choice to advocate for what they view as their interests.

YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, and all other corporate entities attempting to regulate political discourse are driving us toward a civil war. There is no good reason for us to allow them to do that.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#106

Post by anigbrowl »

anoncake wrote: post #86
anigbrowl wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By all means offer a better solution for dealing with the problem of algorithms matching viewers with extremist content.

No algorithms matching viewers. It's not ideal, sure, but freedom of opinion is a lot more important than Youtube being easy to use.

I'm fine with freedom of opinion, but not fine with things like threats to individuals or groups.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#107

Post by ravenstine »

I'm starting to think that comment sections on news sites are a really bad idea. At first I thought NPR and the like were cowards for removing theirs.

It's bad enough that NYT can be pretty biased on its own, but the comment sections are always full of low-tier thinking that just push whatever narrative is currently in the Overton window.

What I find distressing is how people remark that a telecom and advertising giant acting as a de facto government over the public square isn't a violation of free speech principles because they're a "private business", as if that's an original thought that's profound. Funny how people say "it's a private business" when it suits their own political interests.

We wouldn't blindly allow company-owned cities or states to pass laws, especially vague or undefined ones, that potentially violate our rights, so why do we allow "states" in cyberspace to be run in such a way?

Ban people promoting violence? Sure, why not. I'm as against hate and violence as the next person. But not only is censoring "hate speech" becoming a slippery slope at the company level, it's bad for the public in general because it sets a greater precedent for what the big corporations that run our everyday lives can tell us what we can or cannot do, and with no forgiveness. I don't find it hard to imagine a world where individuals can be instantly and permanently banned from doing everyday things, just like they are on YouTube, because they said or did something off the platform.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#108

Post by GrayTextIsTruth »

api wrote: post #70

YouTube is a privately owned and operated proprietary delivery platform. This is no different from a TV station deciding what to air. If you don't like it, switch platforms or just host stuff yourself somewhere. Yes I am concerned that these dragnets will delete a lot of content that doesn't even match the stated criteria. In my experience Google/YouTube's evaluation of content for compliance is not very deep or well…

> YouTube is a privately owned and operated proprietary delivery platform.

Are there any public online social platforms? There literally isn't the equivalent of a "public space" online so many view it as a de facto public space.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#109

Post by [deleted] »

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #5

Note that it's not extreme views (like my adherence to the FSF). Nope, we're talking about "videos and channels that advocate for neo-Nazism, white supremacy and other bigoted ideologies". As much as I don't like censorship, views that advocate for extermination of other people can rightly fuck off.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN