YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#151

Post by minikites » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 4:58 PM UTC

Most people are not information or media literate, they don't do their own research to fact-check claims, and they believe any authority who says something similar to what they already believe. The "marketplace of ideas" requires people to put in the effort I describe, effort that they clearly aren't, so the responsibility for checking and enforcing content limitations passes to the platform owner.

If you don't like this outcome, argue for more humanities and social science classes in primary and secondary education to educate society in evaluating claims and the other aspects of information and media literacy.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#152

Post by javagram » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 4:58 PM UTC

skrowl wrote: post #134

AndrewStephens wrote: post #117

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 th…

Google / Facebook are private companies, and they should absolutely be able to pick and choose what is posted on their platform if they want. However, they SHOULD NOT be able to have it both ways where they censor posts they don't like (like a publisher would do) but enjoy protections afforded to actual open / neutral platforms. Once you start censoring things that aren't breaking any laws, you're now a PUBLISHER and…

FWIW, this would be a major shift in the law.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communica...

> The court upheld AOL's immunity from liability for defamation. AOL's agreement with the contractor allowing AOL to modify or remove such content did not make AOL the "information content provider" because the content was created by an independent contractor. The Court noted that Congress made a policy choice by "providing immunity even where the interactive service provider has an active, even aggressive role in making available content prepared by others."

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#153

Post by jonas21 » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 4:58 PM UTC

warp_factor wrote: post #37

wnevets wrote: post #15

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

because it became the de facto place most of non tech-savy people go to to see videos online. They have a huge monopoly on our time and attention and that's extremely disturbing. Imagine that the electricity company providing electricity policed what kind of devices you can use inside your home (you are allowed to connect a Samsung washer but not a Bosh washer). There would be a lot of outcry.

Perhaps I'm taking your analogy too far, but if you're an "extreme" user of electricity, either by consuming much more power than they expect you to or destabilizing the grid, the electric company absolutely will cut you off.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#154

Post by fzeroracer » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 4:59 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #56

empath75 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn’t censorship full stop. What you are advocating for is forcing YouTube to carry content that it doesn’t want to. I also think it’s grotesque to quote an anti nazi poem in defense of nazis.

I fully and without compromise support the right to free speech of all citizens, including "nazis" or whatever the overloaded term people are using these days. Rights aren't removed from citizens because you don't like their politics or beliefs. If you cheer when someone is deplatformed, remember that it is a short walk for your own ideas and beliefs to be deplatformed when the winds change.

Okay, we've established you fully support the right to freedom of speech without compromise.

As a question, do you own any property? If someone planted signs in your lawn or decided to yell at you on your property, would you accept this? Any compromise would be a violation of their right to freedom of speech and you would be censoring them. Would you let them into your home lest you censor them?

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#155

Post by anigbrowl » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 4:59 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #135

anigbrowl wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have to tolerate speech from people who threaten my life or community. And I don't mean 'threaten' in the sense of holding an opinion I find disagreeable, I mean threaten as in making straightforward threats to life. That speech does not have to be tolerated.

I don't have to tolerate speech from people who threaten my life or community. And I don't mean 'threaten' in the sense of holding an opinion I find disagreeable Then you should understand that when "threatening speech" is used to censor people on false pretexts, then this dilutes reasonable concerns about threatening speech. If one is really concerned about truly threatening speech, one should be actively calling ou…

when the pretext of "threatening speech" is used to censor people on false pretexts

Sounds circular but you do you.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#156

Post by root_axis » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 4:59 PM UTC

If you believe that YouTube unjustly engages in censorship on their platform then boycott YouTube and encourage others to do so. Just because YouTube is popular doesn't mean YouTube is obligated to host your videos for free. In reality, YouTube is unimportant and not something the government should guarantee you access to.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#157

Post by stcredzero » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 4:59 PM UTC

Kye wrote: post #96

luckylion wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was a while ago, right? From what I remember, the "usual suspects" (aka libertarians, liberalists etc) weren't that silent, they pointed out the irony that the try to control platforming backfired, but did oppose the bans. Might be something newer, of course, in which case I didn't see it and can't comment on it.

It's an ongoing thing, and not just on YouTube. I see people popping on to Mastodon every day because they said, on their own timeline to people following them, that (for example) "transphobes can fall off a cliff." Banned for threats. Sometimes permanently. Most big instances have the :guillotine: and :trebuchet: emoji because of one such case. This is way more than the few cases that float up into your attention. I…

People who fully endorse actual censorship know they can abuse automated systems to silence marginalized people.

Very true. This statement is neutral with regards to both the left-right axis and authoritarian/anti-authoritarian axis. In order to have a society in which people can speak truth to power, in 2019, we have to be on the lookout for new forms that censorious power can take.

Technology is a double edged sword here. New tech introduces ways of circumventing censorship, but also introduces new forms of censorship not covered by old laws.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#158

Post by happytoexplain » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 5:00 PM UTC

kgraves wrote: post #110

dang, could you please flag this post, people are disagreeing with me here and this post isn't technically stimulating. I think we should keep politics out of HN at this point, I don't want it to become reddit.

How do we deal with cases where a topic is important and relevant both technically and politically? I agree with you generally, but it would also be a big shame if many socially and technically interesting and impactful stories simply could not be found or discussed on Hacker News.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#159

Post by creaghpatr » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 5:00 PM UTC

vowelless wrote: post #126

chrisjc wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 sho…

White supremacy was the cause for the worst wars of the 20th century. A white nationalist uprising in Europe would be deadlier (again) than Islamic extremists taking over most middle eastern nations due to the resources that will be available to them.

>A white nationalist uprising in Europe would be deadlier (again) than Islamic extremists taking over most middle eastern nations due to the resources that will be available to them.

Reckless speculation considering the latter did happen. You're fearmongering in order to drive censorship and oppression of viewpoints you disagree with.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#160

Post by 0815test » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 5:00 PM UTC

vowelless wrote: post #126

chrisjc wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 sho…

White supremacy was the cause for the worst wars of the 20th century. A white nationalist uprising in Europe would be deadlier (again) than Islamic extremists taking over most middle eastern nations due to the resources that will be available to them.

"White supremacy" wasn't involved in either WW1 or WW2. And "a white nationalist uprising in Europe" is a contradiction in terms, since Europeans do not in any way identify with a "white nation" of any sort.

This whole "rah rah whites" stuff is something that people in the U.S. came up with during the Progressive Era, as a supposedly-'unifying' alternative to national/ethnic identities, some of which were quite openly "disfavored" by that time especially wrt. Central Europe. (Again, WW1 was a non-trivial factor there.) People outside the Anglo world generally think of it as quite silly and misguided, not to mention racist.