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YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

nytimes.com

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Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#111

Post by creaghpatr »

vowelless wrote: post #91

Good. Online radicalism is a thing. To all the people here who are decrying this as “censorship”, remember that during the early 2010s, Islamic radicals were getting radicalized on YouTube by pretty benign sermons (Ex: Awlaki and his “tour of Paradise” lectures that inspired Boston 2013, fort hood and a bunch of other international attacks). YouTube removed all that out and I think Muslims getting radicalized on YouT…

>getting radicalized on YouTube by pretty benign sermons

Which is it? You're contradicting yourself here.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#112

Post by letusnot »

HBKXNCUO wrote: post #105
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 meani…

You are deranged if you think we are remotely on the course to civil war.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#113

Post by mffnbs »

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 personally don't understand the anti-censorship argument wrt racism.

YouTube has always been free to remove any content they'd like for any reason. When they more specifically define the content that they will be removing, it somehow now becomes controversial? This surrounds the argument with uncomfortable undertones. The idea that your message deserves equal treatment despite the content seems to be a value promoted by racists.

Also, Google/YouTube, Facebook/Instagram, Twitter, etc, don't owe anyone a platform. If this were not true, I don't quite understand how corporations could reasonably comply.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#114

Post by anoncake »

okket wrote: post #22
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"

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

This is only a sensible argument if you define censorship as violating the letter of the law of the US constitution or of another constitution that does require individuals and companies to respect basic rights. But if you consider the purpose of freedom of opinion -- to enable the public discourse necessary for a democratic society -- this is absolutely censorship.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#115

Post by patagonia »

la_barba wrote: post #80
patagonia wrote: post #33

Will YouTube also remove their algos that send people down rabbit holes of “extreme views” and encapsulate individuals in information bubbles that seem to validate and fail to challenge their views? The platform should shoulder as much or more blame than the content in this case. Free speech man. This is not ok.

>and encapsulate individuals in information bubbles that seem to validate and fail to challenge their views? Err, how do you know that the algorithm does this? And also, how do you know that people are not exposed to other views outside of YouTube. And lastly, why do you think its the job of an entertainment platform to "challenge" views?

I assume based on my own use of it and pretty much all the memes and anecdotes from everyone. I make no assumptions about what people are exposed to outside of YouTube. It’s not the platforms job to challenge one’s views, rather one’s views are naturally challenged when in an open marketplace of ideas. YouTube isn’t an open marketplace of ideas. It is effectively a curated presentation of ideas, customized to each individual by the platform. For the economic profit of the platform, at the expense of community goods such as civil discourse. Your snark didn’t add anything to your argument, btw.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#116

Post by GrayTextIsTruth »

happytoexplain wrote: post #98
GrayTextIsTruth wrote: post #87

There are comments being removed from this thread even though they are not supremacist. People need to wake up to the control of big tech, big govt, etc.

Wouldn't that imply that the only reason comments might be removed from Hacker News is if they encourage violent, extremist political ideologies?

they did neither.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#117

Post by AndrewStephens »

In my opinion, sites like YouTube that rely on user generated content should drop any pretense of being neutral - they aren't and never have been. What they have been doing is dodging responsibility for being the publisher of racist and harmful material.

I'm sure that YouTube would say that they don't play favorites but even if that were true, as we have seen there are organizations all the way up to nation states that are hell-bent on corrupting platforms like YouTube for their own ends. And they don't require much corrupting.

Moderation is key. Sites like Hacker News work only because of strict moderation by humans. Similar sites without such moderation quickly become a haven for trolls and spam. Automatic systems can always be gamed - what is needed is a strong editorial hand.

I don't want YouTube to end - there are thousands of hours of great content. But if it is to survive it needs to make a choice of what kind of site they want to be. Letting itself be anything its users want is turning it into a cesspit.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#118

Post by chrisjc »

vowelless wrote: post #91

Good. Online radicalism is a thing. To all the people here who are decrying this as “censorship”, remember that during the early 2010s, Islamic radicals were getting radicalized on YouTube by pretty benign sermons (Ex: Awlaki and his “tour of Paradise” lectures that inspired Boston 2013, fort hood and a bunch of other international attacks). YouTube removed all that out and I think Muslims getting radicalized on YouT…

> White supremacy is a much bigger deal with a worse tail risk than Islamic extremism.

Wait... you're saying that white supremacy is worse than islamic extremism? Is you opinion perhaps a manifestation of your perspective? I'm sure there are some people in Syria, Afghanistan, etc... that would disagree with you.

BTW, I'm not saying one is worse than the other, just that they are both bad, both a problem, and both should be removed from social media.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#119

Post by happytoexplain »

warp_factor wrote: post #85
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"?

by all means this is censorship. Let's not get confused here. It is a private company doing the censorship but this is 100% in the definition of censorship.

I disagree, and could reasonably take offense at the notion that the only possible reason I might disagree is that I'm confused. I don't think this is censorship by its common, colloquial definition. It is indeed censorship if you take a broader, more literal definition - in which case private forums deleting hateful, illegal, or simply forum-rule-breaking comments also counts as censorship, and such a broad definition is simply pedantic and not really useful for conversation.
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